Waray songs to be sung at papal Mass in Tacloban

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—Pope Francis speaks six languages and the language of the Roman Catholic Church—Latin—but he may need a crash course in Waray if he is to understand what the choir will be singing when he celebrates Mass in Tacloban City next January.

The choir, composed of singers from the various parishes of the Archdiocese of Palo, will sing Waray songs during the Mass.

“Ha Imo La” (Yours Alone), “Halad Ko” (My Offering), “Lamrag” (Light) and “An Dios Gud La” (God Alone) are among the songs that the choir has been practicing since August, according to Fr. Raymund Cipriano Mazo, head of the archdioces’s committee on liturgical music.

Children watch from above the Tacloban City Convention Center at the tent city. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Mazo said the Vatican had suggested that songs in the vernacular be sung during the Mass at the Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport.

Mazo, parish priest of St. Jude Thaddeus in Tacloban, organized the 250-member choir.

The choir is also practicing songs in Latin such as Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus” (Hail, True Body) and “Panis Angelicus” (Bread of Angels) and a song by Melvin Corpin, a local composer, which was sung during the Diamond Jubilee of the Archdiocese of Palo last year.

The group will have a grand rehearsal in Tacloban City on Dec. 14, two days ahead of the start of the Simbang Gabi, the traditional series of Masses celebrated at dawn leading up to Christmas.

It will meet again on Jan. 16, a day before the arrival of the Pope in Tacloban.

Pope Francis will be in Tacloban and nearby Palo town for seven hours on Jan. 17, 2015.

In Palo, Francis will share a meal with 30 survivors of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) at the Archbishop’s Palace, bless the Pope Francis Center for the Poor, and meet with church leaders and seminarians at the Cathedral of the Lord’s Transfiguration, popularly known as the Palo Cathedral.