Feast Of The Black Nazarene

The Image Of The Holy Black Nazarene So Loved and Honored By Many Pilgrims

Crows Flock To Witness The Processions of the Black Nazarene 

          Today, January 9 is the feast day of the Black Nazarene. Nine (9) million devotees and pilgrims are expected to come, and witness the procession and activities during the day of the feast considered to be the biggest religious feast celebration in the Philippines. On the eve of the feast celebration, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila which is the starting point of the procession the next day, to venerate, touch and kiss the miraculous Black Nazarene and camp their night out till the next day when an early dawn mass is held and the procession starts at sunrise where millions of devotees and pilgrims gather to witness the procession. Many faithfuls attested the miracles attributed to the prayers and veneration of the said sacred image from being healed and cured of their diseases to conceiving babies for those thought to be sterile and infertile to fulfilling their impossible dreams.
          The Black Nazarene is carried into the streets for procession in a shoulder-bourne carriage known to devotees as the andas (from the Spanish word Andar meaning "To go forward"). The devotees wear the colour maroon and walk barefoot as an act of penance for Jesus on his way to Mount Calvary. Traditionally, only men are permitted to hold the ropes pulling the image's carriage, but in recent years female devotees have also participated in the procession. These rope pullers are traditionally called namámasán. People who have touched the Black Nazarene are reported to have been cured of their diseases, and Catholics come from all over Manila to touch the image in the hopes of a miracle. Towels or handkerchiefs are hurled to the marshals and escorts guarding the Black Nazarene with requests to wipe these on the statue in hopes of the miraculous powers attributed to it "rubbing off" on the cloth articles.
          For the meantime, here is my own prayer to the Black Nazarene:

O most holy, most beloved Black Nazarene, thank you for all the blessings and graces you bestowed on us through the years. We thank you for the grace of life and health that you give us. We feel so sorry for all the transgressions and sins we committed and we humbly ask for your forgiveness as we strive each day for its reparation and as we struggle for a renewal of life of reformation, godliness affirmation and faith. We offer and entrust our lives with you and hope that we live our lives in accordance to your example and submit to your will. We ask for your guidance over us in everyday of our lives and shower us with your unconditional love and endless graces as we live a happy and fulfilling life and always save and protect us in all and every forms of danger of body and soul. We trust you and owe you our life, dear Lord. Amen.

          Here is a further reading and facts about the most sacred and revered Black Nazarene. Click the link below:       

  

Wikipedia: Black Nazarene 

          If you want to pray the Nine-Day Novena, click the link below:  

Novena To The Most Sacred Black Nazarene

* The Philippine National Police estimated more than ten (10) pilgrims and devotees attended this year's Feast of the Black Nazarene.    

Pedro Calungsod: The Second Filipino Saint Was From Iloilo!

Blessed Pedro Calungsod of Iloilo Will Be Canonized on October 21 by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. 

       Pedro Calungsod who will be formally canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City on October 21 will be the second Filipino saint and is the first Ilonggo saint. Pedro Calungsod was born in the Chinese District of Molo in Iloilo around 1654. His family and relatives were natives of the town of Leon in Iloilo and his father is a skilled goldsmith. Religious scholars and anthropologistswill have the biggest proof and unearth, uncover the truth behind the real birthplace of Calungsod. I don't want to make any lies or false claims much more to a holy individual such as Pedro Calungsod. It felt so pathetic and so desperate for other places to claim Calungsod as their own that they repeatedly claim him as their own for a thousand of times in the local media and news over the same sensationalized and unconfirmed claims. I have admiration and respect for such veneration and honor they bestow on Calungsod but desperation of claim as their own is not counted so sorry but they look so hapless victim of desperation for fame and popularity without solid evidence. He studied in a school for boys in Iloilo and went to Cebu to serve as a catechist and sacristan. In 1672, he joined Father Diego de San Vitores in a missionary work in Guam to preach among the natives and convert them to the Christian religion where he was martyred on April 2, 1672 in Tumon, Guam by the Chamorros, the native people of Guam who still exist up to this day.
       Canonization through a religious ceremony is the final step towards sainthood. Pedro Calungsod was beatified on March 5, 2000 by then Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City and was witnessed through a LIVE broadcast by millions of people around the world. Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, the Philippines' first saint was canonized in 1987 by Pope John Paul II. Another Ilongga servant of God from Iloilo, Sister Maria Beatriz Del Rosario Arroyo is also expected to be beatified in the future. Pedro Calungsod feast day is April 2. 

This Is An Interesting Reading About Pedro Calungsod:
Pedro's Story Lives On In Iloilo by Nestor P. Burgos, Inquirer Visayas

Pedro’s story lives on in Iloilo
By Nestor P. Burgos Jr.
Inquirer Visayas
8:18 pm | Saturday, October 20th, 2012

ILOILO CITY, Philippines – Since she was a child, Ana Calunsod-Arquillo has known well a story told by her father, Cornelio, and handed down through at least eight generations: One of their ancestors—a young boy—died with a priest on a Pacific island centuries ago.

The story goes that a 7-year-old boy disappeared after he boarded and hid in a Cebu-bound Spanish ship docked near what is now Molo District in Iloilo City. When he was discovered by the crew, a priest took him under his care.

The Calunsod clan of Molo believes that this boy was Blessed Pedro Calungsod, who is to canonized at the Vatican on Sunday, the second Filipino saint.

Arquillo, the seventh of 11 siblings, says Pedro was the son of Rufo Calungsod, a goldsmith. Rufo is a namesake of her great-grandfather, who was also a goldsmith. She also has a brother named Rufo.

“We know that there are several other claims on Pedro’s roots, but we know deep in our hearts that he was from here and he was our ancestor,” says Arquillo, 63, a retired businesswoman.

The claim is supported by a Western Visayas historian, lawyer Rex Salvilla.

“The information that I have gathered and the circumstances during Pedro’s time point more to the claim that he was from Molo, Salvilla said.

Salvilla, past president of Iloilo Historical Association and president of West Visayas Historical Research Foundation Inc., researched the background of the Visayan martyr in the late 1990s on the request of then Molo parish priest Felipe Parian.

Parian had been directed by the late Jaro Archbishop Alberto Piamonte to conduct inquiries among the Calunsods in Molo about their possible relationship to Pedro Calungsod.

The other possible origins of Calungsod in Iloilo are the towns of Leon, Tigbauan and Oton.

Salvilla confirms the account of Catalino Arevalo in the pamphlet “Pedro Calungsod, Young Visayan Proto-Martyr” of an oral tradition passed from generation to generation among the Calunsods in Iloilo.

A “Calungsod boy went from Iloilo to Mactan Island in Cebu, joined the Jesuit missionaries who left for some island in the Pacific, and was killed with the Fathers,” Arevalo’s account goes.

Family elders told Salvilla that the family name of their ancestors during the Spanish time was “Calungsod.” This was confirmed by birth certificates at Molo Church, according to Salvilla.

The elders explained that the spelling of their last name was changed to avoid conscription into the Spanish colonial army and the Guardia Civil (national police).

Salvilla said the conscription was done through “quintos,” an annual raffle where the names of native males aged 18 and above were listed and drawn. Those whose names appeared in the fifth draw were recruited.

“To avoid being recruited, people slightly changed their surnames, like ‘Salazar’ to ‘Salarza’ or ‘Salard’ to ‘Saladar,’” Salvilla said.

The elder Calunsods said many of their ancestors fled to neighboring Negros Island to avoid conscription.

Salvilla said it was possible that children of the early Calungsods migrated to Cebu and Bohol islands from Negros. The change in the spelling of their surname from “Calungsod” to “Calunsod” could also have been the result of the corruption of names that stemmed from the difficulty the Spaniards had in pronouncing “ng.”

He cited the renaming of places in Panay, including of Ilong-Ilong (Iloilo), Ogtong (Oton), Batang (Batan), Jamindang (Jamindan) and Pangdan (Pandan).

Salvilla’s research showed that many members of the Calunsod clan lived in Barangay (village) San Antonio in Molo. There is a road in the village called La Compania Street, believed to be originally named La Compania de Jesus (Society of Jesus) where a Jesuit mother house may have once stood.

The Jesuit presence in Iloilo during the early years of the Spanish rule was also well established. Salvilla cited the first school for boys in the country, built in Tigbauan town in 1652 by Fray Pedro Chirino, a Jesuit.

Salvilla said Pedro Calungsod could have been taken by the Jesuit priests to Cebu, being the religious center at that time covering the Visayas and Mindanao, before he went with the mission to Guam.

Arquillo said she hoped that the truth about Blessed Pedro’s roots would be settled one day. “But we are happy all the same that we will have a saint so close to us Visayans,” she said.

Arquillo bought plane tickets to attend the canonization ceremony at the Vatican, but a pressing business engagement forced her to drop her plan. Three of her cousins from Iloilo and four from the United States, however, are in Rome for the event.

Arquillo also plans to install a life-size statue of St. Pedro in a chapel on Barangay San Antonio Street that she herself had donated. The image will be similar to the one she gave to the Molo church six years ago and displayed at the compound.

“My father, who had always believed in the story of our boy ancestor, would be happy now,” she said.
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