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Marilen Nakajima
ENG 101
April 2, 2016
The Sunday Mass

If there is one thing constant that I have been doing ever since I was a small child, it is my
going to mass every Sunday. The first time I went to church was two months after I was born,
cradled in my mother's arm I received the first holy sacrament of our Catholic Faith, the
Baptism. When I was weaned enough, my parents had started bringing me along with them, and
since we still lived with my grandparents around that time, together with them, every Sunday we
would all go to church to hear the Holy Mass.

When my grandmother passed away, my father continued with all the traditions she instilled
in him, most especially, the fulfillment of our religious obligation on the seventh day of the
week. It would be a ritual I would get accustomed to. Sunday would mean breakfast at 7, clean
up, wear something nice and wait for our mother until she finishes making herself up then get to
church early so we could find a seat nearer to the altar. In my country the Philippines,
Catholicism is practiced by majority of the people that the hourly masses on Sundays are jam
packed by churchgoers and late comers may have to content themselves in hearing the mass from
the entrance sides of the church. These days, tv masses are also becoming popular,
http://www.healingeucharistinc.com/.

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The Sunday Mass have etched special memories in my life, and as a matter of fact, to the
Filipinos as a nation. It is not usual to find houses empty of its inhabitants when the parish
church is holding a mass. It gathers a family together, and being a weekly routine, it gives more
time and ways to knit a closer relationship between parents, sons, and daughters. It is also a
means to teach values. I remember as little children arriving in church for the mass, our
anticipated misconducts would be restrained by our sitting arrangement. My mother would
choose a vacant pew, genuflect and enters the long seat while my two brothers and I follow. My
father comes last and will sit himself at the other end of the pew, the three of us then are
contained in the middle of them where we can either be hushed softly by dad or be tugged on the
ear by mom. Respect is a virtue I also learned first in my going to church. My mother's warning
to us before she or dad brings any of us out when we would start misbehaving was this, be
respectful, you are in church. Without defining the meaning of the word, I clearly understood
that it meant for me then to be silent because people were praying or that the priest was
celebrating the mass and I should not distract them. She would go further as saying that God is
looking at me even though she was pointing at the sculpture of a man, hanging on the cross from
the wall of the altar. He sees you, she would say, and that I must behave my best in front of
Him. We were allowed to play quietly with a handkerchief but had to participate in the alternates
of responses between kneeling, standing and sitting. The part where we have to say ''peace be
with you to each other was always a source of giggles, our parents would make us do the same
by manually turning our head to the same direction they would in greeting everyone around, in
the long run, we were doing it without the need of their hand, and it is a good feeling to smile
and receive a smile from somebody in church.

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What brought a sense of elation on my father's face after the mass never made me wonder
before, and I cannot ask him now who is resting in peace. He would just be happy and often
surprised us with a lunch treat or brings us somewhere to play. Remembering his cheerfulness
after the priests says, Go in peace, is a beautiful memory I have of him. What is in a mass that
gives one a sense of satisfaction, perhaps of having done a duty to feed the soul.

More than a religious obligation, we hear mass because our families are guided by its
teaching. There were times as children we would be quarreling and mom's way of pacifying is
by quoting the gospel from the mass. The priest gives homilies that repeatedly remind us of how
we must act as Christians towards others.

I want to imagine now how it would have been if this habit of Sunday morning did not even
exist in our lives. Would I be less conscious of the consequences of my actions? Would it be
harder to apologize if I had done wrong? Would I ever be thoughtful of finishing everything on
my plate because many people are hungry in the world? of being thankful for what I have? of
remembering people who sleeps in the streets, in jail, in pain of all kind? Would I ever think that
there is something after death and it can be something unimaginably beautiful or terribly scary?

Filipinos flock to church on Sundays, both the rich and the poor. If there is always a
distinction in everything these two classes have in their lives, the content of the Holy Mass is
exactly the same for both of them. Have you seen pictures of people from the Philippines

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smiling in front of what is left of their typhoon shattered homes? Of Filipino children having the
time of their life swimming in a pool of dirty flood water? Why in my country frequently
afflicted with calamities, whose majority of people live in dire poverty and hardship in life is still
a country known for hospitality and warm smiles? Where suicide is rare? Where camaraderie is
abundant? I myself wonder. Could it be traced from our source of strength? Of belief, of faith
that everything will be taken cared of by the Creator Himself? In hearing and knowing the
teaching of the Church?

A Japanese friend, Saki, once narrated to me how her thesis project made her volunteer in
PREDA, http://www.preda.org, a human rights social development organization in the
Philippines. She was assigned to live in the slums with a family of three children for five days.
She had never seen squalor quite like it but more shocking for her was the discovery that people
can live in a most miserable situation with hope, positive spirits, and laughter. She was so
touched by the experience that she ended her story with tears.

The teaching of our different religion are like paths which we can either follow or disregard.
How much worst can a society be if nothing can guide a mind to a freedom unrestrained from
unquenchable desires, selfish interests, of cruelty to animals, from innumerable sins. In my
country, 80% of the population is Catholic,
https://www.academia.edu/4649465/Religion_in_the_Philippines. Yet, Inequality and injustice is
as clear as daylight, crime rate is ever increasing, corruption in the government is a blatant fact
that continually robs the poor and the weak of a better kind of life. It seems like the teaching of

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the church are heard only by those who can smile despite adversities in life, the rest are
oblivious to their faith, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/tag/graft-and-corruption.

There are many problems afflicting the Catholic church http://mic.com/articles/28164/6issues-hurting-the-catholic-church-today, making people cringe, criticize, and even abandon
religion. The Sunday masses I have attended, the teachings I have heard and imbedded in my
heart, they have formed my spirituality, my values and the strength to distinguish what I believe
in from the people who have stained the belief. If only religions can unify the world, not one
religion trying to rule the world, would there still be misunderstanding, conflicts, war? I
remember my father saying religions are all the same, only God is in different representation? I
want to believe that.