Day 21 (Recall) Simbang

As I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of church. Having faith and maintaining my own spiritual beliefs are one thing; sitting through mass bored out of my mind is a completely other issue.

I spent Saturday afternoon at such a lovely event, Simbang Gabi. Literally translated, it means “church night” and it’s a Filipino tradition of 9 days of novenas leading up to Christmas. And only in the very recently have I not made a concentrated effort to avoid them. 

See, for the most part, I don’t mind church. I don’t hate it, but I’m not exactly going to rush to mass (which is probably why we end up arriving epically late for most of them). My mom would yell at Sunday mornings and lie to me about the time to get me to rush to get ready although she’d be the last person to get into the car. Our church had heavily-accented priests so most masses felt like a Statistics lecture; I just really didn’t get what they were saying.

Every mass was a process of standing up, sitting down, bad singing, and a lot of day-dreaming. I usually started zoning out by the homily and we always spent about half an hour after mass just talking to my “aunts” outside of the church. “Boring” was an epic understatement.

Then, I moved away for college. For once, I didn’t have to go to church; didn’t have to wake up on a Sunday morning for the simple sake of going to a mass I wouldn’t be paying attention to. It was amazing. My mother was scandalized but she was hours away so it didn’t matter. I was in heaven.

Until I found myself gravitating to church anyway. For a while, I wondered if I was more religious than I’d originally thought; of if my up-bringing was just impossible to shake off. However, just because I wanted to go to church didn’t mean that I wanted to be in church. After a few times of going, I realized what was wrong.

I missed my family. I missed the hectic-ness of mornings: my mom yelling, my dad grumbling, my sister insisting that we wait until she finished her hair. I missed the car ride, sharing booklets as we listened to the passages, and kissing them with “I love you”s instead of “Peace be with you”s. It wasn’t church; it was the ceremony of it, of being with the people I always loved but didn’t necessarily always like.

On Saturday, I had such a thought pass over me. There was a gathering of Filipinos at a local church for the celebration. Half of the mass was conducted in Tagalog and I couldn’t follow most of it but I knew what the motions of mass were so it wasn’t complicated. In the end, I caught sight of many people, “aunts and uncles” whom I haven’t seen in years. The familiarity of the situation was touching. I didn’t realize I missed all of this while I was away and, in a way, I’m glad I don’t have to feel this way again.

Well, at least for the next few years.

Written 12/21/10