By Crystal Soriano

Simbang Gabi continues to draw full churches and crowded streets. Despite the ever-changing religious landscape, the tradition continues to attract crowds year after year. More than a religious observance, it has endured as a shared seasonal ritual—one shaped by connection, familiarity, and continuity.

The Filipino tradition, Simbang Gabi, or Misa de Aguinaldo, is a nine-day series of dawn masses held from December 16 to 24, beginning as early as 4 a.m. Traditionally, devotees attend to offer prayers for health, success, and family—carrying personal hopes into each morning. 

The practice endures beyond formal belief. Its meaning now lies less in doctrine and more in lived experience, persisting not as an act of faith alone but as a shared seasonal tradition. 

Even with demanding schedules and early mornings, many Filipinos continue to attend Simbang Gabi, often believing that completing all nine masses brings their wishes closer to fulfillment. 

For younger generations, its meaning now emerges in shared routines. Rather than simple devotion, it entails not just prayer but walking to church with peers, eating bibingka and puto bumbong, and marking the season together. These moments turn the early morning masses into a space of belonging, even as it competes with daily challenges that the younger generation face: academic pressure, work commitments, and busy schedules. Many young Filipinos are characterized as less religious, yet the tradition continues to draw them in through connection and community.

Passed-down traditions

For many students, Simbang Gabi remains meaningful not only as a religious practice but as a family tradition shaped by continuity and shared experience.

In an interview with FEU Advocate, first-year International Studies student Arah Joy Mercado shared how completing the nine-day mass—a tradition passed down through her family—has become a meaningful part of her Christmas experience. 

For Mercado, a nine-day dawn mass connects her to her family and their generational traditions, providing a sense of continuity and belonging.

“Simbang Gabi is worth attending for me because I find in it the sense of tradition and continuity passed down by my parents,” she stated. 

She described the atmosphere of Simbang Gabi as shaped by the cold weather, which makes the tradition feel more intimate. The Christmas spirit emerges in the choir-led church songs at dawn, the calm stillness of the early hours, and the growing excitement as attendees count down the nine-day masses.

Even with evolving perspectives among today’s youth, Mercado believes the tradition remains valuable for students, regardless of their faith.

“Students nowadays have their own perspective when it comes to religion. It is still valuable, whether they are religious or not. Aside from elders, students or the youth usually attend Simbang Gabi as often, each with their personal intentions,” the International Studies student shared.

However, this devotion exists alongside the pressures of student life. Mercado acknowledged that attending nine consecutive dawn masses can be physically demanding, especially amid academic responsibilities, work, and other commitments. 

Participation often requires a balance between desire, convenience, and obligation. While some students attend out of personal devotion, others are motivated by family expectations, social connection, or cultural tradition.

This diversity highlights how Simbang Gabi operates simultaneously as a devotional practice, a cultural ritual, and an institutionally reinforced tradition maintained through school programs, parish activities, and family habits—shaping students’ daily routines and collective memory. 

The tradition has also adapted to modern realities, with some attending masses online to account for busy schedules and long distances. While this helps preserve the Filipino Christmas tradition, it also changes its communal spirit, since shared physical presence cannot be fully replicated online.

Yet even in virtual spaces, the ritual continues to offer personal meaning, though the embodied, sensory, and social aspects—walking to church, seeing parol lanterns, enjoying festive treats, and spending time with friends—cannot be fully experienced through a screen.

Simbang Gabi remains a shared tradition open to anyone. For Mercado and many students, its value lies in continuity and layered experience—blending devotion, culture, and community.

The choice to participate is rarely simple; it is shaped by devotion and cultural expectation. Even as the tradition adapts to new realities, its essence endures: a shared sense of joy, presence, and celebration that defines the Christmas season for every Filipino.

Where the season comes alive

For many young adults, Christmas no longer feels as merry as it once did. Academic pressure and growing responsibilities often replace the carefree excitement of childhood, making moments of genuine warmth harder to come by. 

First-year Architecture student Rafael Luis Tungol is also a regular attendee of Simbang Gabi. As a young adult, he feels that Christmas does not carry the same innocence and joy it once did, and moments of happiness and purpose can be harder to find. 

But for him, this December ritual restores that sense of warmth and hope during the season.

“Seeing bright lights shine, families smiling and praying together, and the collective voices of the choir, accompanied by the cool breeze, somehow softens my heart and makes my day, making Simbang Gabi worth attending,” Tungol shared.

Unlike other Christmas festivities, the early morning mass offers a structured pause—a reflective space where familiar rituals, shared presence, and communal rhythms allow participants to step away from the demands of daily life. 

In this moment, silence, tradition, and togetherness create a rare chance to reset and foster a sense of comfort, hope, and renewal that can last beyond the season.

Tungol finds something uniquely alive in Simbang Gabi, a feeling that only emerges in those early, shared hours of the Christmas season.

“Seeing bright lights and families together, hearing mass songs sung by choirs, all joined together; it is an occasion like no other, something unique and extraordinary that makes us alive,” the Architecture student said.

His reflections highlight how this practice functions not only as a religious tradition, but also as an emotional anchor for young adults navigating changing perceptions of joy and purpose. 

Some students rise early and find hope, connection, and meaning in the tradition, while others struggle to feel its relevance due to busy schedules, different priorities, or distance from religious practice.

The warmth of Simbang Gabi is both immediate and layered. It offers a moment of solace in the early hours that can linger throughout the day, even as responsibilities resume. 

Unlike other Christmas activities focused mainly on enjoyment, this seasonal gathering blends reflection, tradition, and community, creating meaning that lasts beyond the Mass and stands out in the busy lives of young adults. It reinforces cultural identity, shared memory, and community bonds, allowing the churches to continue shaping the season even as celebrations fill the streets.

Its relevance lies in the continuity, comfort, and reflection it offers, especially for the youth who value spaces where culture, memory, and emotion can meet. Simbang Gabi allows young people to participate on their own terms, whether through faith, family tradition, or a search for comfort during the season.

In a time of shifting beliefs, Simbang Gabi still calls people to rise before dawn—some drawn by faith, others by the warmth of shared tradition. Amid glowing parol lanterns, festive streets, and shared prayers, the ritual continues, somewhere between true devotion and familiar habit, with its future uncertain yet enduring. 

(Illustration by Iya Maxine Linga/FEU Advocate)