Misa de Gallo

Misa de Gallo
Type	Mass
Classification	Roman-Catholic
Other name(s)	Shepherd's Mass

Misa del Gallo (Spanish for "rooster's mass", also Misa de los Pastores, "shepherd's mass;" Portuguese: Missa do Galo) is the Roman Catholic name for the Mass celebrated around midnight of Christmas Eve.

The tradition of midnight mass on Christmas Eve was first chronicled by Egeria, the Galician woman who went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land around 381–384. She witnessed how the early Catholics of Jerusalem honored the Christmas mystery with a midnight vigil at Bethlehem. This was followed by a torchlight procession to Jerusalem, arriving at the Church of the Resurrection at dawn.

Half a century later, Pope Sixtus III, inspired by the midnight vigil, instituted the practice of a midnight mass after the cockcrow in the grotto-like oratory of the famed Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. There are discrepancies, however, with the exact time of the cockcrow due to the fact that the ancient Romans set it at the start of the day.

In 1587, the head monk from the Convent of San Agustin Acolman, San Diego de Soria, petitioned the Pope to allow holding the mass outdoors because the church could not accommodate the large number of attendees at the evening celebration.

The tradition of Misa de Gallo is still observed today mostly by Spanish-speaking Roman Catholic countries in Latin America and in the Philippines.

In Spain, locals begin Christmas Eve by lighting small oil lamps in every home, then proceed to church to hear Midnight Mass.

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