SINULOG: Liturgy, Inculturation, and Devotion
On typical days, the principal celebration at the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu during the Feast of the Santo Niño has this order: First, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated solemnly and reverently by the good Archbishop of Cebu or his auxiliary, with the whole congregation actively uniting themselves with the celebrant offering the sacrifice on the altar by taking part in the singing, in the responses, and in sacred silence. This solemn celebration is then followed by the dancing of the traditional sinulog, wherein the whole congregation, as well as the priests, offers their petitions to the Holy Child through dancing, waving their hands, and raising their own image of the Santo Niño.
This devotional dance is clearly not a liturgical abuse (unlike recent innovations in the liturgy employing “liturgical dancing”). First, the sinulog dance is done outside the Mass, second, it is not a performance but a prayer, third, it is a tradition that predates the Vatican Councils and the Council of Trent — an immemorial custom
This was one of the ways the Western missionaries brought Christ’s salvation into these islands. The sinulog dance, which has its origins as a pagan dance for offering prayers to pagan idols, was then cultivated by the missionaries by having the Holy Child in place of the pagan idols. But then came another challenge — the natives were poorly evangelized (after the death of Magellan) to the point that they treated the Santo Niño as an idol (they knew less or even nothing about Jesus Christ). Thanks to the great zeal of the next missionaries, starting with those who discovered the image in 1565, the natives were taught about Christ, who is being represented by the image. The natives soon knew that their prayers are not intended to the lifeless image, but to its prototype — the Holy Child Jesus being represented by the image.
The National Artist Nick Joaquin says it this way:
“It came with Magellan, became a native pagan idol, was reestablished as a Christian icon by Legazpi, and has become so Filipino that native legends annul its European origin by declaring it to have arisen in this land and to have been of this land since time immemorial.”
Thanks to the zeal of the missionaries and by the grace of the Holy Child Jesus, the natives learned to offer dances as prayer to the Holy Child (and not to any pagan idol). The natives also learned that way beyond these devotional dances, there is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the highest form of worship to the Triune God.
This conversion of a pagan practice into a Catholic prayer is a great example of inculturation, which eventually paved way to the conversion of the whole archipelago to the Catholic faith.
Thus, in the present celebrations of the Feast of the Santo Niño, we see both liturgy and devotion complement each other: the Filipino people attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass — which takes its pride of place among other forms of prayer and devotion, thus, being celebrated reverently and following strictly the prescriptions of liturgical books — then afterwards, the Filipino people take part in the devotional practices in honor of the Santo Niño, the most common one is the sinulog dance — a dance which is a form of prayer (and not a performance).
VIVA SEÑOR SANTO NIÑO!
VIVA CRISTO REY!
NB: This story was originally published at www.facebook.com/dcfvanguardsoftruth
