The ecstasy in crowds

As it has been this time of the year, tomorrow’s front pages will have awesome photos of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, even a million perhaps this year, incredibly packed together as they follow an image, considered miraculous, called the Black Nazarene.

It is a statue so unusual in Christian iconography: Jesus Christ, black-skinned yet still with European features, suffering under the weight of the Cross where he would be crucified, yet garbed in kingly robes of medieval monarchs and wearing a three-rayed crown.