The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER VI 44
there in heaven. Furthermore, to the Virgin of Antipolo he ascribed greater power and efficiency than to all
the other Virgins combined, whether they carried silver canes, naked or richly clothed images of the Christ
Child, scapularies, rosaries, or girdles. Perhaps this reverence was owing to the fact that she was a very strict
Lady, watchful of her name, and, according to the senior sacristan of Antipolo, an enemy of photography.
When she was angered she turned black as ebony, while the other Virgins were softer of heart and more
indulgent. It is a well-known fact that some minds love an absolute monarch rather than a constitutional one,
as witness Louis XIV and Louis XVI, Philip II and Amadeo I. This fact perhaps explains why infidel Chinese
and even Spaniards may be seen kneeling in the famous sanctuary; what is not explained is why the priests
run away with the money of the terrible Image, go to America, and get married there.
In the sala of Capitan Tiago's house, that door, hidden by a silk curtain leads to a small chapel or oratory such
as must be lacking in no Filipino home. There were placed his household gods--and we say "gods" because he
was inclined to polytheism rather than to monotheism, which he had never come to understand. There could
be seen images of the Holy Family with busts and extremities of ivory, glass eyes, long eyelashes, and curly
blond hair--masterpieces of Santa Cruz sculpture. Paintings in oil by artists of Paco and Ermita [33]
represented martyrdoms of saints and miracles of the Virgin; St. Lucy gazing at the sky and carrying in a plate
an extra pair of eyes with lashes and eyebrows, such as are seen painted in the triangle of the Trinity or on
Egyptian tombs; St. Pascual Bailon; St. Anthony of Padua in a guingón habit looking with tears upon a Christ
Child dressed as a Captain-General with the three-cornered hat, sword, and boots, as in the children's ball at
Madrid that character is represented--which signified for Capitan Tiago that while God might include in His
omnipotence the power of a Captain-General of the Philippines, the Franciscans would nevertheless play with
Him as with a doll. There, might also be seen a St. Anthony the Abbot with a hog by his side, a hog that for
the worthy Capitan was as miraculous as the saint himself, for which reason he never dared to refer to it as the
hog, but as the creature of holy St. Anthony; a St. Francis of Assisi in a coffee-colored robe and with seven
wings, placed over a St. Vincent who had only two but in compensation carried a trumpet; a St. Peter the
Martyr with his head split open by the talibon of an evil-doer and held fast by a kneeling infidel, side by side
with another St. Peter cutting off the ear of a Moro, Malchus [34] no doubt, who was gnawing his lips and
writhing with pain, while a fighting-cock on a doric column crowed and flapped his wings--from all of which
Capitan Tiago deduced that in order to be a saint it was just as well to smite as to be smitten.
Who could enumerate that army of images and recount the virtues and perfections that were treasured there! A
whole chapter would hardly suffice. Yet we must not pass over in silence a beautiful St. Michael of painted
and gilded wood almost four feet high. The Archangel is biting his lower lip and with flashing eyes, frowning
forehead, and rosy cheeks is grasping a Greek shield and brandishing in his right hand a Sulu kris, ready, as
would appear from his attitude and expression, to smite a worshiper or any one else who might approach,
rather than the horned and tailed devil that had his teeth set in his girlish leg.
Capitan Tiago never went near this image from fear of a miracle. Had not other images, even those more
rudely carved ones that issue from the carpenter shops of Paete, [35] many times come to life for the
confusion and punishment of incredulous sinners? It is a well-known fact that a certain image of Christ in
Spain, when invoked as a witness of promises of love, had assented with a movement of the head in the
presence of the judge, and that another such image had reached out its right arm to embrace St. Lutgarda. And
furthermore, had he not himself read a booklet recently published about a mimic sermon preached by an
image of St. Dominic in Soriano? True, the saint had not said a single word, but from his movements it was
inferred, at any rate the author of the booklet inferred, that he was announcing the end of the world. [36] Was
it not reported, too, that the Virgin of Luta in the town of Lipa had one cheek swollen larger than the other and
that there was mud on the borders of her gown? Does not this prove mathematically that the holy images also
walk about without holding up their skirts and that they even suffer from the toothache, perhaps for our sake?
Had he not seen with his own eyes, during the regular Good-Friday sermon, all the images of Christ move and
bow their heads thrice in unison, thereby calling forth wails and cries from the women and other sensitive
souls destined for Heaven? More? We ourselves have seen the preacher show to the congregation at the
moment of the descent from the cross a handkerchief stained with blood, and were ourselves on the point of