Why 9 Days?

Many people especially non-Catholics question the significance of 9 days of Simbang Gabi. Here are some of my reflections and opinion regarding the matter.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: How the Church Prays

In order for us to understand the the significance of 9 days of Aguinaldo Masses or Simbang Gabi, we have to understand first how the Church prays. We might think that praying is about telling all our woes and cries to God which is also a character of prayer. However, the Church has a sublime attitude in praying to God on top of the individual prayers of the faithful and that is by way of remembering.

Our Faith is Christological (History) and Eschatological (Future). Our faith is an act of remembering and an act of hoping.

The Church prays by remembering the Christ-event and all the event that lead to it. This is the reason why the Mass is the highest form of prayer. It is the highest and efficient way of remembering because it does not only reminisce the past bur it also brings the past into life in the eternal now of God. How? By remembering.

Remembering is a central spirit of the Jewish people. In fact, all the customs are about the past coming to life. For instance, in Deuteronomy 8:2, God tells the Israelites to “remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.”

In fact, remembrance in the Jewish understanding has a character of continuity and just a matter from a dead past. In Exodus 20:8, God commands that the sabbath be remembered not as a matter of memory but as a matter of obligation. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

In the New Testament, Jesus makes the same command: “Do this in memory of me” in Luke 22:19. St. Paul Reechoes this in1 Corinthians 11:23-26. In the resurrection, the Beloved disciple entered the empty tomb along with Peter and saw and believed because he remembered the words of the Master that he will be raised on the third day.

That being said, we go to the connection of 9 days.

THE BIBLICAL SYMBOLS OF 9 DAYS

9 days has a significant role in the festivities of the Jewish culture as well as in the life of the early Church in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Number 9 has been used for: Purification, Fulfilment, and Waiting.

A Symbol of Purification

In the Old Testament, 9 is a symbolism of holiness. We will hear that in Leviticus 23:32, the Day of the Atonment or the Yom Kippur begins on the 9th day of the 7th month. The Day of the Atonment is one of the solemn days in the Jewish religion because it is the day or period whereby the people are purified. The days that precede it are days of preparations.

It symbolizes Fulfilment

It was said that Jesus died on the Cross at the ninth hour of the day. (Mark 15:25) Jewish civilization begins the day not at 12:00am but at 6:00am.

A Symbol of Waiting

Leviticus 23 16 gives the date of the Jewish Festival of Pentecost as occurring fifty days after the Passover Sabbath. On the basis that the Jewish Passover began on the evening of Good Friday then Pentecost was the Sunday 7 weeks after Easter Day,

Acts 1 verse 3 tells us that the risen Jesus was seen by His apostles for a period of forty days. Beginning on Easter Sunday, as the first day, we get that the fortieth day was a Thursday, which the Church celebrates as Ascension Day. (In practice it is often celebrated on the following Sunday for convenience.)

Acts 2 verse 1 tells us that the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost, that is on the Sunday ten days after the Ascension of Christ. This is why the “Christian Pentecost,” is always exactly 7 weeks after Easter Day.

In short, the 40th day after the Resurrection is the Ascension, and the 9th day after the Ascension is the Jewish Pentecost. Pentecost comes from the Greek word for “fifty” since it occurs fifty days after the preceding holiday, Passover. (Leviticus 23: 9-16)

In that 9 days after the Ascension and before pentecost, the early Church, including Mary (Acts 1:13-14) must have remembered their encounters with the Lord during his post-resurrection appearances.

THE NOVENAS

The Church took this Biblical significances of 9 days and used it as a pattern for preparations of high feasts in the Church such as the birth of Jesus Christ, the Novenas in preparations for the feasts of Mary and the Saints. Thus we now have Novenas or Novem in Latin which mans nine.

In all these, may we never forget the essence of the 9 days on the first place. As we go for Simbang Gabi today, may we remember that the spirit of these 9 days is the pursuit of holiness. This is achieved in the very essence of biblical usage of 9 days: purification, sense of fulfilment, and waiting. After all, these are the spirits that define Advent season.

So that when the Lord comes again, he will find us pure in heart, fulfilled in faith, and patient in waiting.