Fasting and Alay Kapwa

In the 1960s the CBCP accepted a unique proposal of NASSA headed at that time by Infanta Bishop Julio Labayen. The proposal was a Lenten Evangelization Program called ALAY KAPWA.

The uniqueness of the program was the use of the observances of Lent as an opportunity to evangelize. The Church exhorts Catholics to prepare for Holy Week by spending the 40-day Lenten period in prayer, fasting and abstinence, silence and alms-giving while at the same time helping the poor and the needy.

The National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA) under bishop Labayen based the evangelizing activity on reconciliation with God and neighbor. The programmed individual and group activities spread through four weeks make use of Scripture for sustained prayer and reflection. Discipline and self-control, which is acquired through various ways of self-deprivation (fasting and abstinence), helps intensified prayer and reflection on the word of God. This teaching too is scripturally based.

What is saved in terms of material things, money, even time, is given to, or spent for‎, the poor. Again this activity is justified by various examples in the life and teachings of Jesus as found in the Scriptures. This is a unique way of alms-giving. NASSA had a system of collecting the funds and identifying the poor recipients of Time, Talent and Treasure scheme. Social analysis facilitates the location and situation of the poor.

Thus one who follows closely and religiously the Alay Kapwa Lenten Evangelization Program effectively actualizes reconciliation with God and neighbor especially the poor and the marginalized.

This, I think, if dutifully implemented in our parishes, schools, prayer groups, and transparochial communities will surely help in a meaningful and fruitful celebration of Holy Week. Hence the paschal mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus will gradually facilitate the personal and communal transformation of Catholics. Henceforth Catholic life, or more correctly, Christian life, will be understood and lived in terms of transition: from death to life, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from weakness to strength, from decay to growth, etc. This passage, or more scripturally, passover, is how Jesus Christ brought about our redemption, and salvation.