As a Bikolnon, I have never really thought of our devotion to Ina, Our Lady of Peñafrancia, as something that you counted in years. You were born with it, as naturally as light of day, woven into our own lives. All that matters, year in year out, was the next September when you could go back to her shrine in Naga to give thanks for all God’s blessings she would have interceded for you by then.
Thus, in a way, life for us as Bikolnons is much like a traslacion that eventually culminates in a fluvial procession to the Basilica, that is, we carry the burdens of life with Ina until we could sail through everything towards that grandiose welcome in God’s home in everyone’s heart.
Indeed, if there’s one thing that marks the true Ina devotee, I believe, it is this forward-looking, hopeful outlook, coupled with dogged determination. To beat all the odds for God’s greater glory. Oragon!
Verily, the overarching theme our beloved Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi has slated for the tricentennial in 2010 of our devotion to Ina is: “Growth in Holiness under the Mantle of Ina.”
Archbishop Legaspi has also marked 2007-2008 as “Remembering the Gift of Devotion to Ina,” 2008-2009 as “Renewing our Faith through Ina,” and the final year 2009-2010 as “Sharing the Future in Hope.”
For sure, all of us have intimate personal histories of Ina’s abiding watch over our lives. From miraculous cures and conversions to inner peace and enduring strength in tackling the challenges of each day.
Surely, too, there’s a host of small and great tasks that we can step up for to secure that better future for ourselves, our children, and future generations.
Of course, the one obstacle that has long bedeviled us is the scourge of massive, grinding poverty right in our midst.
“What is poverty, legally speaking, but a string of misfortunes: poor living conditions, unhealthy housing, homelessness, failure - often - to appear on the welfare rolls, unemployment, ill-health, inadequate education, marginalization, and an inability to enter into the life of society and assume responsibilities? The distinguishing feature is that these deprivations - hunger, overcrowding, disease, and illiteracy - are cumulative, each of them exacerbating the others to form a horizontal vicious circle of abject poverty.” (Leandro Despouy, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, 1996)
On this note, we can join the rest of the world in achieving with INA what has become the rallying point for global efforts to respond to the world's main development challenges—the 2015 UN Millennium Development Goals, to wit:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
VIVA LA VIRGEN!
VIVA!
Happy Fiesta!
