Our Lady of La Naval de Manila

The Grand Lady of the Philippines Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario La Naval de Manila Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary
Location	Quezon City, Philippines
Date	1593/1596
Type	Ivory, wood statue
Approval	5 October 1907 by Pope Pius X
Shrine	National Shrine of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, Santo Domingo Church, Quezon Avenue, Quezon City, Philippines
Patronage	Philippine Navy Quezon City
Feast day	Second Sunday of October

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary - La Naval de Manila (Spanish: Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario - La Naval de Manila; Tagalog: Mahal na Ina ng Santo Rosaryo ng La Naval de Manila; commonly known as Our Lady of La Naval de Manila, Santo Rosario, or La Gran Señora de Filipinas) is a venerated title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with the same image in the Philippines.

Filipino Catholics claim that the Virgin's intercession under this title helped successfully repulse invading forces of the Protestant Dutch Republic during the Battles of La Naval de Manila in 1646, in a fashion similar to the Battle of Lepanto of 1571. Pious believers also credit the Virgin through the icon with maintaining the Catholic faith in Philippines, which has the religious moniker "El Pueblo Amante de María" ("The Nation in Love with Mary").

Pope Pius X granted the image a canonical coronation on 5 October 1907. The Philippine government in 2009 designated the icon and its shrine as a National Cultural Treasure, making it one of the country's Cultural Properties.

Description[]

The statue enthroned above the main altar during the month of October.

Measuring approximately four feet and eight inches high, the body is made of hardwood in the cage or Bastidor style. The face and hands, as well as the entire Child Jesus, are made of solid ivory. Since its creation, the statue – considered the oldest dated ivory carving in the Philippines – has always been decorated with elaborate garments and a crown.^[1]

Some 310,000 individuals led by professors of the University of Santo Tomas, donated their heirloom jewels, gemstones, gold and silver to the image for its Canonical Coronation in October 1907. These now form part of the icon's vast collection of elaborate regalia, with some pieces dating to the 18th century.^[2]

Pontifical approbations[]

The statue has merited several papal honours, namely the following:

• In an undated 1903 letter to Archbishop of Manila Jeremiah James Harty, the "Rosary Pope" Leo XIII issued an exhortation for people to come in pilgrimage to the Virgin's shrine in Santo Domingo Church (then in Intramuros).

"...Go to the temple of Santo Domingo, to the sanctuary of the excellence of the Most Holy Virgin of the Rosary in the Philippines, to the place where your elders bent their knees to give thanks to her who liberated these Islands from Protestant heresy, to the spot consecrated by the piety of one hundred generations who had gone there to deposit their piety and confidence in Mary most holy...
Leone XIII, P.P. "

The Santo Rosario wearing her canonical coronation jewels and the famed Manto de la Coronacion much known as the Numero I.

• Pope Pius X granted the image a Canonical Coronation through Archbishop Dom Ambrose Agius of Malta on 5 October 1907.
• Pope Pius XII also sent an Apostolic Letter on the occasion of the tricentenary of the Battle of La Naval de Manila on 31 July 1946.
• Pope Paul VI proclaimed her Patroness of Quezon City (where the icon's shrine was built following the destruction of Manila in the Second World War) on 13 October 1973.
• Pope John Paul II dedicated the Asian continent to the same title, using a replica of the icon on 18 February 1981. The Pontiff blessed the original image the next day in another public Mass.

History[]

Procession before the enthronement of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of La Naval.

In 1593, the new Spanish Governor-General Don Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, commissioned a statue of Our Lady of the Rosary for public veneration in memory of his recently deceased father. Under the direction of Captain Hernando de los Rios Coronel, the sculpture was made by an anonymous Chinese immigrant, who later converted to Christianity; this is the commonly cited reason for the statue's Asian features. The statue was later given to the Dominican friars, who installed it at the Santo Domingo Church.

In 1646, naval forces of the Dutch Republic made several repeated attempts to conquer the Philippines in a bid to control trade in Asia. The combined Spanish and Filipino forces who fought were said to have requested the intercession of the Virgin through the statue prior to battle. They were urged to place themselves under the protection of Our Lady of the Rosary and to pray the rosary repeatedly. They went on to rebuff the continued attacks by the superior Dutch fleet, engaging in five major battles at sea and losing only fifteen members of the Spanish Navy. After the Dutch retreat, in fulfillment of their vow, the survivors walked barefoot to the shrine in gratitude to the Virgin.

Later, on 9 April 1662, the cathedral chapter of the Archdiocese of Manila declared the naval victory a miraculous event owed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, declaring:

Granted by the Sovereign Lord through the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin and devotion to her Rosary, that the miracles be celebrated, preached and held in festivities and to be recounted amongst the miracles wrought by the Lady of the Rosary for the greater devotion of the faithful to Our Most Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Holy Rosary.^[3]

Pope Pius X authorized granting the statue a canonical crown in 1906, which was bestowed by the Apostolic Delegate to the Philippines, The Most Rev. Ambrose Agius, O.S.B.. During the Japanese bombardment in 1942, fearing that the statue would be destroyed, church authorities hid the statue at the University of Santo Tomas until 1946, the 300th anniversary of the battles.

The statue was transferred in October 1954 to a new shrine built to house it inside the new Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City–the sixth Santo Domingo Church since its erection in the late sixteenth century. For this journey, devotees constructed a boat-shaped carriage (Spanish: Carroza Triunfal) to carry the image to its new home, which was declared her National Shrine by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.^[4] In October 1973, La Naval was formally declared the patroness of Quezon City, at that time the national capital. Filipino Archbishop Mariano Gaviola declared her Patroness of the Philippine Navy in 1975, a patronage invoked until this day.

During the People Power Revolution of February 1986, a replica of the statue was brought in procession to the Malacañan Palace by the Dominican friars, in a peaceful protest of the state of martial law instituted by President Ferdinand Marcos. The replica was also brought to the eastern gate of Camp Crame, the police headquarters where the rebel forces headed by Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos were confined during the uprising. Many Filipino Catholics attribute the revolution's peaceful victory to the miraculous intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary.^[5]

Filipino historian Nick Joaquín attributed one of the red jewels in one of the statue's crowns to an old legend of a giant serpent found in the Pasig River; the local folktale is more likely a metaphor of the triumph of Christianity over paganism.^{[citation needed]} The other crown was supposedly inscribed and donated by King Norodom of Cambodia in 1872, one having disappeared after a burglary in 1930 while another one was simply two pearls adorning the orbs of the statue.

Notable events[]

A replica of the image at the 76th Anniversary of the Court of Appeals of the Philippines in 2012.

The funeral service of former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was held in the image's shrine after his assassination in August 1983. Other notable funerals held in the shrine include those of renowned Filipino actor Fernando Poe Jr. in 2004 and Doña María Ejercito, the mother of former President Joseph Estrada in 2009.

Journalist and television personality Korina Sanchez married then-Senator Manuel A. Roxas II in a televised Spanish-style wedding in front of the image on 27 October 2009.

In December 2011, the Eternal Word Television Network featured the image as the "Grandest Marian Icon in the Philippines" on an episode of the programme Mary: Mother of the Philippines.

The image, its church and convent, along with the other objects stored in the complex were declared a "National Cultural Treasure" by the National Museum of the Philippines on 4 October 2012. This declaration is in accordance with Republic Act 10066 ("National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009") announced officially by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines and by the National Museum.^[6][7]

In 2020, for the first time in the shrine's history, the feast of Our Lady of La Naval was simplistic, lasted for 15 days, and did not involve the usual enthronement and other festivities, due to the threat of COVID-19 and prevailing quarantine policies in the Philippines.

Gallery[]

• 

  Enthronement of the image

• 

  Pulpit of the shrine in use during a service

• 

  Mass celebrated by Fr. Giuseppe Pietro V. Arsciwals, O.P. (Rector) and Fr. Gerard Timoner (Prior Provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines).

• 

  Choir (orchestra)

• 

  Historic Declaration of Santo Domingo Parish as a National Cultural Treasure on 4 October 2012.^{[8][9][10][11]}

• 

  Nave and high altar of Santo Domingo

• 

  Faithful during the Declaration Mass

• 

  Processional banner of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of La Naval. Below the Virgin's image are the arms of Vatican City, the arms of the Republic, and the arms of the Dominican Order.

See also[]

• Catholic Church in the Philippines
• Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception
• Santo Niño de Cebu
• Our Lady of Manaoag
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Cubao
• Quezon City

References[]

External links[]

• Shrine of Our Lady of Guidance
• Shrine of Our Lady of Manaoag