A LETTER TO INA, NUESTRA SEÑORA DE PEÑAFRANCIAA Century After (September 8, 2124)

The Roman Catholic Archbishop

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Archdiocese of Caceres

September 8, 2024

Our Dearest INA, Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia,

We greet you today, as we your sons and daughters, your devotees celebrate your birthday.

As I issue this letter to you, dear Mother, with the intent of peering into the future, i.e., 100 years from now, it is awkwardness that I feel, coupled with hesitancy.

It is certainly not easy to trace the past - which is no longer, and understand it. Nevertheless, we continue to do so, with the hope that we may find traces of the ‘manus Dei’ or ‘digitus Dei’ (the hand or the finger of God). It is triply difficult, even more, to take a peek into the future - which has not yet happened. I profess: I am no prophet, nor have I any prophecy. I am a mere devotee who has but a dream and wish. A dream not even for myself, for I would no longer be even after the next quarter of a century. It would be presumptuous of me to endeavor to chart or even to predict a future not my own.

Thus, dear INA, let this letter be merely a prayer and wish. And if it the prayer expressed her be for our good and in accord with the will of the Heavenly Father, deign to intercede for me and us your devotees.

This year, We, as a community of disciples of Jesus, your Son and as your devotees, gratefully recall the canonical coronation of your sacred and miraculous image, as Nuestra Señora de Peñafancia, which happened a century ago. At that time, our parents and great grandparents, took you as Queen and Mother, for indeed it was through you that the Son of God, whom we recognize in the Divino Rostro, came into the world to save us. Through you, the Son of God become like us. Truly, you have always been our refuge and our hope in this part of the world.

Our celebration of the centennial anniversary of the canonical coronation is our way of re-affirming our recognition of you as Queen. We testify to your unfailing protection and guidance for all of us your children. The great number of devotees who come to Naga especially on September; the great number of devotees all over the world, who give honor to you, are proofs of love and recognition of you as our Mother and Queen.

We as a community of believers, as a local Church in Bicol, the entire ecclesiastical Province of Caceres, which include the dioceses of Legazpi, Sorsogon, Masbate, Virac, Libmanan and Daet, with all your devotees, renew the commitment we have made 100 years ago in 1924, when your miraculous image was canonically crowned here in the very same locality of Naga.

We commemorate your canonical coronation, O Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia, in a so-called digital period -a time of what some call the period of the 4th Industrial Revolution. We witness in our time great leaps in the advances of science, technology and in other field of human endeavor -advances which we never dreamed of 100 years ago. We behold in our time development which were unthinkable and which we never imagined possible.

In this part of the globe, and while we do not claim exclusivity, at this time, we continue to gather for annually, every September for the Traslacion and the Fluvial Procession. A great number of devotees, over a million people come to Naga for these two weeks festivities in honor of your Son the Divino Rostro and of your title as Nuestra Senora de Penafrancia.

While the center of the festivities is in Bicol, there are many parts of the globe where your Feast, Oh Lady, is also celebrated to this day. Where Bicolanos are, there we also find the devotion to you. And there, the Himno de Amor, ‘Resuene Vibrante’, first sung in 1924, continue to resound in your honor. It is my prayer and wish that this same song continue to resound 100 years more from today.

As we look forward to the next 100 years, here, Oh Mother and Queen, are my prayers and wishes:

1. May we remain as a grateful and remembering people, able to resist the temptation of self-sufficiency without God.

2. I pray and wish too that our achievements not lead us away from you, Oh Mother, but rather bring us closer to God, who has deigned to share his divine life with us, making us ‘imago Dei’ (image of God).

May our devotion, to you our Mother, be an expression of our desire to continue to work for peace and justice, equality and fraternity. We have no idea of the human situation 100 years from now, but may we keep the Faith, Hope and Love alive.

3. I pray and wish too that we, your devotees, continue to care for creation and the whole humankind, faithful to the command of the Lord, to love the weak, the poor and suffering and the oppressed. (cf. Matthew 25:40-45). For it is in them and with them that Jesus chose to reveal himself and the Father’s love.

In closing, You, dear Mother, have no claim to any great achievement, not to any authorship of a famed work of art nor bestseller, neither to a Nobel prize, or discovery of a universal theory; not any scientific discovery, economic theory, not to any sophisticated algorithm. You are but the humble lady from Nazareth, but yours is infinitely greater –you are the Mother of the Son of God, and our Queen.

Perhaps 100 years from now, if the Traslacion and Fluvial Procession are still done, there would be hovering cars. I really do not know, nor can I really care. But I hope and pray that the Manto –your Mantle of love and protection, may continue to hover over our heads, over our entire being. Assured of this in the next one hundred years, we are assured of God’s love. And no matter what the future brings, we will find ourselves in God.

O Mother and Queen, INA, Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia, these are my prayers and wishes. 100 years from now, may we still call upon you and Jesus, with joy: Viva la Virgen! Viva el Divino Rostro!

Archbishop Rex Andrew C. Alarcon, the 5th Archbishop of Caceres, venerates the sacred image of Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia after the Traslacion Mass and First Day of the Novena Mass in honor of Our Lady of Peñafrancia on September 13 at the Naga Cathedral. At the back of the Archbishop’s vestment, St. Joseph silently joins him in prayer to his Mother and Child. (Emil Valeza)

Your devoted Son,

+Rex Andrew C. Alarcon

Servus Tuus Sum

Note: A letter to Ina by Archbishop Rex Andrew C. Alarcon – The Penafrancia Devotion a Century Hence: A Letter to 2124 capped the lecture – series in connection with “Ina: Power and Intimacy” and formally opened the exhibition that will run from September 8 to October 7, at the historic Holy Rosary Minor Seminary, Naga City.

(Excerpts from Archbishop Alarcon’s Letter to Ina)