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All liturgical feasts, inclusive of those commemorating the various aspects of Christ’s life as Christmas and Easter, center on this same mystery. Our Filipino celebrations of the liturgical year reflect forms of popular religiosity that have arisen and been accepted throughout the ages. They are a sure sign of the extent to which the faith has taken root in the hearts of our people and of its influence on the daily lives of the faithful. Regarded as a treasure of the Church, our popular pious exercises allow our people to express our faith and our relationship with God and Providence, with Our Lady and the Saints, with neighbors, with the dead, with creation and strengthens membership of the Church.
They are a testimony of the faith of the simple of heart, underlining the one or the other accent without pretending to embrace the whole content of the Christian faith. Our popular religiosity is a living reality in and of the Church; its source is the constant presence of the Spirit in ecclesial communities; its reference point, the mystery of Christ; its object, the glory of God and the salvation of man; and its historical moment, the joyous encounter of the work of evangelization and culture. The Church, for her part, does “ respect and foster the qualities and talents of the various races and nations. Anything in these people’s way of life which is not indissolubly bound up with superstition and error, she studies with sympathy, and, if possible, preserves intact.
She sometimes even admits such things into the liturgy itself, provided they harmonize with its true and authentic spirit ”. If, on the one hand, popular religiosity must not take the place of liturgy, liturgy, on the other hand, does not eliminate the other forms of expressing the faith in Christ the Savior. Likewise, it is important to recall that popular religiosity finds its natural crowning in liturgical celebration, toward which it has to be ideally oriented, even if habitually it does not flow into it. Our [Catholic] religious culture began with the coming of the Spanish missionaries. The Philippines as a former colony of Spain shares and preserves faithfully much of its colonizers’ religious traditions, putting on local color and character. For example, we have what the Spaniards called “ Misa de Aguinaldo ”, which we would call “ Simbang Gabi ” culminating with the “ Panuluyan ” held immediately before the Christmas Midnight Mass.
This form of religiosity is still very much alive in our midst nowadays. Whenever the “-ber ” months of the year set in, for us Christmas is so close and for some it has in fact come. That is why everywhere you will hear Christmas carols being played and the Christmas spirit dominating the air. Everyone, not only children, begin to flock to malls and shopping centers to buy Christmas decors and ornaments to adorn their houses; these include Christmas trees, star-shaped lanterns (“ parol ”) and cribs (“ belen ”). The spirit is very much in contrast with the Advent liturgy, which, though its mood is one of joyful expectation, yet calls for restraint in the use of “ Gloria ”, musical instruments, ornamentations; the use of purple vestment reminds us also of exercising some restraints in our liturgical celebrations. Every year, from December 16 to 24, parish churches and barangay chapels teem with people from all walks of life for a pious exercise that has become so popular among Filipino Catholics all over the world.