Barcelona, 23 December 2022 - The Philippine Consulate in Barcelona visited six churches located in the autonomous community of Catalonia, including one located outside of Barcelona, the Tarragona Padres Carmelitas Church, from 16 to 24 December 2022, to celebrate the Christmas season with the Filipino community. The visits coincided with the churches’ respective Christmas services. During each visit, the Consulate brought with it a Philippine capiz parol from Pampanga to add a Filipino touch to the celebrations.
In Consul General Maria Theresa Lazaro’s messages to the community, she emphasized the Consulate’s readiness to attend to the needs of the community and ensure its unity. She also reassured those present by saying, “The Consulate may not always be present in your activities but we are with you in spirit, not only during the Christmas season, but throughout the year.”
The main part of the series of activities was the staging of the unity Christmas concert at the San Agustin Church organized by the Consulate in cooperation and participated in by the five parishes/churches it visited, namely: Parroquia de la Inmaculada Concepción y San Lorenzo Ruiz, Word International Ministries, Parroquia de la Mare de Déu de Betlem, Church of St. James the Lesser and the Parroquia de la San Pedro Nolasco. The event ended with a community singing and dancing of popular Christmas carols led by the Filipino Community Asociació Filipin Catala (Aficat) Dance Fitness Barcelona. After the concert, meals, provided by the Consulate and donated by Filipino restaurants in Barcelona, were distributed to the audience.
The well-attended concert shows the Filipino community’s pride over their roots, and their desire to reconnect with their home country. Not only did a big part of the community participate through performances but volunteers were also on hand to ensure the success of the event. Consul General Lazaro expressed her appreciation to all the heads of the congregation and choir members, as well as Filipino community organizations, who devoted their time and effort to make this first-ever unity concert a reality. The Consul General also said, “I hope that our celebrations this year will be a Christmas tradition in Barcelona for our community, to be continued in the years to come.”
The Navideña Filipina series brought fond memories for the community of the Filipino Christmas season and served as a means for second and third generation Filipinos to experience it firsthand.
For their part, the heads of the congregations expressed their gratitude to the Consulate for spearheading this series of Christmas events culminating in the Navideña Filipina sa Barcelona Concert on 23 December 2022. They felt honored to be part of this year’s Filipino community celebration which was the first time for different religious heads, including non-Filipinos, of Catholic and Evangelical congregations, to gather for a Christmas event of this magnitude.