The Feast of the Señor Santo Niño was celebrated this past Sunday, January 19, and as I reflect on this sacred day and the solemn foot procession that preceded it on Saturday, I find myself contemplating the twin devotions that have shaped my spiritual life: the Santo Niño and the Black Nazarene. To some, these might seem like contradictory images—the crowned infant king versus the suffering man carrying the cross. But for me, as a Mindanawon devotee of both, they form a complete portrait of the Incarnation, and both have deeper roots in Mindanao than the Manila-centric narrative of Filipino Catholicism often acknowledges.
I have been a devotee of the Santo Niño since childhood. Growing up in Cagayan de Oro, the Church and Parish of Santo Niño de Cagayan stood adjacent to our home, and that proximity shaped my spiritual geography in ways I am still discovering. The image of the Child Jesus was not an occasional encounter but a daily presence, a neighbor in the truest sense. While I hold deep affinity for Cebu, where the original image resides, and for Kalibo, where faith and indigenous culture meet in the Ati-Atihan, my devotion has never been about the festivals.
The Santo Niño de Cebu is the oldest Christian artifact in the Philippines. When Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu in 1521, he presented an image of the Child Jesus to Rajah Humabon and his wife, Hara Amihan (who took the Christian name Juana), upon their baptism. According to tradition, when Miguel López de Legazpi arrived in 1565, 44 years later, a soldier named Juan Camus found the image intact inside a burning hut, miraculously preserved despite the destruction around it. This discovery was interpreted as divine providence, and devotion to the Santo Niño spread rapidly across the archipelago.
The Black Nazarene’s history is different but equally compelling. The image arrived in Manila from Mexico in 1607, brought by Augustinian Recollect friars. According to tradition, the ship carrying the image caught fire during the voyage, and the statue’s dark color resulted from the charring—though some historians suggest it was originally carved from dark wood. Enshrined at Saint John the Baptist Parish in Quiapo, the image depicts Jesus at the moment of his Passion, carrying the cross toward Calvary, clothed in maroon velvet, crowned with thorns.
What the Manila narrative often obscures is that devotion to the Nazareno is not exclusive to Quiapo. The image has inspired replicas and devotions across the Philippines, including significant presences in Mindanao. Both devotions have deep Mindanao connections, though this is sometimes forgotten in the Manila-centric narrative of Filipino Catholicism. The Santo Niño’s primary shrine may be in Cebu, but Santo Niño parishes dot Mindanao, in Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, Davao, Zamboanga, and beyond.
The Black Nazarene, while most famous for the Quiapo shrine and Traslacion in Manila, also has a profound presence across Mindanao. The Church of the Black Nazarene in Cagayan de Oro, where I first encountered the image during childhood Visita Iglesia, holds its own processions and novenas. In Davao, Zamboanga, Iligan, and other cities, Nazareno images draw devotees who cannot make the pilgrimage to Manila but whose faith is no less fervent.
The Santo Niño shows us God’s entry into the world; small, vulnerable, dependent, yet crowned as King. The Nazareno shows us God’s journey through the world; bearing the weight of human sin and suffering, falling, rising, moving always toward Calvary and resurrection. Together, they bracket the whole arc of salvation: from Bethlehem’s manger to Golgotha’s cross, from infancy’s promise to manhood’s fulfillment. In the Santo Niño, we see the “yes” of the Incarnation: God saying yes to becoming human, to being born, to entering time and space and limitation. In the Nazareno, we see the “yes” of the Passion: God saying yes to suffering, to solidarity with human pain, to walking the way of the cross that leads through death to resurrection.
As a Mindanawon, I claim both devotions as part of my spiritual inheritance. They ground me in a faith that is both local and universal, both deeply Filipino and profoundly Catholic. They remind me that Mindanao is not the periphery of Filipino Christianity but one of its beating hearts, where faith is lived with particular intensity because it is lived in conscious choice. The drums of Sinulog sounded this past Sunday. The solemn procession on Saturday carried the Santo Niño through streets filled with prayer. And these are good. But the deepest celebration happens in the quiet encounter, in the twin gazes that call us home; the wondering eyes of the Child and the suffering eyes of the Man, both looking at us with the same eternal love.
