Our Cultural Heritage
Here we are again celebrating the muchanticipated festival of Santa Ana y Santiago in our community of San Luis and wonderful associated communities, more importantly, in the faith community of Sangre de Cristo Parish. We welcome everyone to this joyful festival of faith and culture. What a great moment of joy, excitement, gratitude, overflowing love and family reunification that will naturally and spontaneously define this unique experience of festivity. What a blessed people we are as we connect with the enriching and ennobling faith tradition that defines our cultural heritage. The reality of faith in God and the numerous and uncountable blessings and traditions contained therein cannot but make us see how privileged we are. The festival is here again, and we are greatly happy and fulfilled for being part of the wonderful experience and history once again.
To God be the glory, great things He has done. We must sincerely express gratitude to God, the author of all that is good who has blessed us beyond measures and one of such blessings is the faith tradition that stems from the glorious past with Heroic figures like St Anne (Santa Ana), the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Consequently, the Grandmother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and St James, the Great (Santiago) who, according to Sacred Tradition was the Apostle, who first planted the seed of the Christian faith in Hispanic territories and environment. Based on this tradition, After Pentecost, He (Santiago) travelled to the Iberian Peninsula (Modern-day Spain) to preach the Gospel of Christ.
These saintly figures of our ancient past have been remarkable blessings to our cultural and social heritage and invariably those with Hispanic ancestral connections. We value how for almost two thousand years, connections and devotions to these saintly figures have influenced much of our faith, cultural, social and civic expressions and defined the core principles of true survival and growth that our ancestors greatly experienced and faithfully handed over to us.
The truth inherent in this is that nothing makes life beautiful, wonderful, developmental and hopeful, other than the faith traditions and faith expressions influencing various aspects of human life. The faith tradition influences and facilitates integral growth, true happiness, moral stability and positive social development and transformation. We must know and appreciate the fact that the culture of those who championed the developmental strides we enjoy today is nothing other than the culture of faith. Faith and culture will always be one and the same in their consciousness and commitments to development in human affairs. For them, it is the power of the faith that brought about the cultural evolution that is defined by its developmental strides, civilization and social transformation, which we all benefit from in our times.
We are true beneficiaries of the faith experience that brought about the social transformation of our western civilization. Thus, for us to keep the wheel of progress ongoing so that the coming generations may enjoy the bounty of true social and cultural development, we must not relegate our faith experience or tradition under the guise that our culture and lives should be independently isolated from faith tradition. Such separation will only lead to emptiness and cultural cum social retrogression. True faith in God makes cultural life developmental, progressive, stable, transforming, civilizing, humane, dignifying and impactful. Remove faith from culture and social life, nothing is left apart from confusion, moral depravity and recklessness.
As we greatly celebrate the festival of Santa Ana y Santiago, let us truly embrace the inseparability between our faith life and our culture. Let us see the synergy between our integral development and faith tradition. Let us appreciate the transforming nature of faith tradition and experience will bring into proper social engineering and development. In our faith tradition, we grow and become better people.
Happy celebrations to us all and wishing us the joy and blessings of this amazing festival.
Mathew 1, Matthew 4:18-23, Matthew 28:16-20, Acts 2:1-13, Acts 12:1-19.