Rosary campaign for Corazon Aquino’s healing launched

Published Date: May 1, 2009

The late Cardinal Jaime Sin’s former secretary is leading a prayer campaign for former president Corazon Aquino’s complete healing from cancer.

Corazon Aquino (file photo)

In a letter sent to media on April 30, Bishop Socrates Villegas of Balanga invited all Catholics in his diocese, just west of Manila, as well as all rosary devotees, to pray the 20 mysteries of the rosary and receive Communion every day from May 1-May 13.

Bishop Villegas called for the prayers after learning that Aquino may undergo surgery sometime in May, according to Manila archdiocese’s communications director Corazon Yamsuan.

Bishop Villegas wrote in his letter: “I personally know how devoted President Cory is to the rosary and Our Lady of Fatima. Let this prayer crusade be our expression of love for her and our expression of faith in the Lord.”

May 1, the date of the prayer campaign’s launch, marks the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. It ends on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, who appeared to three shepherd children in Portugal in 1917.

“When I was private secretary of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, I had the privilege to meet with Sister Lucia, one of the Fatima visionaries,” Bishop Villegas wrote in his letter. “The saintly visionary told Cardinal Sin to give President Cory a rosary that Sister Lucia herself made in the monastery. She told Cardinal Sin to tell President Cory that ‘you, Corazon, are a blessing for the Philippines,’” the prelate continued.

Sister Lucia died at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2005, at the age of 97.

Aquino, 76, was installed president in 1986 after a Church-led people’s uprising in Manila deposed President Ferdinand Marcos and paved the way for restoring democratic institutions he had demolished. She served as the country’s first woman president until 1992. In March last year, her children announced she had colon cancer.

Her spiritual adviser, Jesuit Father Catalino Arevalo, said Aquino was in “good spirits and improving health wise” when he visited her last week. “While Mrs. Aquino has great devotion to (Our Lady of) Fatima and has asked for prayers to bring about a total cure, she has placed her trust in the Lord and will accept gracefully whatever the outcome is,” the priest said.

In his invitation to prayer, Bishop Villegas also suggested people do acts of charity for the poor such as giving alms.

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