In July 2002, while the good townsfolk of Barrio Capalangan in Apalit, Pampanga, lay sound asleep in their beds in the predawn chill, the Espiritu ancestral house—a stately bahay na
HISTORICALLY, writes National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, the devotion to the Santo Niño (Holy Child Jesus) “outranks all others because the first church in the Philippines was built to
This week, we celebrate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s amazing how so many Filipinos have developed such an intimate relationship with her through prayers and devotion. Perhaps it is because we live in a matriarchal society, and the image of a protective and loving mother is one we can relate to easily.
Late in the afternoon of Feb. 3, 1945, advance elements of the US 1st Cavalry Division rolled into Japanese-defended Manila and liberated Malacañang Palace first and then Santo Tomas Internment Camp.
La Naval de Manila is an expression of a popular religiosity with a difference: It has minimal, almost imperceptible signs of emotionalism, sentimentality, and other seemingly irrational and odd behavior quite common in some popular devotions.
“I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me. Insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.” (Galatians 2: 19b-20)
Without a doubt, the most popular and most widespread Catholic devotion in the Philippines is the Santo Niño, the devotion to the Holy Infant of Jesus. Proof of this is that while having originated from the Visayas, it has fanned out to all the ends of the archipelago.
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