HSS: Rituals of Suffering as a Pursuit of Well Being

Abstract:

Every year, during the Christian Holy Week, scores of Filipino Roman Catholics voluntarily perform ritual acts that involve the infliction of extreme pain upon their own bodies. The rituals are meant to physically evoke the Passion and suffering of Jesus Christ through whipping one’s own back, or having one’s hands and feet nailed onto wooden crosses. While these ‘Passion Rituals’ are not endorsed by the official Roman Catholic Church, its practitioners see them as a way to appeal for the kind of divine intimacy that would facilitate their pursuit of wellbeing in the face of life’s difficulties. There is a prevalent belief that the rituals should be dismissed as manifestations of irrational, religious fanaticism, and as such should not to be taken seriously as a ‘properly religious’ act. This lecture is an invitation to suspend such judgements, if only momentarily. These passion rituals can tell us important things about the nature of our basic human emotions and sentiments, particularly as they pertain the experience and idea of suffering. As such, I shall discuss the following questions: how can rituals of pain illuminate the nature of empathy by and for those who are less fortunate? What can nailing on the cross reveal about the expression of trust and sociality between those who are facing difficulties in life? 

This lecture will draw upon Julius Bautista’s latest book, “The Way of the Cross: Suffering Selfhoods in the Roman Catholic Philippines” published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2019. The book is based on a decade of in-depth and often exclusive interviews with a host of local stakeholders - including ritual practitioners, clerics, scholars, and government officials - and the author's own participation in a passion ritual. 

Chair:

Darlene Machell Espena
Assistant Professor 
Course Coordinator for Big Questions
School of Social Sciences
Singapore Management University