2981 Misa de Gallo Filipino a la Mexico: it's all good Salesian formation!
austraLasia #2981

Misa de Gallo Filipino a la Mexico: it's all good Salesian formation!
Cebu and Canlubang: 3 January 2011 -- A flurry of emails from our young confreres at Lawa-an and at Canlubang (the former in Cebu the latter Luzon, Philippines) suggests, as the new year gets back to 'normal', that they have have had an exhilarating but tiring time of it, given very much to the religious and cultural.  But one can hardly regard it as a return to 'normal', at least in Cebu - where Christmas is never over until the celebrations for the Santo Niño of Cebu are over, and that will all be happening this week and into next.

But let's take it bit by bit and begin with the famous Misa de Gallo. As one correspondent put it: "The "Misa de Gallo" (literally, Mass of the rooster) or dawn Mass is unique in the Philippines. The faithful wake up very early in the morning, for nine days, to attend the Mass held at 4:30 in the morning. This practice was brought by the Spaniards to the Philippines in order to attend to the needs of the fisherfolks and farmers who do their duties at the break of dawn".  He is partly right, or shoudl I say mostly right, but for one small detail - it was really the Mexicans, or the 'conquistadores' of 'Nueva España' (and we all know who they were!) who brought the Misa de Gallo to the Philippines, where it developed its own life as a pre-Christmas Novena, which then takes on a very contemporary touch under the auspices of none other than Blessed Pope John Paul!

JPII ratcheted up the 1587 Indult originally given by the Diocese of Mexico (as it was then), and which had been extended throughout the Philippines by the first group of Bishops in the new 'Mexican' colony (or was it Spanish, or should it have really been Portuguese? We can come to that). He permitted the Misa de Gallo masses (from 16-24 December) to be votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin superceding even a Sunday in Advent, but only if they were dawn masses and only if celebrated between 4 and 5 a.m!

Tiring but exhilarating, if we are to believe one of our novices - since at Lawa-an, the novitiate is largely responsible for much of the religious activity in the local area: "For 9 days (Dec. 16-24) we woke up as early as 3am to celebrate the 4:30am mass.  Our Misa de Gallo is only in the Philippines.  It is our special way of preparing for Christmas.  All these Masses are in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Through this, it is our hope that our faith can be deepened and strengthened.  It requires much on our part.  All of us have special tasks: traffic, liturgy, arts and environment, music, catechesis, etc.  Indeed, it was one of the best ways to evangelize and to catechize because during this period, many people would come to celebrate Mass". Further north in Canlubang, it was the prenovices who had the job of firing up the locals. Our correspondent there indicates thus: "During the break, the prenovices looked after the seminary and the diocesan shrine. It's been a tradition here in Canlubang. The prenovices are the ones who maintain the house, and also, spearhead various fundraising campaigns to help in the funding of the seminary.
This year, one innovation they introduced was to offer Christmas decorations (balls, flowers, etc) to be hung in the Christmas tree. In exchange, they get to choose the virtue they wish to develop. Every time they buy a Christmas decor, they get a bookmark. There's a new bookmark each day for the past nine days of the novena in preparation for the Christmas day".

Now what about this 'Mexican' connection? Interesting, really, and now we know why Fr Filiberto Gonzalez, a Guadalajaran, felt so much at home in the Philippines and especially in Cebu! Fr Alfred Maravilla, a Cebuano through and through with a heart partly in Papua New Guinea and feet solidly in Rome-Pisana, tells me that it was all about the Manila (or Cebu)-Acapulco Galleon trade.  That's true, and a bit more to it as well. We know that Magellan never made it back to Spain. His life ended at the hands of Lapu-Lapu (or similar name) on Macatan Island. But a Spanish-turned-Mexican-functionary, name of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, eventually took up from where Magellan had to unfortunately leave off. In fact he went further. He came out to Cebu, 'subjagted the natives' (whom he called 'Los Pintados' because of their tattoos), took a group of them north to Luzon and took over the Chinese trade settlement of Maynilard, which he renamed Manila. From then on until Don Bosco was born, in fact, every Governor of the Philippines was a Mexican! That's some 250 years of Mexican domination. Who said the Philippines was Spanish? Ferdinand Magellan was Portuguese, although he claimed the islands in the name of 'Philip II of Spain'. Had Magellan followed the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, brokered by the Vatican, the archipelago should have been claimed for the King of Portugal. The Vatican had divided the 'unknown' world up between the two countries, and these islands lay in Portugal's part.

We leave all that to history. Thanks, guys, for all this interesting stuff on Christmas in the Philippines and the very active part that young Salesians seem to be playing on their local scene. Maybe we can hear something of how the Sto. Niño celebrations go, in due course.