Religious icons in our home

I don’t know if young Catholic families still observe this today, but Catholics are supposed to dedicate their homes to a particular saint, whose image should be venerated in a special place (usually an altar) in the house. Of course, this was never an edict issued by the Vatican, but this had been in practice among most Catholic families for generations now.

A parish of course has its own patron saint. Antipolo Church (now a basilica), for instance, honors the Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buenviaje (Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage). In Quiapo, they have – no, not the Black Nazarene as patron – but St. John the Baptist (unless there had been a move in recent years to dedicate the basilica solely to the Black Nazarene since the image of Christ carrying the cross had been the object of devotion to millions anyway for the longest time).

Catholic families, however, are also supposed to have their own patron saint in the house and in the past, a built-in altar was always incorporated in the architectural design of every Filipino home.

In some houses, religious icons were placed on top of cabinets or even on top of television sets. Of course this was before the advent of plasma TV.

In our old house, we had an altar that was shaped like a mosque. When I was born, that altar was already there and I remember it had a small wooden crucifix and small images in plaster of paris of the Holy Family and Our Lady of Lourdes, a gift to my mom by a friend name Emma when they were still both single girls way back in the ’60s.

In the center, however, was installed the patron saint of the house, St. Helena, the Empress Saint who found the true cross of Christ. St. Helena should be familiar to most Filipinos because it is she who is represented by those lovely belles who are bestowed the titles Reina Elena or Emperatriz Elena in our yearly May Santacruzan. Why she has to be represented by young girls of course is beyond me because St. Helena was already a mother of a grown-up (Constantine) when she went to Palestine in search of the true cross of Jesus sometime in 324 or thereabouts.

I don’t know if that many parishes here in the Philippines that honor St. Helena as their patroness. There is one in Marikina and a barrio called Sta. Elena in Hagonoy, Bulacan, where my father was born.

In that little barrio, I remember that all homes had this black and white picture of St. Helena – depicted as an elegant woman in rich robes standing next to a cross and holding in her hands three large nails that were supposed to have been used during Christ’s crucifixion.

My dad apparently brought St. Helena’s picture with him when he decided to settle in Manila to raise a family and made the empress saint the patroness of our home.

Guests who were allowed all the way to the second floor where the altar was, all mistook St. Helena for the Blessed Mother – and they had to be corrected.

When I finally went to school and was given an allowance, I would spend part of it buying stampitas to put in the altar and – if I had extra money – those tiny resin statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Lady of the Miraculous Medal, St. Christopher (who had since been removed from the gallery of saints because it turned out that he was just a myth, along with St. Cecilia) and Mary Help of Christians, whose image caused a minor panic at home one time.

It happened one evening while there was an hour-long brown-out. My dad went upstairs to say his prayers, when all of the sudden we heard him hollering from the top of the stairwell. It turned out the tiny image of Mary Help of Christians was glowing in the dark.

Was it a miracle? No, the image was just luminous and it emitted light in the dark. After that incident, I no longer cared to add any more statues to our growing collection of religious icons in our family altar.

But when we had already moved to another house and had it renovated eventually, I asked my dad to bring back with him in one of his trips to Bulacan an old picture of our Lady of Antipolo which I remembered as a child was in their family altar. My dad said he doesn’t recall any picture of the Virgin of Antipolo in their family home which I thought was strange because he grew up in that house and I expected him to be familiar with its every nook and cranny. His two spinster sisters did not remember either. But with the help of a married niece, they had the house practically turned upside down looking for the picture of the Blessed Mother and found it stashed away – rotting – in some little corner.

Except for some torn edges, the pictures were in perfect condition. It even came with its original wooden frame that had gathered soot after being exposed all those years to lighted candles and gas lamps that were lit during prayers.

Nobody recalls how the picture was brought to my father’s old house in the province. But it’s obviously an old picture because it says at the bottom of it: Ntra. Sra. de Antipolo (Rizal) I.F. I.F. stands for Islas Filipinas or Philippine Islands.

The picture – still in its original frame–now hangs on top of my bed and every time I look at it when I pray the Rosary I shudder to think how this important family relic would have been lost forever.

(Next: All-male saints in a bachelor’s pad).