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Some of my fondest childhood memories from the Philippines—especially in the town of Los Baños, Laguna—return every year with the month of May. May felt like a sacred pause, a season when the whole town remembered who we were and what we gave worthship (worship). It was a summer vacation month (at least then), and in a place shaped by the University calendar the rhythm of life softened. But what truly made May unforgettable were the devotions that gathered us as one body: Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May), the Santacruzan (“Holy Cross”), and the fiesta for the patron saint of my barangay, San Isidro. Streets, churches, and even makeshift basketball courts were dressed in colorful banderitas and fresh flowers—festive signs that we were stepping into something larger than ordinary time, something handed down to us like a blessing, something we were learning to carry together. After all, a Feast Day is a Fiesta!
As a young boy, Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo were simply “what we did.” I didn’t have language for reverence, devotion, or catechesis; I only knew the feeling of being swept up into something familiar. We followed our parents, and they followed what their parents had taught them, until tradition became a kind of education of the heart. In a way, that is how faith first arrives for many of us—not as a theological argument, but as a rhythm: prayers repeated, candles lit, flowers offered, stories told. Traditions that wrapped around our community like a hymn you learn by hearing it year after year, until its melody starts to live inside you.
Now that I’m older, a long-time resident of the U.S., and a dad, I feel a different kind of gratitude when I think about those May days—the processions, the prayers, the festivities, and the simple certainty that the whole town was participating in the same story. Nostalgia, I’ve learned, isn’t only missing a place; it can be a kind of homesickness for communion—for the sense that life is held together by shared worship and shared memory. From far away, I can see more clearly what I could not name then: these devotions were forming us. They were teaching us to lift our eyes beyond ourselves, to offer beauty back to our Creator, and to remember that our lives are joined to the lives of others—those beside us and those who came before us.
That’s why it hit me with a different level of meaning, that even though I’m now 7,000 miles away, my teenage daughter got to participate in a Santacruzan procession sponsored by a Filipino community at our local parish. In moments like this, tradition becomes a bridge made of prayer and memory. It connects my children to a homeland they didn’t grow up in, and it connects all of us to the faith and love that our elders protected—often quietly, often faithfully—so it could reach us. I think of grandparents and great-grandparents whose names we may not even know well anymore, yet whose hands once arranged flowers, held candles, led novenas, and walked in the same procession. My hope for the second generation isn’t only that they will find meaning in traditions, but that they will recognize what they are receiving: faith and culture not as private possessions, but as a shared inheritance—something to receive with gratitude, to guard with humility, and to pass on with joy.
Santacruzan is more than a social event. It’s more than an elaborate procession of young women in colorful dresses (and it’s often misunderstood as a kind of beauty pageant). At its heart, it is a prayer in motion—communal storytelling, yes, but also a way a people remembers God’s nearness across time. Held in the Philippines since the 1800s, the ritual developed as a way to commemorate and retell the story of Queen Helena (“Reyna Elena”), mother of Constantine the Great, and her discovery of the Holy Cross—the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. Constantine, the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity, is considered a pivotal figure in Christian history; Christianity as we know it would not be the same without his role. His mother Helena, herself a zealous Christian, is traditionally said to have gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and uncovered the Holy Cross. When we reenact this story year after year, we do more than recall a past event—we let the mystery of the Cross stand again at the center of our lives, and we join the long line of believers who have carried this memory forward with reverence.
Santacruzan takes place in May, alongside Flores de Mayo, the month-long tradition of offering flowers to the Virgin Mary. In the Philippines, devotees don’t simply bring flowers; they gather—to pray the rosary, to sing, to share food, and to let devotion shape the atmosphere of everyday life. Flowers become more than decoration; they become an offering—small, fragrant acts of love placed before the Mother who always leads us to her Son. The procession reflects that shared life. Young women, dressed in vibrant gowns, walk as queens (“reynas”), each representing a biblical woman such as Judith, Ruth, and Naomi, or the theological virtues: faith (“Reyna Fe” / Queen Faith), hope (“Reyna Esperanza” / Queen Hope), and charity (“Reyna Caridad” / Queen Charity). The final queen represents Reyna Elena, carrying a cross to symbolize her finding of the Holy Cross, often escorted by a young man representing Emperor Constantine. Seen this way, the Santacruzan isn’t about individual spotlight; it is a community walking together—beauty and symbol, scripture and story, all of it turning our steps into prayer and forming the next generation in what we love and what we believe.
As a kid, I watched the Santacruzan the way I watched a pageant and it felt like it was entertaining to watch. But now, as a father of a young teenage girl participating in this tradition—and as a Filipino Catholic finding my way in America—I receive it differently. I see Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo as creative, joyful ways to catechize, yes, but also as a way the Spirit keeps a people rooted: in gratitude, in reverence, in belonging. These rituals let us honor our ancestors not only by remembering them, but by continuing what they loved, believed, and celebrated—so that faith remains something we live, not only something we recall. And they invite our children into that same blessing: to inherit a story larger than themselves, to discover Christ again at the center of it, and to carry that gift forward with tenderness. Just as the Simbang Gabi celebrations illustrate, they are celebrations that pause our busy calendars and turn our hearts back toward what is eternal—renewing our communion with one another, with those who came before us, and with God.
