May is when we hold the “Santacruzan,” nowadays more or less an outdoor fashion show with one or more gorgeous “Reina Elena” and/or “Emperatriz” in gorgeous ternos escorted by equally gorgeous hunks.

Our traditional May celebrations (there are two) are not quite like that.  “Santa Cruz de Mayo” is a neighborhood affair organized by doting parents for their precious little darlings, while “Flores de Mayo” is a church-centered activity mainly for teenagers.

Santa Cruz de Mayo processions are held in series of nine and recall the finding of the True Cross by the Empress Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine.

Participants are girls (“sagala”) and boys age two and up, all in their costumed best.  Everyone in the candle-lit processions repeatedly sings “Dios te salve, Maria …”  Not being Spanish-speaking, quite a few do not discover until years later when they enroll in College Spanish (and some, not even then) that what they used to sing as kids was “Hail Mary, full of grace …”

The length of the procession depends on how many children demand (or agree) to join, but the following are usually included.

The long-lived Methuselah (symbolizing the millennia before Christ) leads off in a pushcart (no wheelchairs in the Bible).  Then comes Reina Banderada to signal the coming of salvation (and the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity) to the unconverted (Reina Mora and Dalagang Bukid).  Reina  Sentenciada, Abogada and Reina Justicia illustrate (probably) Christian justice.

From the Old Testament come Queens Judith and Esther and the Queen of Sheba (Reina Saba) who anticipate the Virgin Mary.  Then follow, from the New Testament, the Samaritan Woman, Veronica and Mary Magdalene.  The Virgin Mary is celebrated variously as Divina Pastora, Reina de las  Estrellas, Rosa Mistica, Reina de las Flores.  Reina Elena and her little boy Principe Constantino end the procession.

One evening’s Hermano passes responsibility to the next.  The ninth hosts dinner and puts up a “bitin” – little treasures suspended from a bamboo trellis that someone hoists up and down above a jumping joyful crowd.

Notwithstanding its secular-sounding name, the “Flores de Mayo” procession ends a month of daily devotions.  Each day of May, young girls offer flowers to the Virgin at town church and recite the Holy Rosary.  The month ends with the “Flores.”

First are little boys and girls all in white.  Boys are “Our Father” beads and girls are “Hail Mary” beads.   Young maidens follow, each representing one of as many as the fifty or so nomenclatures in the Litany of the Virgin, e.g., Mirror of Justice, Mystic Rose, Morning Star, Tower of David, Tower of Ivory, House of Gold, Morning Star, Queen of Angels, Queen of Prophets, Queen of Apostles, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Queen of Peace.  The procession ends with an image of the Virgin on her carroza.

Rosa Mistica is the coveted title, awarded to the young lady identified as the town’s most virtuous.  She presides at the Ball (effectively a Debutantes’ Ball) that concludes our merry month of May.

Comments are cordially invited, addressed to walalang@mb.com.ph.