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John Daryl B. Wyson

(Name of the Professor)

(Course Code and Course Title)

(Date of Submission)

Unearthing the Preacher-Narrator: An Examination of the Theological Dimension of Nick

Joaquins The Legend of the Dying Wanton

Introduction

What probably makes Nick Joaquin unique is that he explores the intricacies of the Filipino

religious dimension in his works more than any other Filipino writer does. His stories May Day

Eve, The Summer Solstice, The Mass of St. Silvestre, Dona Jeronima, The Legend of the Virgins

Jewel, and many others illustrate how the Filipino psyche facilitates the syncretism between

folk, pagan beliefs and the Spanish brand of Catholicism which results in seeing Catholic rituals

as bearing powers able to evoke supernatural elements both from the Catholic faith and local

folklore. It comes as no surprise, then, that one of his works primary motives is to restore

national consciousness of the important elements of our Catholic Spanish heritage (Busuego,

1), which is highly influenced by the Oriental-Malayan or pagan, Spanish Catholic, and

American Protestant Religious traditions (Busuego, 1). Although the milieu and psyche

presented in his stories are descriptive of the Philippine setting, Joaquins artistry allows his

works to reflect values that are general and universal (Bucao, 25). For this reason, Nick

Joaquins works should be seen not only in terms of its verisimilitude with the Philippine society

past and present or the beauty that is constituted through his artistic and imaginative use of

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several elements of fiction but also of the theological traditions and schools of thought that are

universal and at the same time very much alive in the Filipinos consciousness.

One prime example of how such a theology is developed and applied in the Philippine

milieu is presented in Joaquins The Legend of the Dying Wanton. Aside from revealing the

socio-historical conditions during the early stages of Spanish colonization of the Philippines, it

also deeply explores Spains missionary role in the Philippines and its emphasis on popular and

external acts of piety and contrasts it with ontological truths realized through an encounter of the

mortal and the divine in the midst of excruciating suffering and agony. While previous readings

of the story tackle these themes, they do not consider a crucial dimension of this text the

presence of a preacher-narrator as evidenced by the very nature of the text, which is a legend,

and the presence of first person pronouns which he uses to associate himself with his collective

audience. And just like any other legend, the story at hand disseminates a certain ideology

cherished by the narrator (or, in the present case, the preacher-narrator) and addresses or

critiques a socio-cultural experience of the people it is addressing. Nonetheless, given the

audiences of this legend, who are presumably Filipino Catholics as we shall see later, the stance

that the preacher-narrator presents in the text is not only ideological in nature, but ultimately,

theological. Thus, in order to grasp the full implications of this work, it has to be read as a

theological treatise packaged as a story with consideration of the narrators probable motive for

telling the story, his selected audience, and the truths he wishes to share with them.

An Initial Encounter with the Story

The Legend of Dying Wanton tells the story of friendship between Dona Ana De Vera, a

mother of an official of the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines, and Currito Lopez, a

Spanish soldier who was known for his scandalous and lewd behavior. Set against the backdrop

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of the early days of Spanish colonization, the story highlights acts of popular piety which roots

can be traced back to the brand of Catholic faith that the Spaniards has brought to the

Philippines. This dissemination of faith is largely evident in the character of Dona Ana, who, for

the most part, was portrayed to be a very pious woman, someone who faithfully attends to her

church duties such as cleaning up the Madonna and child statue in the church and praying

especially for the souls who are in danger. As the story goes on, it becomes more apparent that

her religiosity, for the most part, is simply nothing but external trappings more concerned with

the rites of the altar and of the heart (that) should be performed with as much elegance as the

Court itself (Joaquin, 48), thereby neglecting the spiritual dimension, which is the

phenomenological aspect, of genuine faith.

What makes the conveyance of such theme more interesting is the bond of friendship

formed between the two protagonists of the story, namely Dona Ana and Currito, who can be

seen as binary opposites in Spains project of disseminating their ideology that is their version of

the Catholic faith. As Joaquin puts it, Currito was a wild young soldier who was as evil as

Dona Ana was good (Joaquin, 48). Being the mother of a high ranking official of the colonial

government, Dona Ana epitomizes Spains project of benevolent colonization. She zealously

befriends the people around her and faithfully exercises her duties as a good Catholic, thus

facilitating the spread of the faith among the natives. Currito, on the other hand, was portrayed as

somewhat a brute. He was lacking parental guidance when he was growing up and was engaged

in all sorts of hedonistic activities, and as a result, he was not able to realize his lifes essence.

Despite this, he still prayed. This religious act somehow gave him a sense of security regarding

his eternal destiny that his prayers, in a way, can offset his wantonness. Due to this, it can be

said that Currito is the representation of a colonized Filipino whose faith is largely characterized

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by what Jaime Bulatao calls as a split-level Catholic a person in which the commingling of

vice and piety (Joaquin, 49) is evident. In short, this kind of faith is full of external trappings

but devoid of sincere and honest devotion to the Divine. As such, it is someone like Currito that

Dona Ana has come to civilize through evangelization in the Spanish Catholic ways an

indubitably imperialistic project which has been successfully instilled in the Filipinos

consciousness. Towards the end of the story, we see the effectiveness of this project when we

witness that in Curritos final moments, he is met, through some sort of apparition or

hallucination, by the Virgin Mother and her child the very same Madonna and Child Dona Ana

attended to and Currito prayed to.

Despite their differences, Currito and Dona Ana shared one thing in common the

external devotion to the Divine. Such an attitude, however, was challenged by a fate common to

all the inevitability of death. Dona Ana, who was alive and well throughout the entire story,

remained a static character; none of the events that had transpired throughout the narrative

changed her perspective in life. Currito, on the other hand, had a lot of ruminations when he

came face-to-face with death. Initially, what he remembered when he was dying was the good,

wanton moments that he had when he was still living; he never gave a thought whatsoever to

what lies beyond the immediate world. This probably points to the reality of human nature,

which is, according to Thomas Hobbes, nasty, brutish, and short that even at the last moment

of his life, all he could think of, when left to his own faculties, are the pleasures of this world,

which comprise of, as John the apostles first epistle puts it, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of

the flesh, and the pride of life (King James Version, I John 2:16). All this changed, however,

when the Virgin personally appeared to him to rebuke him, thus allowing him to have a change

of heart and say his final confession not only to a mere mortal priest eventually, but prior to that,

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to the Virgin herself. Thus, for somebody to experience a complete change of heart, an encounter

with the Divine is required; a person cannot change himself for the good; the only time he can

change is when the Divine comes down from the pedestal and reaches out to him in order to

bring out the good in him.

Ironically, Dona Ana, who was supposed to be the missionary of the faith through which

Currito would experience redemption, was not privy, even blind, to these spiritual realities; her

concerns remained in the level of the mundane despite her supposed deep devotion to God

through the Virgin and her child. In spite of her having a dream regarding the tragedy that has

befallen her friend, Dona Ana made no efforts to make herself tangible, to offer comfort, relief,

or even hope to his already dying friend, Currito. Instead, she simply contented herself to doing

what is safe and risk-free which is no other than praying, for prayer does not require anything

of the faithful but to simply utter good wishes for a person. Such an act of external piety, it

seems, was critiqued by no less than the Mother of God herself, whose icon, despite being

draped upon with elegant clothes and positioned at a very conspicuous area in the church, opted

to move away from her regal position and visit the dying Currito instead both to reprimand him

of the lecherous thoughts that have been coming on to him even at the last moments of his life

and to grant Dona Anas last wish for Currito, which is for the latter to undergo the sacrament of

reconciliation before breathing his last. The Virgin Mother did not mind reaching out to a poor,

lost sinner such as Currito; in fact, she even did not mind getting her clothes dirty with mud, as

suggested by the mud that Dona Ana found on her clothes. This act of the Virgin Mother further

exposed Dona Anas spiritual blindness. Aside from not attending personally to Currito at the

last hour of his death, which was supposed to be her job as a mortal rather than that of the Virgin

whose dwelling is beyond time and space, she failed to recognize, even speculate, that the Virgin

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probably went to Curritos aid herself in response to her prayers. Essentially, she prayed without

believing that her prayers will be answered, ergo exposing her insensitivity to spiritual things

which she purports to revere and advocate.

Such themes were also the very same ones that Real (48) identifies in The Legend of the

Dying Wanton in her 1970 thesis. According to her, Dona Ana symbolizes the benevolent

Mother Spain who came to teach the spiritual realities of the Catholic faith, which, ironically, she

herself is blind to as indicated by her failure to realize that the mud in the Virgins clothes as

indication of the Divines visit to the dying Currito in response to her prayers. On the other hand,

Currito symbolizes the sinfulness of every man characterized by his disruptive and lewd

behavior. He also demonstrates a significant flaw in many peoples view that the bad things they

do can be offset through external acts of piety such as praying. Such evil and misconception,

however, are vanquished through a process of purgation, as seen in Curritos thirteen-day

suffering prior to his death interspersed with apparitions from the Madonna and Child.

In 1969, Mojares reaffirms Reals reading, pointing out the self disguises people assume

result in pride, ignorance, hypocrisy, and blindness (Mojares, 31), and ultimately, the

concealment of our very identity and nature from ourselves. Similar to Busuego, Mojares sees

the suffering of Currito as the key to emancipating ones true identity which consequently leads

to salvation, or a saving participation n the mystical body of faith (Mojares, 31).

E. San Juan critically extends the observations of Mojares and Busuego in 1988 as he

presents the hallucinations and ruminations of Currito during his last moments as the ideological

workings of the Spanish Catholic faith (San Juan, 70), which is a very effective instrument of

repression and colonization. What he contributes then to the reading of The Legend of the Dying

Wanton is an explanation from a historical materialists point of view of how an ideological state

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apparatus such as a religious institution effectively penetrated the consciousness, and up to a

very strong degree, the unconscious of an individual to the point that he attempts to find meaning

and coherence to the experience of dying using such a perspective.

Unearthing the Preacher-Narrator and his Message

Aside from the pleasure it brings, a fiction or narrative has a crucial part to play in any

society especially when seen as didactic:

What do we learn from fiction? We need fictions in order to experiment with possible selves and to learn to take our places in the real world, to play our parts there (Miller, 68-69). Literature contributes to ethical understanding by showing motivations, revealing the ends of action, holding the mirror up to the community and the individual so they can judge themselves, promoting explanatory models that help make sense of the diversity of life, and imaging the unity that might be desirable in a human life (Harpham, 400).

In many ways, The Legend of the Dying Wanton fulfills its function to promote moral,

cultural, and social understanding by becoming a model or representation of life a space

wherein ethical and moral values are experimented and explored. This story, primarily, explores

the Sartrean dilemma attached to the existentialist credo existence precedes essence. Since

man, according to Sartre, is essentially nothing at the moment of his birth, he becomes

responsible for giving meaning to his life through the moral choices he makes. And because of

this, he carries along the burden of choosing not only for himself but for the entire humanity

since every time he chooses what is good for himself, it is presumed that he does so because it is

good for the entire humanity to do so. Such burden is too great for him, though, that he ends up

feeling despair, anguish, and forlornness for doing so.

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Nonetheless, Joaquin, in his short story, rebuts such an assertion by acknowledging the

divinity revealed through the religion introduced by the Spaniards; although man experiences

despair, anguish, and forlornness as a result of living in a world characterized by incoherence, he

ultimately finds redemption when he finally surrenders his ego, after undergoing a tortuous

ordeal, and becomes humble and contrite. At such an instance, the Divine comes to him, offering

him salvation from all the worldly toil he had undergone in life.

Such points have been asserted in the previous readings of the tale, which is rightly so

given the nature of fiction we have asserted earlier. Nonetheless, I think that such analyses fall

short in explaining the nature of the tale itself that ultimately, it is a legend, albeit even

presented as a sermon or a theological treatise, told by a narrator who identifies himself with his

target audience and espouses a particular ideology. As such, to gain a fuller view of The Legend

of the Dying Wanton, we have to examine who this narrator is, what message he is trying to

convey, and what is at stake in this act of storytelling.

First of all, we have to understand that the tale at hand is a legend, which, as defined by

the Websters Comprehensive Dictionary, can be an unauthenticated story from early times,

preserved by tradition and popularly thought to be historical or a chronicle of the life of a saint,

originally to be read aloud in religious services or at meals (Websters Comprehensive

Dictionary, 728). Thus, if the tale is presented as a legend, it is meant to be seen as a supposedly

historical tale legitimized by the cultural tradition of a particular group which is usually recited

in special community gatherings. In the story, there is a usual recurrence of collective first

person pronouns such as we, us, and our which indicates the narrators association with the

supposed audiences of the legend.

Just who, exactly, are the we in the story? At its onset, we read:

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There lived in Manila in the year 1613 a certain Dona Ana de Vera, one of the principal ladies of the country at that time and a woman of great piety (Joaquin, 48).

In the first sentence of the story, the narrator simply calls the Philippines, where all the

events in the story happened, as the country. This indicates that he no longer needs to identify the

country he is referring to presumably because both he and his audiences belong to the same

country. Moreover, the prepositional phrase that time also indicates that he does not belong to

the time period when the story took place, and therefore must belong either to a contemporary

generation or a generation much later than what is portrayed in the story. Hence, we can presume

that the narrator is a Filipino who belongs to and addresses a generation beyond that portrayed in

the tale.

Perhaps another clue that reveals the identity of this narrator would be his allusions to

both Christianity in general and Catholicism:

This Currito was a lost soul; his every action being so public a scandal even decent people knew who he was and shunned him like a leper. but his swart bearded face of Lucifer never struck her with terror. Being in charge of the Santo Rosario the fine Madonna whose shrine at the Dominicans the Dutch pirates were soon to make famous (Joaquin, 48).

The terms lost soul, leper, Lucifer, Santo Rosario, Madonna, and Dominicans were

presented as if the audiences are readily familiar with these that they no longer require any sort

of explanation to understand both the denotations and connotations of these. Hence, we can

surmise that the narrator, just like the audiences, is also a Filipino Catholic living either in the

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contemporary world or a time much later than the one portrayed in the text. It may also seem

then the narrators knowledge of the legend indicates his deep understanding of historical,

religious, and moral matters, and his main goal for narrating the story, just like in the case of any

legend, is to critique the usual notions of those around him and forward his own idea of what is

just and morally upright using Currito, the protagonist of his tale, as a paragon, and Dona Ana de

Vera, Curritos friend, as a foil and counter-example. If we are going to take into consideration

the definition of legend stated a while ago, we can surmise that the occasion for the story might

probably be a mass, worship service, or a religious gathering of sorts wherein the narrator is in a

superior position to tell the tale presumably to promote the values it contains to the members of

his group and in turn, re-establish their identity and values. And because of his religious and

pedagogical role in his community, the narrator may rightly be called a preacher-narrator as he

does not only shares stories to the community but also forms their values and identities through

such an act.

Establishing the probable identity of the narrator and his audiences would now give us a

glimpse of what the probable message the narrator wishes to communicate. He skillfully uses the

story interspersed with his personal commentaries in order to establish the salient theological

points he wants his community to realize.

At the storys exposition, he right away establishes the binary opposition between Dona

Ana de Vera, a highly revered member of the Spanish elite and a pious Catholic who is zealously

devoted to the Virgin Mother and her Child, and Currito Lopez, a Spanish soldier deployed in

Manila who earned notoriety because of his scandalous behavior. In a very plain sense, Dona

Ana was the typical good person and Currito was the epitome of bad. Despite this immense

difference between them, they are both devoted to the Santo Rosario as evidenced by her

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changing icons clothes and his daily praying the rosary. As the story goes on, however, the

narrator makes it apparent that such devotions were merely external acts of piety, and no genuine

love and reverence lie in their hearts and minds.

Such is probably the premise that the preacher-narrator wishes to establish upfront, and

this is also the prevailing attitude of those he is addressing. Regardless of status in life and

reputation, the people he addresses are all fond of displaying outward subservience through the

performance of rites such as the ones mentioned above to practice their religiosity or piety. And

being the storys starting point, he also probably intends to change this for what is ultimately at

stake is the moral condition of the society where he belongs. If such attitude prevails, then there

might be numerous professing Christians in their community whose level of spirituality is

limited to the practice of tangible rituals.

The preacher-narrator then unfolds the main drama in the story that is Curritos

ruminations and hallucinations during his prolonged episode of dying. At the beginning of this

episode, Currito is found to be thinking of all the hedonistic pleasures that the world had to offer

from the beautiful women he mingled with to the various enchanting places he visited instead

of thinking of his fate after dying. When he finally realizes the direness of his situation, he

begins to blame the world around him for the evils he has committed, thinking that it was

because the world around him was full of evils that he himself acted badly.

Ultimately, what this episode shows us is the sinful nature of man, that even in the last

few moments of his life, what he values more are worldly pleasures than the prospect of divine

rapture. And just like Adam and Eve when confronted by God upon eating the fruit of the

knowledge of good and evil, Currito blamed the world around him, blamed everyone except

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himself, for all the sins he did and mishap he experienced, thinking himself innocent despite all

the evils he had wrought.

But despite the things he did, he accepted his death carelessly just as he would accept

everything that happened to him carelessly. It is at this point that the preacher narrator suddenly

interrupts his narration and presents a personal commentary addressed to his audience, stating

that even at the hour of our death when, one might think, we would at last abandon the

incoherent series of poses that we call the self, we are still more concerned over our judgment

of the world than of Heaven, persisting, whether on a public scaffold or in a private bed, to play

our life out like an actor impressing an audience (Joaquin, 52). And he even adds, though even

the Son of God could not face death without horror and wonder, we presume to know in what

manner a man should die ignorant indeed of the awful mysteries and liabilities of our sojourn on

earth to be able to think it somehow noble to be careless of dying (Joaquin, 52). Such

statements are a rebuke to the vanity of humans, that what we ultimately care for deeply is what

others think of us rather than what God Himself thinks of us. It is at this point then when the idea

of self alienation, which ultimately leads to alienation from the divine, is presented. The cares of

this world, especially the image we project to others, become our primary concern despite the

fleetingness of earthly life, and as a result, we neglect what truly matters, which, in the context of

the story, are being to true to oneself and developing intimacy with divine who is responsible for

both our creation and salvation. But alas, mans vanity clouds his judgment over the most

important matter yet that is his ultimate destiny even at the last moments of his life. In the

succeeding lines, the preacher-narrator would further expound this idea by contending that man,

epitomized by Currito in his final moments, would blame everything in his surroundings except

himself just to project a good image to the society. Again, he would offer a rebuke to this notion,

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using Jesus Christs thinking: Christ had preached an indifference not to wealth only, but to

both wealth and poverty a total indifference, in fact, to ones status among men because you

were intent on earning a status before God (Joaquin, 52). Through this rebuke, he tries to focus

his audiences attention to things eternal and present the futility of earning a reputation before

men.

After the short commentary, the preacher-narrator takes us back again to Currito, who, by

now, have already felt complacent of his status before God because of his daily devotion to the

Virgin. And because of this, he called on the name of the Virgin, expecting to receive

redemption from her. But to his surprise, what he encountered was a Virgin far from what he had

known throughout his life. In response to his call, an angry Virgin Mother, robed in sunlight

and crowned in stars, appeared before him. What is interesting about this apparition is that the

Virgins appearance resembles that of Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation. In this portion of

the Bible, Jesus Christ is portrayed not as an amiable figure ready to embrace sinners into His

fold but a fierce judge who is about to pronounce the penalty of the unrepentant. Thus, it can be

surmised that the Virgin Mother, whom he thought was so amiable a mother that he only needed

to offer daily prayers for her to give him redemption, would judge him for his faults.

But why did, in Curritos consciousness, the Virgin Mother appear instead of Jesus

Christ, the one who originally portrayed the same role in the Book of Revelation? One possible

explanation for this shifting is that since the audiences were Filipino Catholics, they would be

able to relate more to the message if the Virgin were the one to appear, since, according to the

Catechism for Filipino Catholics, the Filipinos held more affinity with the Virgin more than the

Son as evidenced not only by the deep devotion they had to the her through the rosary but also

because even before the Spaniards came, there was already a mini-statue of a lady that the

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natives worshipped which the missionaries identified as a revelation of Mary prior to their

coming to the Philippines (CBCP, 19). Thus, by using Marys image instead of that of Jesus, the

message would be more appealing to the Filipinos.

At this juncture, the preacher-narrator now presents the possible picture that his

audiences may face should they continue with their complacent ways. He confronts their zealous

and probably ostentatious forms of external worship devoid of genuine devotion by presenting an

angry Virgin, which ultimately represents God, who is ready to punish Gods enemies. This, I

believe, is a pivotal point in the story since it is at this instant when he confronts his audiences

lack of true piety. He creates a picture of what is familiar to them and ultimately condemns such

ways through his story. He confronts their old childhood familiarity with Heaven which breeds

presumption (Joaquin, 53); thus, for the preacher-narrator, there exists a great discrepancy

between popular piety, which only invests on mechanical rituals such as the daily prayer of the

rosary, and genuine worship, which entails worshipping in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24). In a

nutshell, he wants his audience to see God for who He really is, holy, angry, and intolerant of

sin, and do away with the idea of a god who can be easily pleased with rituals.

But then again, despite the certain damnation Currito was facing because of his

sinfulness, hope was offered to him upon hearing the prayers of his mother, Dona Ana, the

monks, and all the faithful in the world, seeming to compensate for his lack of holiness and

crying out to God to forgive him of his sins and accept him into His kingdom. He was

overwhelmed at how connected the entire Christendom is in praying, how they showed solidarity

in caring for him. Because of this display of kindness, Currito experienced a change of heart; if,

before, he blamed the entire world, which seemed to him in his youth apathetic to his needs and

wants, he was now mesmerized at how the same world that he hated and blamed for his sins

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congregated in prayer for his souls welfare. As a result, he finally admitted his sinfulness before

God and repented of his sins. This near-death conversion was followed by another apparition of

the Virgin, this time together with her Child, now looking amiable and welcoming. This vision

was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Salgado, another fellow soldier who went to the same

journey occupying another ship, who happens to bring with him a priest. Seeing Curritos

condition, Salgado calls the priest to have Currito shriven, and upon doing so, he finally laid to

rest.

What we can see here is the forgiveness that God offers to the truly humble and

repentant. It becomes evident, then, that salvation is achieved not through external acts of piety

but through a genuine humbling of oneself before God, thus causing God to forgive the sinner of

his trespasses and welcome him into His kingdom.

It is quite interesting to note, though, that despite personal encounter with the Virgin,

Currito still had to perform his final confession before a priest. Such episode, then, highlights the

importance of the sacrament of reconciliation, and by doing so, legitimizes Catholicism in

general and the role of the church hierarchy as the mediator before God and men. At the end of

the day, then, even if we do see the divine personally encountering and interacting with the

sinner, such encounter, still, finds its consummation only through the blessed sacraments

instituted by the Roman Catholic church. In a very strong sense, then, the image of the church is

revitalized in this particular tale.

What I do find paradoxical, however, is the use of Roman Catholic symbols such as the

rosary, sacraments, and the apparition of the Virgin Mother in order to push forward a theology

that is very evangelical in nature that when man admits his helplessness before God, and in

response, God reaches out to man and offers him redemption without man doing anything to

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merit such divine favor; in simple terms, this is what is called as salvation by grace.

Traditionally, such kind of theology is associated with evangelicalism which was made popular

by the German monk Martin Luther at the time of Protestant Reformation. The Roman Catholic

church, on the other hand, emphasized on doing sacred obligations such as buying indulgences,

praying the rosary, and similar acts of piety in order to attain salvation, thus salvation by

works. What makes the story interesting is the mingling of the two, the Protestant-Evangelical

theology interspersed into traditional Catholic rituals. Could it be that the audiences of the

preacher-narrator, who is evidently legitimizing the participation of the Roman Catholic church

in Gods mission to save souls, are falling away from the Catholic Church and are already being

lured into evangelicalism, and for this reason, he has to present a theology so appealing because

of its emphasis on Gods grace but can only be legitimized only through the Roman Catholic

Church? That he believes that such tale can prevent his audience from joining the evangelical

community? Or is he simply trying to revitalize a faith that has lost its essence because of empty

yet ostentatious religious observances? One can only speculate.

The preacher-narrator ends his treatise, interestingly enough, with a picture of Dona Ana

doing her usual chores after Curritos ordeal has come to a conclusion. For Dona Ana,

everything seems to be status quo, as if she never experienced any premonition, as if she never

had an idea of the excruciating agony that Currito had undergone in the past thirteen days. Such a

display of apathy was further affirmed when, upon noticing the mud on the Virgins dress and

the childs boots, she never suspected that the icons she zealously takes care of must have gotten

out of its usual place in order to meet with the dying Currito who had lain on muddy ground.

What this final episode illustrates is the spiritual blindness that has befallen on those who

have equated devotion to God with the performance of church duties. It becomes apparent then

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that the preacher-narrator wishes to make a distinction between true devotion and religious

chores. Sometimes, the tasks that institutional religion requires of its members obscure genuine

worship.

In a nutshell, then, the theology that the preacher-narrator presented before his audience

is one that shuns the mechanical practices endorsed by institutional religion and exposes the true

nature of God in all His holiness, strictness, and quite paradoxically, generosity. Yes, God is

holy, and He is intolerant of sin. But when a person touched by the kindness brought by human

solidarity admits his sinfulness before Him and begs for forgiveness, God is willing to waive his

sins, to wipe his slate clean, so that he could be welcomed into His kingdom. Such a theology is

very disparate from what the audiences, predominantly Filipino Catholics, are very familiar of.

Nonetheless, this disparity is also what makes it very emancipating since from this point of view,

salvation is obtained not through the observance of rituals we have inherited from the Spaniards,

which would never amount to something that can redeem humanity, but through a humble

admission of sins and genuine repentance. And such acts, at the end of the day, could possibly

save not only the human soul but the Roman Catholic church in the Philippines as well.

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Florentino, 1963. 48-59 Print.

Miller, J. Hillis. Narrative. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Eds. Lentricchia, Frank and

Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: UC Press, 1995. 66-79. Print.

Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. Ethics. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Eds. Lentricchia, Frank

and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: UC Press, 1995. 387-405. Print.

e-Sword: King James Version. USA: Rick Meyers, 2012.

San Juan, Jr., Epifanio. From the Terror of History to the Return / Doubling of the

Repressed. Subversions of Desire: Prolegomena to Nick Joaquin. Quezon City,

Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1988. 65-103. Print.

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