Four institutions inhabit the same campus here, they each have a different timetable and different routines. One thing which is common to all four is the emphasis on prayer.
Every morning the vocational students begin the day with a 6.30am mass, later on they have prayer during a morning assembly, the working day ends with more prayers at another assembly and every evening the students who board pray the rosary while walking up and down the playground.
The High school and Primary school students also begin each day with prayer. During October they are praying the rosary together everyday at 7.15am . Every week each year group shares a mass and every week the pupils have the opportunity to go to confession.
None of this religious practise seems forced. Of course there are pupils told off for being stupid during prayers but I've also seen groups of pupils holding their own times of prayer or praying individually beside a statue of Mary. Before a football match starts the players of both sides will pray together on the pitch, before every lesson the class will pray a short prayer together.
We have no way of knowing yet whether this is typical of the Philippines or happens just in Salesian schools. However I think it is fair to say that religion is a lot more practised and a lot more visible in the Philippines that it is in Europe. The local parish 'Our Lady of Lourdes' is said to have a Sunday mass attendance of about 20'000 worshippers. Religious inscriptions appear everywhere on houses, shops, cars and buses. The people here will speak of God much more readily than we do in Europe, God is thanked regularly and invoked easily.
What does all this say about the Philippines, it is far too early for us to make any judgements. Is all this prayer a sign of deep spirituality or a fake veneer of cultural religion? We cannot say. This is culture very distance from our western separation of private and public life with religion very much kept in the private sphere.
Hi there Matt, Sounds like you're having an interesting and exciting time out there so far. A small addition to this post. Dubai has a huge Filipino community, There's only 1 Catholic church in the city which has 6 English Masses on a Sunday, I've tried to attend a few different timings to see what they're like and no matter what time I go, the church (and surrounding courtyard where mass can be seen via projector) is full to the brim - approximately 3 - 4000 people. And I would say that around 80% of them are Fillipino. There's also 7 masses on a Friday which they adopt as the "obligatory day" in line with the week structure here, which no doubt are just as packed if not more so. After mass, many gather around the Grotto in the church grounds. The feeling is not that dissimilar to that in Lourdes but it's a community who do this on a weekly basis. So it seems the faith of the Phillipines spreads further than Cebu and Salesien schools :)
ReplyDeleteI suspect there will be a filipino Pope sooner rather than later.
ReplyDelete