The Church in the Mall.

LEFT - Sta. Ana Church in Manila

Left Below - Santiago de Compostela in Spain

First cousins Elaine, Lorna, Jun, Bebot, Kirth, and Abe took us "four balikbayans" to Trinoma in Q.C, then to Greenbelt in Makati for some great food and conversation.

At Greenbelt, we went to visit the chapel and in progress was the Anticipated Mass for October 4th, Sunday. We were lucky because it just started.

On our way to a restaurant, one of my sisters said that was her first time to be in a church inside a mall. I told her there are several malls in Manila now which house chapels and hold masses.

I don't know if this church-inside-a-mall is a unique concept in the Philippines; all I know is that it is a very good idea. And I know this set up got started right after EDSA I when the EDSA Shrine was constructed outside the Robinson's Mall/Galleria. Then SM MegaMall built a temporary chapel, and other malls followed suit.

Today, even condominiums hold Sunday masses in their premises; residents don't have to travel - mass goes to their residences.

What do all these lead to or mean for us?

Are we blending personal entertainment and worship of God too much? Are we getting so lazy that we could no longer travel to go into God's House? Or have the merchandisers and developers gotten shrew-der that they started to use "religion and worship" as one of the "amenities and features" and USP's of their products?

Last Thursday, driving through Quezon Avenue, I passed by the Sto. Domingo church. And because of the traffic, I was across the church for a good ten minutes. I remember Sto. Domingo as the church where the late Sen. Benigno Aquino was interred after he was gunned down at the tarmac. It was the site of endless queues of people who went there to get a last glimpse of Ninoy. Cardinal Sin was still alive at that time.

I miss the great old churches of Manila. Sta. Ana Church of my childhood days; Quiapo Church to which my aunt took me on Fridays; San Antonio de Padua on Loreto in Sampaloc every Tuesday with my aunt; Baclaran on Wednesdays, with my aunt and mother, and the Paco Church in Plaza Dilao, the church of my alma mater, Paco Catholic School. And later on when I was already grown up, St. Jude by the Malacanan Palace on Thursday afternoons after classes in U.P. Diliman.

When I migrated to the U. S. and then to Canada, the first church I went to regularly was the Holy Cross in Steubenville. It was a small and modern structure; none of the grandeur of the Manila churches I used to go to. In New Jersey, I went to two churches - both old and big. And in lower/downtown Manhattan during my lunch break, I used to attend mass in a Presbyterian church for lack of a Catholic church. But soon, I found a Catholic church.

Of course, there was the occasional mass at the St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Avenue.

In Canada, my first church was St. Patrick's in Mississauga, then later, St. Anne's at Gerrard. Next was the Perpetual Help in St. Claire, then St. Anselm, and finally John XXIII and the St. Michael's Cathedral.

In Spain, the churches evoke so much of Catholic and Philippine history. Seeing them, you are transported in time and you'd suddenly realize that those were the churches where the friars sent to the Philippines probably came from.