Fr. Leo Pabayo THE spirit of the fiesta celebration is the spirit that the people of this place we call Cagayan de Oro has imbibed centuries ago and continues to pervade today. This has spread out in all aspects of the life of the city, economic, cultural, political, etc.. This has been tested by other kinds of spirits but it continues to prevail. This spirit is a gift from the Holy Spirit that descended on the first Kagay-anons, when the Augustinian Recoleto missionaries preached the Gospel to them and after instructing them, administered the Sacrament of baptism on those who believed. This Baptism gave birth to the first Christian community of Cagayan de Oro. Recalling this birth and celebrating this is the core of our fiesta celebration. We remember this event and refresh our memory of it every year at fiesta. The memory of this event serves to renew us spiritually. The main act of remembering and renewal is done in the religious activities in the Cathedral. We are sometimes too carried away by the other activities of the fiesta that we fail to give time and attention to these religious activities. These can remain hidden to many who celebrate the fiesta.  What is generally appreciated is the outflow of these religious activities in the other activities of the fiesta. These core activities start nine days before the feast day of St. Augustine itself. These religious activities mainly take place in the cathedral of St. Augustine. They consist of the Novena prayers and the Masses with homilies that give instruction on the history and background of the fiesta celebration particularly on the exemplary life of our patron saint, St. Augustine. The cathedral of St. Augustine is just a building. But this building, like any other churches or places of prayers and worship is like a powerhouse. It houses the people who gather to pray to be spiritually charged or renewed. The renewal that they receive generates spiritual energy that sustains their spiritual life and passed on to the rest of the community. Metaphorically speaking, this energy is like the electrical energy that is generated by the cascading waterfall that lights up a whole town or region. The spiritual energy ultimately comes from the Holy Spirit who bestows on the believers the virtues or the gifts that St. Paul talks about in his letter to the Corinthians, such as kindness, honesty, generosity, patience, courage, forgiveness, etc.. St. Paul sums up the gifts as faith, hope and love. “And the greatest of these,” he said, “is love”. The Holy Spirit of love was first bestowed on the first Christians at Pentecost. This continues to be poured by the same Holy Spirit whenever and wherever people come together in the name of Christ to be gifted by the Holy Spirit particularly during the celebration of the Sacraments. This was received for the first time by the first Kagay-anons who received Baptism from the AgustinianRecoletomissionaries centuries ago.