…I have to admit I grew up in a family that heads to the Methodist Church, only on the major holidays, that’s twice a year (for Christmas and Easter). But here on Guam, I realize that I am really out of the loop when it comes to understanding the Catholic faith. Helping me through a quick lesson in Guam’s predominant religion, techa Roland Blas, a senator’s staffer by day, but techa twenty-four hours a day seven days a week three-hundred sixty-five days a year.<\/p>\n
First things first, I had to ask, what is a techa? "When someone dies traditionally, they recite the rosary for nine days and they will have a prayer leader, a techa, they will call one to lead the congregation," said Roland. I had no idea how or who got to hold the title of techa for the catholic faith. "You are not registered, there is nothing you fill out to claim yourself as a techa," he added.<\/p>\n
But rather I found out, it’s based on experience and one’s ability to pray the rosary in both English and Chamorro. "It’s like food, when you eat it gives you strength physically, so prayer, it needs you need to feed your soul," he said.<\/p>\n
And while I guessed his dedication to the Catholic faith was something instilled in him by his parents or grandparents, I couldn’t have been more wrong, Blas’ interest was sparked after watching a Catholic television program at the age of 12. The programming made such a big impact on Blas that he decided to dedicate himself to a life of prayer, saying, "I started studying, reading a lot and I also learned a lot through the programs they had in EWTN, the Catholic Channel, and they would have a morning rosary, afternoon and evening rosary, so I started learning how to recite and pray the rosary." [Source<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …I have to admit I grew up in a family that heads to the Methodist Church, only on the major holidays, that’s twice a year (for Christmas and Easter). But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}