Source: Sinulog in New Zealand Facebook page
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Devotees of the Santo Nino in New Zealand are celebrating the Feast of the Holy Child Jesus as an organized community for the 26th consecutive year.
“Let us offer our halad, the Sinulog dance prayer, as an act of adoration and thanksgiving in this 26th year of our devotion to Senor Santo Nino in Aotearoa,” says Oscar Batucan, one of the founding organizers, as he invites the Catholic faithful and the wider population to the annual event which begins this week.
Aotearoa is Maori for “The Land of the Long White Cloud,” which refers to New Zealand.
Similar to its observance in Cebu, the Sinulog festivity in the southern hemisphere country’s most-populated city of Auckland highlights both religious and cultural activities.
Novena Masses will be held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at the corner of Federal Street and Wyndham St., Central Business District of Auckland, New Zealand every 7:30 p.m.from January 10 to 18, 2020, except on Sunday January 12, wherein the Novena Mass will begin earlier, at 7 p.m. The Holy Rosary will be prayed 45 minutes prior to the respective Masses.
The religious-cultural Santo Niño Fiesta and Sinulog in New Zealand will be celebrated on January 19, 2020 at the EventFindA Stadium (previously known as North Shore Events Centre) at the Wairau Valley suburb, North Shore City, Auckland. The day-long activity begins with a procession at 9:30 a.m. followed by the Mass. The celebration climaxes with the dancing of the Sinulog.
According to the NZ–Filipino Devotees of Señor Santo Niño (Sinulog NZ) website, “the tradition was brought to Auckland in the late 1980’s by an ardent devotee to Señor Santo Niño by the name of Alice Smith, assisted by Mila Rigby and Allen Villamor. Devotions were held in designated people’s homes for many years and have grown in number until in 1993, when Miriam Batucan, Mila Rigby and Alice Smith came together to initiate public devotions to the Holy Child Jesus in Auckland, New Zealand.”
The first public celebration of the Sinulog was held in Auckland on the third Sunday of January, 1994 at the Mt. Roskill War Memorial Hall with around 400 people in attendance. The Mass was followed the traditional fiesta lunch and a presentation of songs of dances.
The highlight of the presentation was a famous Sinulog dance number performed by the organizers themselves. The Mass, the dancing of the Sinulog, and lunch salu-salo of Filipino dishes prepared by the participants have since become mainstays in the format of the celebration of Sinulog in New Zealand.
“Because of numerous requests and the growing number of devotees each year, the group decided to hold weekly novena/masses in honour of Señor Santo Niño and started reaching out to those in need. With this came about the need for an organisational status to help promote our charitable activities. This prompted the formation of the NZ – Filipino Sto. Nino Devotees Trust,” the website revealed.
Oscar Batucan, a Cebuano who is a Justice of the Peace in New Zealand, is credited as having put the organization together as a Charitable Trust.
The Sinulog celebration in New Zealand in 2018 was captured in this three-minute video produced by the Light Per Second, shown here with the permission of the New Zealand–Filipino Devotees of Señor Sto. Niño organization.
WATCH HERE:
Catholicism has maintained a solid presence in New Zealand and is among the larger Christian denominations there.
In the country’s 2018 Census, over 37 percent of the respondents declared they were of the Christian faith. Among Christians 10.11 percent professed they were Catholics, 6.76 percent Anglican, 6.61 percent Christian (not further defined), and 5.21 percent Presbyterian, among others. Over 44 percent of census respondents indicated they were affiliated with a certain religion; some 48 percent answered they practiced no religion.
For more about the devotion to the Santo Niño in New Zealand, please visit the website: www.santo-nino.org for more details. /elb