Our X’mas season begins with the Simbang Gabi

In most countries, the Christmas season is generally from the midnight of December 24 to New Year’s Day or the Epiphany. In the Philippines, it starts with a series of novena Masses known as Simbang Gabi, the first of which was celebrated last Monday.

The Simbang Gabi is a Filipino adaptation of the Mexican Misas de Aguinaldo, which started in Mexico way back in 1587 when Fray Diego de Soria, prior of the Convent of San Agustin Acolman, petitioned the Pope for permission to celebrate Christmas novena Masses outdoors because the church could not contain the great number of parishioners that wanted to attend the services. The petition was granted and these Masses became known as Misas de Aguinaldo. The word Aguinaldo means Christmas gift.

The Mexicans brought the custom to the Philippines where the Christmas period coincided with the rice harvest season. The farmers had to harvest their rice at the crack of dawn. So they would not miss attending Mass, the Christmas novena Masses were celebrated at four o’clock in the morning. The novena ends on Christmas Eve with a midnight Mass known as Misa de Gallo. According to tradition, a rooster was the first creature that announced the birth of Christ by crowing "Christus natus est!" Another belief concerning this tradition is that the weather cocks that are found in many church steeples would crow on Judgment Day to announce the end of the world to the living and arouse the dead from their graves. So the rooster was associated both with the Nativity and Judgment Day. Today, sad to say, the cock is nothing but a vulgar public symbol.

Another Christmas custom that we inherited from Spain through Mexico is the posada (inn) known locally as panunuluyan. This is a Christmas tradition that traces back to St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. It was St. Ignatius who suggested a Christmas novena to commemorate the Holy Couple’s journey to Bethlehem. In 1580, St. John of the Cross prepared a pageant of the Holy Couple looking for a place to stay. Spanish missionaries brought it to Mexico and the Philippines. There are two types of panunuluyan – the live and the statuary. In the former, a man and a woman portray St. Joseph and Virgin Mary; in the latter, they are represented by images. St. Joseph and Virgin Mary stop and sing on several homes to request for lodgings. A choir representing the innkeepers inform them that they are already filled to capacity. They move from inn to inn to the tune of Paul Lincke’s Glow worm and end up in church on Christmas Eve.

The country is undergoing a recession so it is going to be an austere Christmas. We hope that those who have more in life will not forget those who have less.