The three kings of Tondo, Sampaloc & Binondo

And there in front of them was the star they had seen rising; it went forward and halted over the place where the child was… Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. – Matthew 2: 9 —11

Early legends tell of 12 wise men living in the East, that their special treasure was a scroll written by Adam’s son. It is said that written on the prized scroll were prophecies about the arrival of the Messiah of the Jews and of the star which would appear in the heavens at His birth. Generation after generation, the 12 wise men would climb a mountain cave and purify themselves in its fountains for three days, praying and searching for that awaited star. As each wise man died, his son or other close kin would take his place.

Ancient accounts say this awaited Messiah’s star enabled the Three Kings (Wise Men or Magi) to travel towards Jerusalem in 12 days without stopping for food or rest! The journey of 12 days seemed to last only a day. Other legends say the actual journey took the Three Kings two years, and during the trip the Messiah’s star shared the Gospel of Christ with them and replenished their food and water supply so they could go on non-stop to Jerusalem.

For us in the Philippines who celebrate "the world’s longest Christmas season," we begin this great fiesta marathon on Dec. 16. It officially ends on the first Sunday of January or the Feast of Epiphany, or also known as Day of the Three Kings. It is said to be the day when Three Kings from the East visited the Christ child, 12 days after his birth. For Hispanic kids in colonial Manila, this day was a fun celebration in their once exclusive Casino Español. Children in Bavaria and Austria traditionally dress as kings and hold a big star each, as they go from house to house for caroling. In the Czech and Slovak republics, the initials of the Three Kings’ names are written over the entrance doors of houses to celebrate Epiphany.

In Western societies, the Feast of the Three Kings has for generations been a day for gift-giving, also the day families take down the Christmas tree or burn it in a big bonfire. In the Eastern Christian churches of Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and Middle East, Jan. 6 is celebrated as the nativity according to their Julian calendar, while our Dec. 25 Christmas holiday based on the Gregorian calendar was adopted by the Western Christian churches in the fourth century.

Why the three Kings came from ancient Manila

While trying to rub my eyes and make sure that I wake up from my drowsy hallucinations of bumping into the fabled three Kings from Tondo, Sampaloc and Binondo, I suddenly remembered reading a late ‘30s poem written by a youthful Fr. Horacio de la Costa, SJ.. This Harvard-trained genius was a great historian and scholar. During World War II, he was jailed by Japanese invaders in Fort Santiago. He was the first Filipino to ever become a provincial or Jesuit leader and is the only Filipino to have sat in a General Congregation of the Jesuit Order. Here is the poem he wrote for a poetry contest in 1937-1939:
I do not think the Three Wise Men
Were Persian Kings at all.
I think it much more likely they
Set sail out of Manila Bay
To follow the starry call.
And though the good Abbe Fouard
May stare at me, and frown,
I still maintain the three Wise Men
Were Kings of my own town.
And if you ask why I affirm
That Melchor was King of Tondo,
When Gaspar ruled Sampaloc,
And Baltazar Binondo–
We will not argue. We will walk
The streets on Christmas Eve,
And I will show you the poor man’s rafter,
Where hangs the Star the Kings sought after,
Hung high above Christian prayer and laughter–
You will see it, and believe!
For when Kings came home again
From Bethlehem afar,
They lost their camels in the sea
And they forgot the Christmas tree,
But they brought home to you and me
The Secret of the Star.
And that is why the simple folk
Think Christmas incomplete
Unless they can make a Star of paper
With bamboo sticks to frame and shape her
The newborn King to greet.
The simple folk, the childlike folk,
With their dim little paper star!
We who are modern, and therefore old,
We must have meaningless trees of gold
Tawdrily tinseled, fold on fold–-
But these are happier far.
Ah, we have lost the Star of the Kings
To whom Christmas is merely a feast,
And merely a time to dance and wine,
With western music and western wine,
Because a gigantic neon sign
Has blotted the Sign in the East.
But if through the quiet evening streets
We follow the Wise Kings’ Star,
Where it beckons and swings from the sills of the poor,
It may lead us yet through a low church door
Where we too may kneel, as the Kings long before,
Where the Child and His Mother are.

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