Clapping of Hands during Gloria

At our Parish, there are a lot of eyebrow-raising gestures which I normally see when serving. During our whole liturgical calendar, I can give you more than 30 liturgical abuses which I see but just ignore. Some are just simply funny and dumb, but some are just plain wrong. I would like to label them my “Liturgical Pet Peeves” and I will give my first.

The Clapping of Hands while singing the Gloria.

Being a strong advocate of the tagalog liturgy, it breaks my heart that the suspects of this unliturgical gesture can be found during tagalog masses. At our parish, we have 5 tagalog masses; 5:30am, 7am, 12:15, 3:30pm and 6:30pm. Majority of the choirs sing the “Papuri sa Diyos” which I’m guessing the Music Ministry chose to synchronize or to standardize the songs being sung at our Parish. Although I’d prefer other songs than Papuri sa Diyos, I have no problem with it. It is an appropriate song for tagalog masses. But what I “hate” about it is that while singing the verses, people clap along with the choir, lectors, altar servers, the “extraordinary ministers of the holy communion” and worst of all, the mass presider. Personally, it seems like the solemnity, dignity, and beauty of the liturgy went on a bathroom break during the Gloria, then goes back after the song. It is just plain shameful and distracting.

Out of the five choirs only one is exempted from this unliturgical gesture, the Knights of Columbus choir (I don’t know if they know that it is unliturgical to clap during Gloria) for the reason that they sing a different version of the Gloria which normally does not involve clapping. And just recently, the TFC choir. But I do not blame our choir. Maybe they were taught by their elders to perform this gesture during mass without consulting the Rubrics. If we were in a small community parish, I would have considered it as just a mistake or that the choir is not knowledgeable about this fact (Although I am not saying that there are exemptions. If it’s wrong, then it’s still wrong.), but for a Cathedral such as our parish, it is unacceptable.

Whenever I see or hear people clapping, it is a sure sign for me that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. We are not Mormons or Protestants. We are Catholics. And as Catholics, we should respect the liturgy. The Liturgy is not a place for us to invent and do our artistic renditions and interpretations, but rather a place to worship God.

Call me conservative, but I will never stop being a Liturgical Rottweiler while I’m still here as the head of our ministry. This write up of mine is both a suggestion and an appeal to our parish heads to help correct this stain at our liturgy and our beloved cathedral.


I beg you. This picture says it all.


Save the Liturgy, Save the World.



Live Jesus in our hearts…FOREVER!