In the town they know it as the mass of the little birds, but it is the Eucharist on Easter Sunday in the church of San Juan Bautista, in the town of San Juan de la Rambla, sung by the birds that are placed the night before in different temple places.
There is no record of the date on which this unique tradition began, nor the person who promoted it or the reason. It is simply a custom that the municipality has inherited and that the neighbors keep delighted. Those who have birds take their cage every year. This year they have five songbirds.
Martín Falcón, secretary and treasurer of the Martín Rodríguez Cultural Association for the defense and dissemination of the historical, artistic and environmental heritage of the municipality, recalls that since the 1950s, when he was an altar boy, birds were taken on the afternoon of the eve of resurrection to place them in different places of the temple and they stayed in the church all night, because the owners put the birdseed and the water in the cage.
The next morning, at the Resurrection mass, motivated by the lights of the temple, the songs, the presence of numerous people and the smell of incense, the birds begin to chirp. There is always one who motivates others to sing.
“Mine sang this year, which was nice”, “mine was not far behind”, “well look, this year they sang”, are the usual comments that are heard when leaving the church by parishioners and neighbors, given that the ceremony, due to its simplicity and naturalness, attracts even the least believers.
As an anecdote, he relates that, on one occasion, Manuel Navarro Mederos, a parish priest who was in the municipality, said that “the one behind the altar wouldn’t let him preach, because he wouldn’t stop singing.” The celebration always begins on Saturday night with a vigil in the church square in which the candles are blessed. The Easter fire is lit, the priest proceeds to bless it, lights the main candle and this is passed to the candles of the attendees, which are extinguished when the lights of the church are turned on and the religious ceremony begins. “These are customs that have an endearing flavor and that are valued even more with age,” says Martín Falcón, who also defines himself as a “parishioner and neighbor, available to help coexistence.”
To the mountain to collect beech branches
The same Saturday, a group of volunteer neighbors goes to the mountain to collect beech branches to decorate the processional route the following day, to which are added the red hangings on the windows and balconies of the houses through which the procession passes, accompanied of the Blessed Sacrament and the music band. “They eat together, have fun, have a glass of wine to celebrate friendship and then place the beeches, more than 400 branches along the way, which is also a custom from many years ago,” says Falcón.
The long-awaited misa de los pajaritos, which is also attended by many local boys and girls, marks the end of Holy Week every year. The birds flutter in their cages, which hang from the walls of the temple and with their trills. In addition, they celebrate Easter and the joy of the resurrection.
