RSSNAGA CITY, Philippines (UCAN) — Award-winning film director Marilou Diaz-Abaya has started shooting a movie about Bicol people’s devotion to Our Lady of Penafrancia, which began in the Philippines 300 years ago.
The fictional movie written by Diaz-Abaya is part of the Church’s celebration of the anniversary of the statue’s arrival in Naga City, Bicol.
Many people claim the statue has miraculous properties and the movie script centers on the healing of people and relationships in a family whose father is devoted to the Virgin.
Dominican Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi of Caceres phoned in a prayer from his hospital bed for the cast and crew who had gathered to start shooting in Antipolo yesterday [March 3].
He implored God and the Blessed Mother’s help to “touch the heart of those involved in this movie offering to Ina (mother)“
Father Wilmer Tria, a member of the anniversary publications committee, reviewed the movie script.
He told UCA News that he hoped the film would help the Church nurture the Marian devotion among young Catholics.
“We learned in a survey that young people’s concept of Penafrancia is more of a long vacation and street parties than of religious devotion,” the priest said.
Devotion to Our Lady of Penafrancia is believed to have begun in 1434 in Salamanca, Spain. The Penafrancia statue was brought to the Philippines by Spanish seminarian Miguel de Cabarrubias in 1710.
In 1924, Our Lady of Penafrancia was declared patroness of Bicol, in the southeast of Luzon Island.
Hundreds of thousands flock to annual pilgrimages centered around the shrine and cathedral in Naga City, the seat of Caceres archdiocese, on the third Saturday of September.
“Pilgrims belong to the older bracket…some joining organized pilgrimages around the Philippines and abroad,” Father Tria told UCA News.
Filipinos in California, New Jersey, New York and other places round the world also hold Penafrancia festivals.
Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona has approved the building of a shrine to Bicol’s patron at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Chandler, Arizona, Father Tria said.
A procession to transfer the ‘miraculous’ image of Our Lady of Penafrancia and of the Divino Rostro to the Metropolitan Cathedral in Naga City in 2009
PL09012.1591 March 4, 2010 36 EM-lines (334 words)
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