The season of Advent and the Pinoy parol

The season of Advent and the Pinoy parol

Nov 27, 2011 (The Manila Times – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –
Christmas celebration in the Philippines is said to be one of the longest in the world for Filipinos start their Yuletide season as early as September–the first in the so-called “ber” months. Radio stations start playing Christmas carols and department stores, streets and homes put on Christmas decorations and glow at night with Christmas lights.

It is wrong to equate the start of the Christmas season with the commercial start of the Christmas-shopping frenzy.

But it is also wrong to think, as many Catholics ignorant of correct doctrine do, that the Christmas season begins today.

In the Church’s liturgical calendar, what starts today is the Season of Advent. The Christmas season comes later–on Christmas Day.

This day, November 27, is this year’s first Sunday of the Season of Advent. Advent is a proper name, just like Christmas, Lent and Easter.

The true start of the Christmas season

Advent is the period of preparation for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas Day. Christmas Day is the true beginning of the Christmas Season.

The first Mass of the Christmas season is the Midnight Mass of December 24, which properly begins at midnight and continues until the first hour of December 25, Christmas Day.

But for convenience’s sake, and to allow people either to sleep or have their Noche Buena feasts, the Midnight Mass, which is properly called the Vigil Mass of the Nativity of Our Lord, is held on the evening of December 24–earlier than midnight.

The Church’s liturgical season of Christmas is from Christmas Day to the Sunday after the Epiphany (or The Feast of the Three Kings or the Three Magi), the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, which signals the end of the Christmas season.

The Monday after the Sunday of the Baptism of Our Lord is the beginning of the first segment of the Church calendar’s Ordinary Time, when there is no marked liturgical season. The next season is Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday.

Preparing for Christmas Day

The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us Advent is a period beginning with the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle (Nov. 30). It is a period of preparation for Christmas, extending over four Sundays before Christmas Day. During this time, the faithful are encouraged to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord’s coming.

In many Western countries, the passage of the four weeks of Advent is often coupled with the tradition of lighting an Advent wreath or Advent crown. An Advent wreath is usually an evergreen wreath with four candles and often, a fifth, white candle in the center. Each of the candles is lit as each week passes while the fifth one is lit on Christmas Day.

Proposed replacement for Advent wreath

“Although coming from the Protestant traditions of Europe, the practice of having Advent wreaths in Catholic homes and churches has been adopted by many of us in the Catholic Church,” Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas noted. While the archbishop sees nothing wrong with the Advent wreath, he said he wants an alternative to the Advent wreath “that may be more relevant and meaningful for the Filipino Catholic.”

“In consultation with liturgists who advocate for Filipino expressions of our Catholic faith, we want to offer the PAROL NG HALINA as an alternative to the European Advent wreath,” Villegas said.

According to him, each of the four parols (lanterns) may be lighted at the start of every week in the Advent season, the third parol being colored rose or pink while the three others are purple as usual.

With the introduction of the Parol ng Halina, he said, the practice of having a white lantern travel from one end of the church to eventually stop on top of the Crib — signifying the Star of Bethlehem that the Three Magi followed –during the Christmas midnight Mass will also become more relevant and meaningful.

“The parol (lantern) which is usually designed as a star, recalling the Star of Bethlehem, is perhaps the most popular symbol of our Filipino Christmas tradition. It calls to mind the search of the wise men in the Gospel of Matthew,” Villegas said in a circular addressed to priests in his archdiocese for their consideration.

He also stressed that the lantern can also help the faithful remember the account of creation as when God created the star to light the night; and recall the promise of God to Abraham, who was told that his children will equal the number of stars in the sky. The star, specifically the six pointed star, he added, has been used to symbolize King David.

“I propose the [use of the] Parol ng Halina for your consideration. The important matter to remember is to help our people celebrate meaningfully the Advent season in a way that is truly Catholic and truly Filipino,” Villegas concluded.

If the proposal of Archbishop Villegas gains support and eventually becomes part of the tradition among Filipino Catholics, Christmas celebration in the Philippines will definitely be more distinct and different. The Church must however make it clear that the first parol must be lighted in the first week of Advent (usually covering the last days of November and the first days of December). And no, not as early as September.

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Catholic mass to undergo biggest change in 40 years

Are Roman Catholics ready for the biggest change in four decades in their mass?

Canada is one of 11 English-speaking countries in which tens of millions of Catholics will begin Sunday to adopt the Vatican’s English translation of the old Latin liturgy, altering what they will hear, recite, sing and do during their main church ritual.

The date, Nov. 27, marks the first day of Advent and the beginning of the Christian calendar.

The Vancouver archdiocese is among hundreds busily trying to educate the roughly 400,000 Catholics in the region about what to expect, including an English-language version of the penitential Latin “mea culpa.”

The revised mass is being praised by most Catholic leaders and traditional faithful as more “reverential” and “scriptural.” However, thousands of other Catholics, including some bishops in the U.S., Ireland and Australia, are criticizing it as “archaic” and “convoluted,” with some worrying the theology is too “exclusivist.”

Almost every line of the Catholic missal, the book of texts and prayers used in the mass, will be changed in some way from the English-language

vernacular liturgy adopted in the 1960s during the Church’s modernizing era, called Vatican II.

Most Catholic bishops are excited about the more “authentic” language of the newly translated English-language mass, which is closer to the liturgical Latin that was used for centuries. They have called it “more noble in tone” and “elegant.”

For instance, when the priest says to the congregation “The Lord be with you,” worshippers have for the past 40 years responded: “And also with you.” They will now be expected to say: “And with your spirit,” which aims to emphasize the priest’s role as a channel of God.

Instead of saying Jesus Christ is “one in Being” with the Father, worshippers will be asked to recite the more technical term; that he is “consubstantial” with the Supreme Being.

Although Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller acknowledges the new translation “will entail a period of adjustment,” he is asking parishioners to pray that the new mass will bring all Catholics closer to God.

Despite widespread efforts to inform churchgoers, a public opinion survey by Georgetown University of Washington, D.C., in August found three-quarters of American Catholics did not know about the sweeping liturgical changes, which will also herald the return of formal terms such as “inviolate,” “ignominy” and “oblation.”

Among those Catholics who are aware of what is coming, one of the most talked-about elements is the return of the “mea culpa” practice of what was once called breast-beating.

Will Canadian Catholics – including those who attend church infrequently, or the many new immigrants from the Philippines and East Asia who are predominant in Metro Vancouver – embrace this vivid aspect of the old Latin past?

More than 50 years ago Catholics were expected to recite the confession of sins, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” The new English translation now asks them to admit their sins by saying, “My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault,” while softly striking their chests with their fists.

Overheard, out and about, Mrs. Grundy sees all, tells all – Andalusia Star

Overheard, out and about, Mrs. Grundy sees all, tells all

Published 12:00am Saturday, November 26, 2011  Email This PostComments

Peeping through my Venetian blind, I noticed the beautiful Indian summer out of doors. I think an Indian summer – a warm spell in autumn after the first cold – is my favorite time of year. If I had my choice about dying, it would be in an Indian summer. I would wander off into the woods and sit down on some fallen, moss-covered tree trunk, the colorful leaves, like a throw, all about me, and nod off into a peaceful sleep.

Colonel Covington and his sisters, Miss Cora, Miss Dora and Miss Flora, had several of us as guests at Covington Hall this past Thursday for Thanksgiving. Among their guests were my particular friends, Mrs. Gotrocks of Greenville, Miss Birdie Purdie, Miss Priscilla Primme and her beau, Mr. Topper Propper.

Colonel Covington spoke before dinner of the history of Thanksgiving, read scripture from the Bible, and led us in prayer.

After an abundant meal we sang Thanksgiving songs such as “We Gather Together,” “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” “Let All Things Now Living” and “Thanksgiving Day” (“Over the River and Through the Woods”). Miss Dora accompanied all at her piano. She also accompanied herself as she sang “Bless This House.” I think of the House as being God’s House of Worship and all in it.

Our menu included turkey and dressing with giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, English peas, chicken and dumplings, sweet-potato casserole, ham, corn-on-the-cob, fruit salad, stuffed eggs, stuffed celery, potato salad, field peas, beets, butter beans, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, Sister Schubert rolls, fried bread, turnip greens, pineapple casserole, carrot salad, broccoli salad, green-bean casserole, parsnips, roast with potatoes, carrots and gravy, and collards.

Desserts included pumpkin pie, sweet-potato pie, apple pie, pecan pie, red-velvet cake, butternut cake, pound cake, lemon pie, chocolate cake, egg custard, cocoanut cake and banana pudding.

I am somewhat disappointed that the Golden Square of the “Dimple of Dixie” so soon lost its fallish look. I had expected the Square to look more “Thanksgivingish” until Thanksgiving was over. November was barely half over when Christmas decorations went up. That’s efficient and economic, and the decorations look neat and attractive; but I wish we wouldn’t rush the holidays. Life goes by too fast as it is.

Seen at Tabby D.’s for the lunch buffet were Esker and Ann Thomasson, Judy Holmes, Maggie Shelley, Dorothy (Mency) Miller, James and Janelle Jones, Mickie Riley, Larry and Vicki Popwell, Marvin and Janette Britt, Elmer and Myrtice Davis, Randy Wahl and his mother, Betty, Greg and LaMargaret Cotter and John and Rosilyn Croft.

The Crofts, who grew up in Evergreen, and I had an extended conversation about their recent trip to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to see their son, who is enrolled there. We spoke also of a common acquaintance, Sara Pate (Mrs. Sigurd Bryan), who was John’s next-door neighbor when they grew up in Evergreen. We talked, too, of John’s older brother, who has just retired.

Have you tried the turkey pot roast at Tabby D.’s? It’s good!

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, why not read or memorize from this most popular edition before 2011 ends. We have only about a month left, gentle reader.

Again, I ask that each citizen of Andalusia join the Covington Historical Society and pay its annual dues of $25 so as to help preserve the history of our county, whether you attend meetings or not. Mail to CHS, P.O. Box l582, Andalusia, Alabama 36420.

To commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States, let us return to this week l50 years ago.

The Confederacy gained a new secretary of war, Judah Benjamin. Captured Confederate commissioners to England and France, Slidell and Mason, were shipped from the Atlantic to Boston while the federal leaders debated what to do with them. Their capture had created bad feelings from England and France, something the federal government had wanted to avoid. The North gained a foothold on Tybee Island, Georgia, which gave it seaward control over access to Fort Pulaski and its defensive position near Savannah. In west Virginia a constitutional convention met to form a new state, West Virginia, from that part of Virginia that had seceded from the “Old Dominion.” (Put the two states together in your eye, using a modern map, and see just how big a state Virginia used to be.) A Confederate ship, the CSS Sumter, seized federal ships in the Atlantic. Elsewhere there were military conflicts between the North and South.

Remember to buy Sesquicentennial and Mark Twain stamps.

This week’s mysterian walks with a staff.

Birthdays this past week included George Eliot and John Harvard.

George Eliot is the pseudonym (pen name) for Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, who wrote Silas Marner, a book “everyone” used to read in school. That book used to be something the generations held in common. “Everyone” used to know why “Eppie in the coal hole” was so funny. I merely mentioned Silas Marner to my one-time landlady, Mrs. W. M. Thweatt, five decades my senior; and she immediately responded, “Eppie in the coal hole.” We both broke out, laughing.

John Harvard is the man for whom the oldest university in America is named.

Some time back I was quoting from a biography of one of our locally known and beloved farmers, John D. Stokes, written by his daughter, Gail Segrest of Huntsville. I have space now to pick up with more from that delightful account. Mr. Stokes speaks.

“Very few people had cars before the l930s, because they couldn’t afford the 10-to-15 cents per gallon of gas. Some of the early cars came by mail order in a ‘kit’ and had to be put together by the owner.

“We used a one-mule wagon. A good, two-mule wagon would go about four-and-a-half miles per hour. A surrey with two horses or mules would carry six-to-eight people.

“My first trip to Montgomery was in a Model-T Ford truck, carrying a load of cows. We left at about nine in the morning and got there after dark. Luckily, I got to ride home in a fairly new Model-T Ford car; and the trip was much easier. No nearby roads were paved, so car travel was rough and slow. I was nine (in l925) when I first saw one of them ‘flying machines’ I had heard so much about!

“Medicines that were used at home included aspirin, whisky, castor oil, camphor (for fever blisters), Watkin’s liniment, and asafetida gum with whisky poured over it to dissolve it.

“One day when I was a little fella and was sick, Mama sat me on a stool and gave me a dose of asafetida (with whisky). In a moment or two I fell off the stool!

“The doctor would come to people’s homes. If the family couldn’t pay, he would give them credit.

“In the early 1930s Mama was sick and had to have surgery. Uncle Frank, her brother, had a ’28 Chevrolet and drove her to Montgomery – dirt roads all the way. She stayed in the hospital 12 days. The bill was $25.

“One of the most tragic things that happened in our family was in 1937 when my brother Hamp became very ill with a kidney infection. The doctor did everything he could, but Hamp passed away at the age of 23, leaving a wife, Pauline, and two small children, Randall and Betty. This was a short time before the drug penicillin was available, which would have cured him. Hamp was two years older than me; so, we were very close.

“Many women died during childbirth because of a lack of medication and a shortage of doctors.

“There was no money for the services of a funeral home. The body was washed and saturated with camphor with no embalming. Funerals were held quickly because of this.

“Coins were placed on the eyelids to keep the eyes closed – so the saying, ‘He was so crooked he would steal money off a dead man’s eyes.’

“The men of the community would dig a grave and build a wooden casket. The wood was soaked in hot water so it would bend into the proper shape. The women would line it with a velvet cloth. A pine box was built to place the casket into. The casket was lowered into the box with a rope.

“One death I vividly remember from when I was 8 or 9 was caused by a horrible accident that happened the day after Christmas. Dad took Hamp and me to move some cows from one field to another. We had gotten near Mama’s Uncle Jim Fuqua’s house and suddenly heard guns popping and loud screaming.

“Dad left us and went to their house. We waited and waited for a long time and had no idea what had happened. Finally, it got to be dinnertime, and we went to Mr. Oscar Andrews’s house. Uncle Harvey Jacobs had told several neighbors that Albert and Walter Fuqua (teenage brothers) were hunting when Albert started to shoot a bird. His finger slipped off the trigger, and the shot had taken off the top of Walter’s head.

“Dad had stayed with the family and helped prepare the body for burial. Later other men in the community built a casket and dug a grave. Dad kept the grave-digging tools under our house.

“Cedar Grove Church of Christ began in my granddaddy’s (Burrell Jackson Stokes’s) home the year I was born. Brother ‘Tip’ Grider helped establish it. Later the small group began meeting at the Adellum Schoolhouse for regular services and in l9l9 built the first church building in the same location as the present building.

“The men wore overalls to church (they didn’t have suits). A preacher would come twice a month and was paid $2.50 each time. The first communion set was wooden and had glass cups that had to be washed. The loaf was baked by Mama, and a white tablecloth was spread over the communion table. Mama washed, starched, and ironed the cloth every week.

“Later on my wife Mildred took care of the loaf, communion set, and tablecloth. The visiting preachers would stay at our house, and we always enjoyed them. This continued for many, many years.

“I began serving as treasurer when I was eighteen. The collection was usually about two dollars (to be continued, Lord willing).”

Sometimes, gentle reader, it’s hard for me to type the words of Mr. Stokes. I knew him and loved him, and his humble way of talking “gets to me” and tears fill my eyes. God bless Gail for the hours she spent in recording her daddy’s life and God bless Mr. Stokes for the good life he lived. He’s a Thanksgiving blessing day after day.

Now, gentle reader, allow me to encourage each of us to be in his place of worship this weekend, Lord willing. Count your blessings, gentle reader, and fare thee well.

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‘Religion should be abolished’

Reading Jennifer Johnston is a little like remembering — about how things used to be and how much (hopefully) they have changed. Born in Dublin in 1930, Johnston lived enough of her life in Catholic Ireland to experience the damage religion did to a whole generation of people.

In her 17th novel, Shadowstory, she takes on the topic of ‘ne temere’, the old command that for a Protestant to marry a Catholic they had to sign a solemn vow to raise any children resulting from that marriage in the Catholic faith.

“A whole two generations of Protestants lost their identity because of this. My mother’s next sister up had to go to Holyhead to get married because not a priest in Dublin would marry them because he was Catholic.

“What’s strange about that family is they had four children, three of whom threw the church over their shoulders anyway, and the fourth one became a sort of mad wannabe popeman,” she chuckles.

Johnston is a formidable woman, tall and rangy, with a no-nonsense air. She can be softly warm and sharply witty, depending on what or who she is talking about. She looks nothing like her 81 years, her only concession to age a flower-patterned cane propped against her chair.

Her father was the playwright Denis Johnston and her mother was an actress (Shelah Richards), which informed her own choice of career — “my father was a writer, so it wasn’t a strange thing to do”.

“Having had two of my four children and having been living a very agreeable life in london I suddenly started to get itchy inside my own head. My husband gave me a little Italian typewriter with a soft leather cover, I remember it so well, and when the children went to school in the morning I would sit down and I would bang away on this typewriter and I wrote a play.”

She gave the play to her mother — “I don’t know whether it was a sensible thing to do or not because she could be quite acerbic; she was a great lady but you were never sure with her what way she was going to jump” — who sent it to her agent in London, who then called Johnston in to see him.

“So I went round, I saw him and he said, ‘it’s a terrible play but you’re a writer, now go away and write me a novel’.”

She went on to win the Whitbread Book Award for The Old Jest in 1979.

Religion has always been a strong theme in Johnston’s books, especially the divide between Irish Catholics and Protestants. It’s not surprising, considering she experienced life as a sort of ‘second-class citizen’ herself as a Protestant growing up in 1930s Catholic Ireland.

She still remembers the effects religious horror stories, perpetuated by children and adults alike, had on her young self. “My parents didn’t have my brother and myself baptised because they wanted us to make our own choice when we reached an age. Unfortunately, they didn’t tell us this.

“When I was about 13 our local curate came up to see my mother one evening and said, ‘it’s about Jennifer being confirmed’. My mother started to laugh and I thought ‘uh-oh’.

“She said, ‘but she hasn’t been baptised’ and the curate nearly died. I was a very overimaginative child and I stopped going to school on my bicycle because I was convinced I would be run over by a bus and dead in limbo!”

She says she ‘fiddled around’ with Catholicism a bit in her teens.

“There was this thing that was thrown at you, ‘you’re not Irish because you’re Protestant’. Don’t be daft,” she says now, although you can still sense a sort of aftertaste of how much that accusation must have stung all those years ago.

“Personally I think that religion should be abolished and I think when you look around we’re doing not too bad a job of it in this country at the moment. It’s all just moving and about time, too.”

Shadowstory by Jennifer Johnston is published by Headline Review

Originally published in

Waambieni Watu (Kenyan Catholic Music)

Catholic mass changes take effect this weekend

Catholic mass changes take effect this weekend

By Keller Russell

CREATED Nov. 26, 2011

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FOX POINT – In a church known for tradition, Saturday night’s service at St. Eugene started with the unexpected.

“You’ll definitely need the cards for the preface,” explained Father Jerry Herda, who prepped his congregation before mass began.

“We’re a people of tradition and ritual and so we get used to saying the same words over and over again,” said Herda.

For the first time in 40 years, some of those well known words inside the Catholic Church have changed.

That didn’t sit well with Sister Lucille Flores, initially.

“When I first heard of the changes, I was very negative because it seemed like we were going backwards,” said Flores.

But she warmed up to the idea, as she learned more about it.

“Mass isn’t changing. Mass is staying the same. We’re simply changing a few of the words to get a more exact translation of mass,” said Father Herda.

One of the most noticeable changes is parishioner’s scripted response to the priest when he says “The Lord be with you.”

They’ll now say, “And also with your spirit” instead of “And also with you.”

Father Herda got the congregation to laugh as they approached that part of mass for the first time, asking them “Are you ready?”

You’ll also hear differences in the priest’s prayers.

“What’s known as the Eucharistic prayer, a prayer at the altar as the priest blesses the bread and the wine, the wording of that changes.”

The Archdiocese asks for your patience.

“This is going to force us into an area where most people are not comfortable, which is change,” said Dean Daniels with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

But he and Father Herda are confident the temporary discomfort will only deepen your prayer life.

“This is an opportunity for us to take step back and really think about the words that we’re saying and ideally bring about a deeper faith.”

Catholic churches around the country are implementing the changes this weekend.

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Catholic Mass to get new text today

It was time to get out the reading glasses this weekend as the language of the Roman Catholic Mass changed for the first time in nearly 40 years.

The changes, based on a new translation of the Roman Missal, cleave more closely to the original Latin and was to debut throughout the English-speaking world on this, the first Sunday of Advent.

It is a season of watchfulness and, indeed, the faithful needed to pay greater attention to the prayers and responses they had recited by rote for decades.

“We have to be patient with ourselves and … we all hope to be patient with each other,” the Rev. Joseph Doyle said in his homily at The Roman Catholic Church of St. Anne in Fair Lawn on Saturday evening.

“If we are to break old habits, we have to be alert,” Doyle said. “When we pray and we pray in a new way, we may pay more attention to what we are doing and not just mouthing nice-sounding words.”

The bulk of the new language involves the parts recited by the priest during Mass. But there are some significant changes for parishioners as well.

There were a few miscues at evening Mass. In response to the priest’s blessing, “The Lord be with you,” about half the congregation went with the old “And also with you” rather than the new “And with your spirit.”

But, all in all, people seemed to embrace the changes as they followed along on laminated sheets provided by the Archdiocese of Newark.

“It’s going to take a little time,” said John Vaughan, a parishioner at St. Anne’s for 45 years. “But it’s refreshing, it rejuvenates what we had before.”

Most agreed with their church’s theologians that the new translation better conveyed the weight of their faith.

“Whatever brings us closer to God is important,” said Mary Ann Macaluso, a longtime parishioner. “It’s great because it’s wakening our attention and making us more responsive and alert.

Her husband, Peter Macaluso, added, “Some of it seems minor, but nothing is minor when it comes to words.”

Closer to original

The church says the third edition of the Roman Missal, which contains the prayers and instructions for the Mass, is more faithful to the original Latin and more inclusive of scriptural reference. The missal also contains prayers used for special Masses, such as those for weddings and funerals.

Church leaders conceded that some of the language might take a while to master, since it is more formal and less colloquial. In the Nicene Creed, recited by those in the pews at Mass, the phrase “one in being with the father,” which refers to Jesus, will be replaced by “consubstantial with the Father.”

Imelda Cojuangco gives thanks for miracles

The press fell into a hush when philanthropist Imelda O. Cojuangco teetered into the Makati Shangri-La function room. Perennially sylph-like, she came in her signature style, clad in a white off-the-shoulder dress adorned with lace cutwork and a flounced hemline, matched with pearl jewelry.

Instead of the signature flower in her hair, she wore a chunky, silver coiled cuff with a big rose. Her hair was pulled back and coiffed to reveal delicate features highlighted by black liner and bright red lipstick.

“Hello, kumusta po kayo?” she acknowledged everybody in her whispery voice.

The occasion announced the activities of the Cofradia dela Inmaculada Concepcion Foundation, a charitable organization that not only subsidizes the Grand Marian procession held every first Sunday in December in Intramuros, but also the First Communion of underprivileged children and  the restoration of churches such as Sta. Ana.

“The aim of the Cofradia is to promote the devotions of the different titles of the Virgin Mary. We are celebrating the No. 1 feast of the Catholic Church, of the Patroness of the Philippines,” explained Conrado Escudero, chairman of the procession and comite de festejos.

In the late ’70s, after martial law, Escudero was helping out Dr. Jaime Laya, then head of the Intramuros Administration. Laya pointed out that Intramuros was the religious center during the colonial period and wanted to revive a major tradition. After research, Escudero cited the Immaculate Concepcion as the Walled City’s biggest fiesta. He then commissioned sculptor Amado Yuson to create the icon.

By tradition, the Grand Marian procession was conducted by the military and the Ateneo de Manila.  The military cooperated by parading in plain clothes so as not to give the impression of Martial Law.

Old-fashioned

“We wanted it to be old-fashioned—typical novena and fiesta and totally nonpolitical. At that time the rallies and processions were political,” recalled Escudero. “We started with six images; now we are fighting to maintain 80 images from all over the country, with all the rituals.” One of the highlights is the traditional Turumba dance from Pakil, Laguna.

Laya said that for the event to continue, it had to be subsidized by the private sector. In 1980, Cojuangco became the founding chair of the Cofradia dela Inmaculada Concepcion and its real-life icon.

She sat at the head table between Cofradia president Aurora Eizmendi and  Bootsie Violago who, with her husband Oscar, are sponsoring 1,000 first Communicants. The table included the hermanas mayores Lory Yulo, Cor Yulo Ebdalin and Baby Javelosa.

Earlier, the media was told that Cojuangco’s health was fragile. To prevent any risk of infection, she had to avoid close contact. “No kiss-kiss!” cautioned Marietta Santos, hostess of the press conference of the annual Grand Marian procession.

It prompted society columnist Johnny Litton to jest: “What you can’t do to her, you can do it in me! Twice!”

Cojuangco seemed to be in good health as she savored the Japanese meal and conversed with the guests at her table. When it was her turn to read her speech, she apologized for her hoarse voice. “Some of our friends have names like Concepcion, Rosario, Lourdes, Carmen, Amparo, Soledad. They are named after the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Lourdes, Nuestra Señora del Carmen,  Nuestra Señora Desamaparados, Nuestra Señora del Rosario… All these patronesses will be in the procession.

She went on: “The most venerated images will leave their homes and join us on this special Sunday, Dec. 3, on richly decorated carrozas accompanied by multitudes of devotees.”

Cojuangco pointed out: “I like to believe that with the Intramuros procession and all its activities, the Cofradia has succeeded in  reinforcing the  spiritual development among our countrymen,  intensifying devotion to the Blessed Mother and contributing to the easing of social anxieties, particularly among families and children, now challenged with separation arising from overseas employment of one or both parents.

“On this special occasion, we pray that Our Mother will cast special, loving eyes on our countrymen who toil overseas, and on millions of children who are left behind.”

‘Very loving husband’

As Cojuangco was about to take her dessert, Inquirer asked about the miracles in her life as the fruit of her devotion to Mama Mary. Her answers were sweet but very familiar.  “I had a very good, very loyal, very loving husband. Not one of my children took drugs or went with bad friends. They were all nicely brought up. That’s a miracle already. I’m so happy with my family, my grandchildren. Every Saturday we bond. They’re cousins who have grown up like brothers and sisters. No problems…”

She recalled: “Seven years ago, I had a very bad heart, which I did not know. I came from a retreat. When I got home, I felt bad.  I had to lie down. There was a telephone beside me. I didn’t know how to call my household helpers. I live alone because all my children have settled down.  After half an hour, the maid came in. ‘Ate Mel’—that’s what they call me—‘my mother is sick.’

“I couldn’t talk. I just said, ‘Talk to my brother, Ting.’  I called up my brother. He instantly brought me to the hospital. I pleaded, no operation. They found an aneurysm. They wanted an operation. Since I had told my brother that I didn’t want one, it was hard for him to make a decision. But he promised me. I was in the ICU for six months and the doctors passing by would say, ‘She will go.’ I mean, I was going to die. But I did not. It was a miracle. They thought I was not strong enough to hurdle the aneurysm. That’s a miracle.”

You could say that Cojuangco has been living on the blessings and good wishes of people whom she has helped unconditionally. Escudero explained: “We are adhering to our mission to help the poor and to get the devotion to the masa. We have helped many charities, to which Ms Cojuangco would always say, ‘Don’t tell anyone.’”

The First Holy Communion Mass is on Dec. 3 at 10 a.m. The Hermanas Mayores Mass is on Dec. 4, 2 p.m. at Manila Cathedral and the grand procession starts at 4 p.m.

We also recommend:

• Grand Marian procession on Dec. 4 to feature 90 ‘carrozas’

Coming Sunday: A change for the Masses

When the Rev. Paul Turner prepared a booklet titled “Understanding the Revised Mass Texts,” he began, “The words we say and hear at every Mass are about to change.”