BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Indulge me today as I call attention to a centuries-old Marian tradition in my country, the Philippines, which celebrates today a feast that commemorates the patronage and protection of Our Lady of the Rosary.



Manila's Feast of La Naval,
'Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario'


The Battle of Lepanto, Paolo Veronese, c. 1572, oil on canvas, 169 x 137 cm, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. The painting depicts the battle as a vicotry of divine intervention.

In the sixteenth century, along with the arrival of the Dominican friars in the Philippines, came the devotion to the Holy Rosary.

The famous naval Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where Catholic forces through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary decisively defeated the Muslim Turks threatening Christian Europe, was a testimonial of faith carried by Spanish missionaries sent to the colonies of America and Spain's far-flung colony in the Far East, the Philippines (named after Philip II, in whose reign Ferdinand Magellan reached the islands and planted the Cross alongside the flag of empire).

With the victory at Lepanto and Our Lady’s protection in mind, the friars hastened to propagate the devotion to the rosary in the Philippines. Along with the rosary was her image, the most popular of which was that of Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario (Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary), La Naval de Manila. [The Spaniards occupied what is now Manila in 1565, so the Battle of Lepanto which took place in 1571 was almost immediately incorporated into the Catholic tradition begun by Spain in the Philippines.]

Since then, the Second Sunday of October has been dedicated to the Feast of 'La Naval', by which the image and the feast are popularly klnown. The image was canonically crowned on October 1907 with a mandate from Pope Pius X, the first Marian canonical coronation in Asia. On her feast day in October 1973, La Naval was declared Patroness of the Philippines.

Carved in 1593 by a Chinese artisan who later on became a convert to Catholicism, the venerated image now enshrined (since 1954) at Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City (metropolitan Manila) is considered the oldest ivory carving in the Philippines.

For centuries before that, it was venerated at the Dominican mother church in Intramuros, the medieval walled city built by the Spaniards at the site of the village occupied by the pre-Hispanic rulers of Manila. Intramuros - which was the only late medieval walled city existing in Asia - was reduced to rubble by American bombs in the final weeks of their effort to flush out the Japanese occupiers in World War II. {An unnecessary military decision which wiped out almost 400 years of history, and an unspeakable cultural crime for which I, as a Filipino, who was unable to see that cultural legacy, will never be able to forgive the United States.

In 1646, when Dutch invaders tried to gain possession of the Philippines, the protection of La Naval de Manila was believed to have helped and guided the Spanish fleet. Before each of the battles, the intercession of Our Lady was fervently sought. Crew members – Spanish soldiers, religious, and Filipinos – vowed special homage to Our Lady for a victorious battle.

With five battles to face against the Dutch, the Filipino and Spanish forces won despite being shorthanded with only two merchant galleons to fight eighteen Dutch warships. They vowed that if they emerged triumphant, they would make a pilgrimage to the church – barefoot.

On April 9, 1662, sixteen years after the successful defence of Manila, these five battles were proclaimed miraculous by the Cathedral Chapter of the Archdiocese of Manila. The Council consisted of theologians, canonists, and prominent religious. After studying all the written and oral testimonies of the participants and eyewitnesses, the Council declared that the victories, “granted by the Sovereign Lord through the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin and devotion to her Rosary, that the miracles be celebrated, preached and held in festivities and to be recounted among the miracles wrought by the Lady of the Rosary for the greater devotion of the faithful to Our Most Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Holy Rosary”

In gratitude since then, processions and novena masses in honor of the Blessed Mother have become a tradition.

The image suffered damage during the 1762 pillage of Manila by British troops. In 1942, during the Second World War, the image was transferred from the Santo Domingo Church in Intramuros to the chapel of the Dominicans' Pontifical University of Santo Tomas which had a new campus away from Intramuros.


From left: The image; old Santo Domingo church; the ruin after World War II; the new Santo Domingo church. Below, the image in the old church, and at its new shrine.


The old Santo Domingo Church in Intramuros was completely destroyed as were all the mother churches of the Spanish orders that had come to the Philippines in the 16th century. The image of La Naval remained at the Santo Tomas chapel until 1954 when the Dominicans were finally able to complete the new church of Santo Domingo in Quezon City, a large and prosperous suburb adjoining Manila itself.


'La Naval' in procession.

I am sorry I cannot find photos online of the great pre-war La Naval processions in Intramuros, much celebrated in Philippine literature by one of our greatest writers in English.