Quiapo Fiesta: Procession of the Black Nazarene
Quiapo Fiesta or Feast of the Black Nazarene is celebrated on the second Tuesday of January. It is the feast day of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo Church. After the main mass, the famous statue of the Black Nazarene, carved in Mexico during the 18th century, is placed ona gilded carriage and borne in procession around the Quiapo district, with thousands and thousands of devotees participating.
The festival starts at the Quiapo Church in Quiapo, Manila. It then continues through out the Quiapo area. In the 17th Century a life size statue of the Nazarene was carved from blackwood in Mexico, it was then brought to the Philippines in a Spanish Galleon. The Black Nazarene Festival honours the death and affliction of Christ.
For more than 200 years the church has been placing the statue on a gilded carriage every January and pulling it through the streets of Quiapo. People who touch it are reported to sometimes be healed of diseases. Catholics come from all over Manila on the chance that they will be able to get close enough to touch the image and perhaps receive a miracle. They also throw towels to the police who guard the statue and ask them to rub the towel on the statue in hopes of carrying some of that power away with them.
The Quiapo Church Fiesta of Black Nazarene (where the Black Nazarene statue is kept) is held every year and the male devotees take out the Nazarene into the narrow streets. Thousands of Roman Catholics rise into the streets following probably the largest procession in the Philippines. All the devotees try to touch the Black Nazarene in the hope that good fortune will fall on them.
During the Manila Fiesta of the Black Nazarene the church places the statue on a glided carriage that is pulled through the streets. The devotees throw towels to the people who guard the statue that is then given back after rubbing on the statue. The crowds during the procession of the Fiesta of the Black Nazarene walk barefooted. The devotees expect miracles, healings and cleansing of sins as they touch and be with the statue of the Black Nazarene. As the processions continue some of them fall unconscious and have to be rushed to the hospital.
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