Today, February 25, 2009, is Ash Wednesday. Today, also, the EDSA People Power of 1986 is 23 years old. Of the 23 anniversaries of EDSA several have fallen within the Lenten season. I find it meaningful that these two important events would take place and converge at this particular season of the liturgical year. Every Lenten season, we remember the great event of the passion and death of Christ on the cross to free us from our slavery to sin. Every 25th of February, we remember the great event of a people freeing themselves from slavery to their own fears, apathy and indifference. Let me share with you some reflections on the Lenten season and the EDSA People Power Revolution.

Lenten Season

Traditionally, the Lenten season is likened to a temple that stands on three pillars. Christ Himself recommended these three pillars of Lent in his Sermon on the Mount. The three pillars are no other prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Fasting is a tradition that we share with many other world religions. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and the Jewish religion give importance to fasting. Christian fasting takes a deeper meaning than those held by other religions because has a meaning Christ himself assigned to it.

Christian fasting is something we inherited from the Jewish tradition. Fasting was seen as an attitude of dependence and total abandonment on God. Before a great undertaking, during times of danger and calamities, to show repentance for sins, they did one thing: they fasted. But Jesus saw something lacking in their fasting. For fasting to be pleasing to God, it must be united with love of neighbor and should show itself in acts of justice. Almsgiving is an act of justice. It is giving to others what truly belongs to them. We share because when we look at the eyes of another person we do not see an enemy or a stranger but a brother and a sister.

But all these have to be done for one reason: because one loves God. Loving God begins with talking to him in prayer. That is why for Jesus, the fasting of the Pharisees was empty. Jesus denounced their fasting because it was a fasting directed for their self-glorification and self-righteousness. When we fast, we tell God that we are totally for Him, not only our spirit but our body as well. We are willing to delay the gratification of our senses in order to dedicate our whole self, body and spirit, to Him.

Here we see the pillars of Lent standing together: Prayer, (the love for God) fasting, (delaying the gratification of our bodily wants and humbly acknowledging dependence on God) and almsgiving (prayer and fasting bearing fruit in acts of charity). These three pillars are not only for Lent but for the whole of our Christian life. But during Lent, we are asked to intensify our prayer, our fasting and our almsgiving. They have to be together, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. According to St. John Chrysostom fasting without almsgiving is not fasting at all. And as St. Augustine said: If you want your prayer to fly to God, give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving.

EDSA People Power Revolution

We ask: Is not the EDSA revolution an expression of this triad of the spiritual life? Is not EDSA the embodiment of the three pillars of Lent intensified?

In EDSA of 1986 there was prayer. The lips of people moved together storming heaven with prayer. Like the people of the O.T. when in the midst of danger and calamity, or when faced with a great undertaking, they offered fasting as their prayer, in EDSA we offered our prayers to Him. At the streets surrounding EDSA, the Eucharist was celebrated, the rosary recited. Indeed, People Power was possible because of prayer power.

In EDSA of 1986 there was fasting. Not in the sense that people did not eat. On the contrary, everyone ate, and reminiscent of the feeding of the multitudes, there were more than 12 basket-full of left-over. How was this possible? Because people fasted. Yes, we fasted from our selfishness and shared the little that we had. We fasted from our indifference and apathy and joined together in solidarity. We fasted from our divisive attitudes and allowed our faith to bring us together as one people of God. In EDSA 1986 there was also almsgiving. The almsgiving was not in terms of money being doled-out but in varied yet meaningful forms: the willingness to give one’s life as alms; people standing in front of tanks having nothing in their hands except flowers and rosaries but with hearts full of love to give. Big or small, in EDSA 1986, almsgiving was overflowing.

If there is one, single symbol that can bring Lent and EDSA together, it would be the symbol of the cross. During Lent, it is not so much the washing of the feet that people identify with, nor is it the palms that are waved during Palm Sunday. But it is the passion and death of Christ symbolized by his cross that touches them deeply. In EDSA of 1986, Col. Sotelo was ordered to bomb the old Santolan Road to scare the people. But when he and his co-pilot looked out the window of the helicopter, it was not the sea of people they saw but the figure of the cross in EDSA and Santolan. They could not bomb a cross. They defected. During Lent, most people see the cross as the source of suffering. In EDSA, the cross became a source of blessing. And indeed what a blessing it was!

This year, Lent begins on the very same day of the EDSA People Power anniversary. At the corner of EDSA and Ortigas Avenue now stands the Our Lady of Peace EDSA Shrine to remembering what the Filipino people did 23 years ago. Ash Wednesday will be celebrated there, the very streets where we fasted, prayed and offered alms for each other because of our common faith in Christ. But wherever we might be, let the ash and its mark on our forehead remind us we are called to begin a change of heart, followed by intense prayer, deeper fasting, and greater care for the less fortunate.