Mary's House of Succor

One of the first things that a Filipino Catholic learns in childhood is to call the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mama Mary as if she were his own mother.  As he puts more years into his life, he will hear mass in chapels and churches and attend schools named in her honor, or at least learn of schools and churches bearing her name.  In chapels and churches, he will never miss her statues, garbed in a variety of attires and addressed by a myriad of names.  At home or in a beloved’s abode, he will see Mary gracing the altar.

When his life hits a low point, especially if he feels that he is about to fall into an abyss, he might cry to the Blessed Virgin like a distressed child crying for his mother.  Among Mary’s many titles, the Mother of Perpetual Help is one of the more popular choices for seeking heavenly succor, with her shrine in Baclaran drawing devotees estimated to number more than a million annually.

A survey of the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, colloquially known as Baclaran after its site in Paranaque City, will reveal it to be just like other major churches in the Philippines and around the world for that matter:  imposing in size and design and ringed by roomy churchyards cooled by shady trees.

On Wednesdays, Baclaran stops from being just another church as it blooms with countless prayers.  Wednesday is the day when devotees beseech the Blessed Virgin for favors or praise her in thanksgiving.  Wednesdays have answered the question why Baclaran has become an icon and a powerful symbol of the Filipino Catholic’s Marian devotion.

The Novena to OurMother of Perpetual Help has a nomadic history.  Iloilo owns the honor of the novena’s birthplace in the Philippines in 1946.  In 1947, the Redemptorists brought the devotion to Batangas and finally to Baclaran, Paranaque, in 1948.  The Baclaran Church could accommodate only 300 people then and 70 attended the first Perpetual Help Novena in Baclaran.

From that small church, Baclaran has grown into a shrine that can accommodate 2,000 people on the pews and another 9,000 or more packed in the nave, aisles, churchyard, and even standing in front of the altar itself.  From the 70 initial attendees, approximately 100,000 men, women, and children currently flock to Baclaran on Wednesdays for the novenas and masses that start as early as 5:30 A.M.  Thousands more visit after the last novena at 7:00 P.M, on other days, and at any hour that if one were to count each soul that visits Baclaran every minute and every hour of each day, he can come up with a staggering number.

As a testament to the devotees’ burning faith in the Blessed Virgin Mary’s power to intercede, 4,004 letters imploring the Blessed Virgin for favors of almost any kind were collected in one week of September 2011 alone and 621 letters thanking Mary for petitions granted were received at the same time.  Out of the hundreds of thanksgiving letters dropped weekly at the church, the Redemptorist community picks one letter to read during the novenas.  In that letter, a devotee will share the granting of his petition, inspiring more people to pray for their personal miracles.

Another survey of the shrine will reveal that Baclaran has become a microcosm of Philippine society because the privileged, the destitute, the famous, the unknown, the healthy, the ill, the desperate, and the grateful congregate on its grounds, praying one prayer yet expressing it in different ways.  In Baclaran, one can pray in any manner that he wishes – kneeling, standing, kissing the foot of the altar, praying alone or with the community, even knocking on the tabernacle while muttering a private prayer.

As the home of the Our Mother of Perpetual Help, Baclaran is always open and its lights shining bright for the faithful.  Because its doors are never closed, anybody tearful from the worries of the world can wander inside and discover why millions of Catholics have called it as the house of their Mama Mary.

-Prospero Pulma Jr. -