Pope Francis sent a clear message to the World on May 13, 2013, the 96th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima’s apparition at Cova da Iria in Portugal: he spent the first day of his election as pope at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome.
The pope venerated the basilica’s famous icon of Our Lady—Salus Populi Romani—which was believed to have been painted by Saint Luke, the Evangelist. He “placed his pontificate under the patronage of the Madonna”.
The Blessed Virgin Mary is not only Mother of the church and the Queen of Heaven, All Saints and the Earth. She is Mediatrix of All Graces and, above all, the Mother of God.
Mary is Theotokos
When God revealed Himself, He showed how great is His love for man. He came to redeem man through His only Son Jesus. And Jesus looked like us.
Mary’s fiat made it possible. “For when in the beginning of the human race, the parents of mankind fell into sin, Mary was set up as the pledge of restoration of peace and salvation”, Leo XIII said in Encyclical Augustissimae on September 12, 1897.
Jesus the Truth, the Life and the Way is Mary’s Son. She willed to be the Mother of the Redeemer, knew what it meant and from the beginning kept it all in her heart. Mary is truly the cause of our joy. She is Theotokos—the Greek term for God-bearer or Mother of God, from Theos, meaning God, and tokos, meaning bearer—a title ascribed to Mary in the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD.
‘Here is your Mother’
At the foot of the cross, Jesus gave His own mother to be our mother, too. Since then, her only desire as mother of the disciples and apostles of His Son and Holy Mother church is the salvation of man.
So, through the centuries, the Mother of God came to warn mankind on how displeased God is with man’s sinfulness. Her message is the same—the need for repentance, reparation for sins and prayers.
It is not a surprise then that Jesus, on December 10, 1925, told Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima: “I want My heart to be honored side by side with the heart of My Mother.”
OLA is 300 years old
On May 12, 1991, with the approval of Vatican, His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin and Rev. Fr. Agustin Cuenca, OFM, parish priest, canonically crowned Our Lady of the Abandoned (OLA), patron of Santa Ana Church in Manila. One of the oldest images of Virgin Mary in the Philippines, it was brought in 1717 by Rev. Fr. Vicente Ingles, OFM, from Valencia, Spain.
With the myriad problems that beset the world, the wellness in body and spirit of the people are affected, too. Filipinos and even foreigners flocked to the OLA shrine, not to complain but to strengthen their faith that God and His Mother truly loves them, desires only what is best for everyone and in God’s time will untie knots of concerns, as Mediatrix of all Graces.
Marian country
Hundreds of parishes from the barangays to conclaves of the rich have Marian titles. Even Filipinos who live in foreign lands come home for spiritual renewal to attend her feast day as Our Lady of the Abandoned in Santa Ana, Manila; in Penafrancia, Naga City; Piat in Cagayan Valley; Manaoag in Pangasinan; La Naval in Quezon City; Divina Pastora in Gapan, Nueva Ecija; Lady of Light in Cainta, Rizal; Lady of Sorrows of Turumba in Pakil, Laguna; Lady of Rule in Opon (now Lapu-Lapu City), Cebu; Lady of Remedies in Malate, Manila; Our Lady of Guide of the Way in Ermita, Manila; Our Lady of Caysasay in Taal, Batangas; Lady of Dinagat in Surigao; and Nuestra Señora de Salera in Aliaga, Nueva Ecija, among others.
To honor her apparitions in other countries, churches also abound, such as Fatima, Immaculate Conception, Loreto, La Sallete, Lourdes, Carmel, Guadalupe and Mother of All Nations.
It is no wonder then that the Philippines is called the Marian country of the world.
****
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.