Final Paper

Research title

Liturgy and the Filipino Culture from

Pre-Vatican up to the present
 I

- Introduction -

As a part of my final grades my professor gave me a task to research about Liturgy and the

Filipino culture from pre Vatican up to the present, to expand my understanding and knowledge of my

academic subject, and to nourish and exercise my mind, and to practice critical thinking because

according to studies research makes our minds healthy and also prevents as from having illness like

Alzheimer's.

This paper discusses about the Filipino culture and traditions based on liturgy. The ‘received

wisdom’ in the sociology of religion is keen on explaining the decline of religious practice in modern

societies.

First, I will discuss what are the meanings of the term used in my research title to determine what

is being stated. Second is to emphasize the true meaning of the title itself. Third I will give my opinions

about the said topic. And lastly, fourth is to give conclusions to my research paper.

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As a starting point, I will give the meaning of “liturgy”. According to the Oxford English

Dictionary 3rd Edition (2005) Liturgy is the customary public worship performed by a religious group.

As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred

through activity reflecting praise, thanksgiving, supplication or repentance. Ritual or script for various

forms of public worship in churches. An example of liturgy is the sacrament of the Eucharist. The

Holy Eucharist refers to Christ's body and blood present in the consecrated host on the altar, and

Catholics believe that the consecrated bread and wine are actually the body and blood, soul and divinity

of Christ. For Catholics, the presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist isn't just symbolic, it's real. While
on other religion liturgy’s is such as baptizing their members through submerging them into a pool full

of holy water. Some are praising Jesus by singing and dancing while others are saying praises through

prayers.

The word liturgy, derived from the technical term ancient

Greece (Greek: λειτουργία), leitourgia, which literally means "work of the people" is a literal translation

of the two words "litos ergos" or "public service".( - Liebigs Annalen der Chemie – 1994 stated) So

Liturgy is a part where you perform a ritual of that said religion as part of accepting not only the God of

that religion but the practices and learning’s as well and that’s the first nuance, while the second nuance

is that Liturgy is the work of Christ done behalf of the people. It says here that Christ is the principle

liturgist, that He’s the one doing the work for the people because they are not able to accomplish

salvation at their own, and the Third nuance is that Liturgy is a work of God in which the people

participate. Based on the Greek word of Liturgy, we have to dig deeper and it tells there that the best

way to worship God is to imitate God, like example if your God is Poseidon so you have to go fishing or

do practices on water because Poseidon is the god of the sea.

Let’s go now to Filipino culture form Pre-Vatican up to the present. The Catholic Church in the

Philippines is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual direction of the Pope.

The Philippines is one of the two nations in Asia having a substantial portion of the population

professing the Catholic faith, along with East Timor, and has the third largest Catholic population in the

world after Brazil and Mexico.(State of World Population – 2003) The episcopal conference responsible

in governing the faith is the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines. Christianity was brought

to us by Spaniards in the early 16th century in Cebu. (- Patterns of Episcopal Power – 2011) According

to my research last 2017, the population of the Catholics here in the Philippines is about 84 million or

roughly 82.9% of the Filipinos. Since the colonial period, Catholicism has been the cornerstone of
Filipino identity for millions in the Philippines. Catholicism rapidly spread during the early years of

Spanish colonialism, in part due to a lack of otherwise centralized religious institutions, other than Islam

in the south, which might have challenged it. Its close associations with Filipino identity have placed the

Catholic Church at the heart of Nationalism, social justice, and other movements, while at the same time

have been associated with power, elitism, and exploitation at various points in its history. The first major

shift in the Philippine church which resulted from Vatican II was liturgical change.

Professor Kroeger contended that throughout the country, the translation of the Latin liturgy into

a variety of Filipino languages helped transform the Catholic liturgy and the Filipino communities. In a

word, the Filipinos took ownership of their Catholic liturgy and made it responsive to Filipino

sensibilities. Several musicians composed liturgical music, based upon traditional Filipino music. For

instance, Fathers Eduardo Hontiveros SJ and Manoling Francisco SJ explored native sources to create

Filipino religious songs and hymns. Hontiveros composed four hundred hymns in Tagalog while Sister

Narcissa Fernandez FMA composed hymns in Cebuano.9 For many the Latin Mass was beautiful but

isolating. While in the other religion like Christians, liturgy meant the public official service of

the Church, that corresponded to the official service of the Temple in the Old Law or old covenant.

There are a lot of changes in Liturgy in Filipino culture from pre Vatican to the present, one of this is

when you are a catholic the songs in the church is in Latin version when it’s still pre Vatican period, but

now there are several translations of the songs so we can understand. According to retired Bishop

Francisco Claver, Latin Masses engendered passivity. “It is hard to see the wisdom of making people

pray in a language they do not understand.”

IV
 - Conclusion -

I believe and I there for conclude that the change in the liturgy nowadays, is because of the

modernization of the people’s perception. The open minds of the people help us to know, from what is

right and what is wrong. It gives us the proper knowledge to choose in a particular matter. 2019 is the

19th year of the 21st century, If you would notice all the things around us is judged by the people whether

it is right or it is wrong, they’ll going to give you criticisms and a lot of judgements, especially here in

the Philippines. If you’re going to use one of your social media accounts, you can see things like

pictures, videos and posts judged by people and even the naïve ones. So the society is forced to adopt

people’s perception due to modernizations that leads us to a whole new world, that proves me that the

21st century is the century of the “weak minds” because they believe that if they pleases others they

might be appreciated more but the things is, the culture that our ancestors made is slowly fading,

changing and becoming modern, Also as you can see families are no longer celebrating Eucharistic

celebrations as a whole family so they are lack of knowledge on how to perform such things right. They

focus more on their time spending on their work or in the gadgets that they have. Philippines is also

introduced to various ways of giving praise to our God and I believe that the change of liturgy in the

Philippines is one way to oppose such problems our country is facing like Pre-marital sex, Divorce and

extra judicial killing.

References
Liturgy. (2005) In Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). United Kingdom, Oxford University Press.