Simbang Gabi: Faith before daylight

Before the sun rises, churchyards across the Philippines fill with the smell of puto bumbong and bibingka.

Breath fogs in the December air. The cold feels sharper when the world is awake ahead of schedule. Long before offices open and streets fill, Filipinos gather in the half-light for a ritual that signals the real start of Christmas.

Simbang Gabi, traditionally called Misa de Gallo or the Rooster’s Mass, is observed daily from 16 to 24 December. In many parishes, Mass begins as early as 2:30 a.m. and ends before 5 a.m., while anticipated evening celebrations from 15 to 23 December allow those who cannot rise before dawn to take part.

Yet, the final Mass on Christmas Eve retains the old name Misa de Gallo, a nod to the hour when roosters announce the morning.

The practice dates back to 1669, during the Spanish colonial period, when priests adapted church schedules to the demands of an agricultural society.

Farmers working rice, coconut, and sugarcane fields began their day before sunrise, making evening novenas difficult to attend. Thus, the clergy moved the Mass to the pre-dawn hours, allowing worship before labor. What began as accommodation slowly hardened into tradition.

There were interruptions. In the late 17th century, a decree from the Holy See temporarily halted the practice as part of a wider restriction on hymns in native languages.

After the death of Archbishop Felipe Pardo of Manila, pre-dawn Masses were resumed. By the 19th century, Simbang Gabi had become firmly embedded in Filipino religious life.