Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage ( es, Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje; fil, Mahal na Birhen ng Kapayapaan at Mabuting Paglalakbay), also known as Our Lady of Antipolo and the Virgin of Antipolo ( fil, Birhen ng Antipolo), is a 17th-century

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

wooden image of the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

venerated in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. This

Black Madonna The term ''Black Madonna'' or ''Black Virgin'' tends to refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin. The Black Madonna can be found both ...

is enshrined in Antipolo Cathedral in the

Sierra Madre Sierra Madre (Spanish, 'mother mountain range') may refer to: Places and mountains Mexico *Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range in northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona *Sierra Madre Oriental, a mountain range in northeastern Mexico *S ...

mountains east of

Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila (often shortened as Metro Manila; fil, Kalakhang Maynila), officially the National Capital Region (NCR; fil, link=no, Pambansang Punong Rehiyon), is the seat of government and one of three defined metropolitan areas in ...

. The image was brought to the country by governor-general

Juan Niño de Tabora ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

via the

galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch W ...

''El Almirante'' in 1626. His safe voyage across the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

was attributed to the image, which was given the title of "Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage". It was substantiated later by six other successful voyages of the

Manila-Acapulco Galleon fil, Galyon ng Maynila , english_name = Manila Galleon , duration = From 1565 to 1815 (250 years) , venue = Between Manila and Acapulco , location = New Spain (Spanish Empire ...

s with the image aboard as its patroness."Diocese of Antipolo"
. CBCP Online."Our Lady of Antipolo (Birhen ng Antipolo)"
. Ministry to Filipinos, Diocese of Orlando. The statue is one of the most celebrated images of the

in the Philippines, gaining devotees since the mid-19th century, having been mentioned by José Rizal in his writings. From May to July each year, the image attracts millions of pilgrims from all over the country and abroad. In 1904, the image was taken down for the

Novena A novena (from Latin: ''novem'', "nine") is an ancient tradition of devotional praying in Christianity, consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days or weeks. The nine days between the Feast of the Ascension and Pe ...

anniversary of the dogma of the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth w ...

. Pope Pius XI granted her the Pontifical decree of

canonical coronation A canonical coronation ( la, Coronatio Canonica) is a pious institutional act of the pope, duly expressed in a bull, in which the pope bestows the right to impose an ornamental crown, a diadem or an aureole to an image of Christ, Mary or J ...

on 18 June 1925, which was carried out on 28 November 1926.

History

On 25 March 1626, the

trading ship ''El Almirante'' left

Acapulco, Mexico Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...

, carrying the newly appointed governor-general of the

Spanish East Indies The Spanish East Indies ( es , Indias orientales españolas ; fil, Silangang Indiyas ng Espanya) were the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1898, governed for the Spanish Crown from Mexico City and Madri ...

, ''

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

, who brought with him the statue. He arrived in Manila on 18 July 1626, and the statue was brought to San Ignacio Church of the

Jesuits , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

Intramuros Intramuros (Latin for "inside the walls") is the historic walled area within the city of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. It is administered by the Intramuros Administration with the help of the city government of Manila. Present-day ...

. When governor Tabora died in 1632, the statue was given to the Jesuits for enshrinement in the church of Antipolo, which was then being built in the present-day

barangay A barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), historically referred to as barrio (abbreviated as Bo.), is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district, or ward. In metropolita ...

Santa Cruz The beliefs and traditions conducted through Our Lady of Antipolo are of animist origins and are connected with the Tagalog male boatman sea god Maguayen, which was originally a Visayan deity, known to be a god and a goddess in the Visayas. Trade and migration between the Tagalog and Visayan instilled the beliefs of Maguayen on the animist religion of the Tagalog, which was later inputted towards Catholic beliefs on the Virgin Mary.

Claims of miracles

During construction of the Antipolo church in the 1630s, the image would mysteriously vanish several times from its shrine, only to reappear atop a ''tipolo'' (breadfruit tree; '' Artocarpus incisa'') A plant that's native to Southeast Asia and had spread to Latin America. This was taken as a celestial sign, and the church was relocated to where the ''tipolo'' tree stood. The image's pedestal is supposedly made from the trunk of that same ''tipolo'' tree,"Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage"
Antipolo, Pilgrimage City. Retrieved on 2013-02-22. which also gave its name to Antipolo itself."Antipolo History"
Antipolo City, the Pilgrimage City. Retrieved on 2013-03-02. In 1639 the Chinese rose in revolt, burning the town and the church. Fearing for the statue's safety, governor

Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera Gobernador Heneral Hurtado de Corcuera (baptized March 25, 1587, Bergüenda, Álava – August 12, 1660, Tenerife, Canary Islands) was a Spanish soldier and colonial official. From 1632 to 1634 he was governor of Panama. From June 25, 1635 to Au ...

ordered its transfer to

Cavite Cavite, officially the Province of Cavite ( tl, Lalawigan ng Kabite; Chavacano: ''Provincia de Cavite''), is a province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region in Luzon. Located on the southern shores of Manila Bay and southwest ...

, where it was temporarily enshrined. governor Hurtado later ordered the statue removed from its Cavite shrine in 1648, and it was shipped back to Mexico aboard the

''San Luis''. At the time, the statue of a saint onboard served as a ship's

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

or protector of the Acapulco trade. The statue crossed the Pacific six times aboard the following Manila-Acapulco galleons: * ''San Luis'' — (1648–1649) * ''Encarnación'' — (1650) * ''San Diego'' — (1651–1653) * ''San Francisco Javier'' — (1659–1662) * ''Nuestra Señora del Pilar'' — (1663) * ''San José'' — (1746–1748) A royal decree by

Queen Isabella II Isabella II ( es, Isabel II; 10 October 1830 – 9 April 1904), was Queen of Spain from 29 September 1833 until 30 September 1868. Shortly before her birth, the King Ferdinand VII of Spain issued a Pragmatic Sanction to ensure the successio ...

on 19 May 1864 ordered that the parishes of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino be turned over to the Jesuits in exchange for the parishes of Antipolo, Taytay and Morong, which were given to the

Augustinian Recollects The Order of Augustinian Recollects (OAR) is a mendicant Catholic religious order of friars and nuns. It is a reformist offshoot from the Augustinian hermit friars and follows the same Rule of St. Augustine. History The Order was founded in 16t ...

. The latter order thus came into possession of the image.

Second world war

In 1944, the

Japanese imperial Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor ...

invaded the town and turned it into a garrison, with the shrine being used as an arsenal. To save the image, the church's head sacristan, Procopio Ángeles, wrapped it in a thick woollen blanket and placed it in an empty petrol drum, which he then buried in a nearby kitchen. Fighting between imperial Japanese troops and the combined American and Filipino forces drove Ángeles and other devotees to exhume the image and move it to Sitio Colaique on the border with Angono. From there, it was spirited away to the lowland Barangay Santolan in

Pasig Pasig, officially the City of Pasig ( fil, Lungsod ng Pasig), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 803,159 people. It is located along t ...

, and then to the town center of Pasig itself. The statue was then kept by Rosario Alejandro (''née'' Ocampo), daughter of

Pablo Ocampo Pablo de Leon Ocampo (born Pablo Ocampo y de León; January 25, 1853 – February 5, 1925) was a Filipino lawyer, nationalist, a member of the Malolos Congress, inaugural holder of the office of Resident Commissioner from the Philippine Island ...

, at the Ocampo-Santiago family residence on Hidalgo Street, Quiapo,

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

, before it was enshrined inside

Quiapo Church The Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene ( es, Basílica Menor del Nazareno Negro; fil, Basílika Menor ng Itím na Nazareno), known canonically as the Parish of Saint John the Baptist and also known as Quiapo Church ( es, Iglesia Parroquial d ...

for the remainder of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. On 15 October 1945, the statue was

translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

back to its church in Antipolo, where it remains today.

Pontifical coronation

The statue merited a decree of Pontifical coronation by the Pope via Cardinal

Rafael Merry del Val Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta, (10 October 1865 – 26 February 1930) was a Spanish Roman Catholic cardinal. Before becoming a cardinal, he served as the secretary of the papal conclave of 1903 that elected Pope Pius X, who is said to have ac ...

on 18 June 1925, both signed and notarized by Monsignor Vincent Bianchi Cagliesi and Chancellor Guardian of the Vatican Chapter, Monsignor Giuseppe Cascioli. The image was canonically crowned by the

Archbishop of Manila The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila ( lat, Archidioecesis Manilensis; fil, Arkidiyosesis ng Maynilà; es, Arquidiócesis de Manila) is the archdiocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in Metro Manila, Philippines, encompassing ...

, Michael James O'Doherty, on 28 November 1926 in

Luneta Rizal Park ( fil, Liwasang Rizal, es, link=no, Parque Rizal), also known as Luneta Park or simply Luneta, is a historic urban park located in Ermita, Manila. It is considered one of the largest urban parks in the Philippines, covering an area ...

(present-day

Rizal Park Rizal Park ( fil, Liwasang Rizal, es, link=no, Parque Rizal), also known as Luneta Park or simply Luneta, is a historic urban park located in Ermita, Manila. It is considered one of the largest urban parks in the Philippines, covering an are ...

Cathedral shrine

The first missionaries in

Antipolo Antipolo, officially known as the City of Antipolo ( fil, Lungsod ng Antipolo), is a 1st class component city and capital of the province of Rizal, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 887,399 people. It is the ...

were the

Franciscans , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

, who arrived in the vicinity in 1578. The Jesuits then followed and administered the church from 1591 until May 1768, when the decree expelling the Jesuits from Spanish lands reached Manila. The church was greatly damaged during the Chinese uprising of 1639, the

1645 Luzon earthquake The 1645 Luzon earthquake was one of the most destructive earthquakes to hit the Philippines. It occurred on November 30 at about 08:00 PM local time on Luzon Island in the northern part of the country. The island was struck by a 7.5 tremor produ ...

, and the earthquakes of 1824 and 1883. Notable Filipino historians such as Pedro Chirino and Pedro Murillo Velarde (also a prominent cartographer) ministered at the church. The

Diocese of Antipolo The Roman Catholic Diocese of Antipolo (Lat: ''Dioecesis Antipolensis''; Filipino: ''Diyosesis ng Antipolo'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in the Philippines that comprises the Province of Rizal and the city of Marikina ...

was created on 24 January 1983 and was canonically erected on 25 June 1983 at the diocese's new see, which bears the formal title of “National Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage-Immaculate Conception Parish”. In 2022, Our Lady of Antipolo's shrine was declared by the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

as the first ever international shrine in the Philippines. It is the third such shrine in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and the 11th in the world. It is also the first Marian international shrine in Asia.

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimages to the image's shrine begin and peak in May, which in Catholicism is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. On 30 April—the eve of

May Day May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. Tr ...

—thousands of devotees from

customarily perform the ''Alay Lakad'' (literally, “Walk Offering”), where pilgrims spend the night travelling on foot to the shrine, where they hear

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

at dawn. The farthest official starting point of the modern pilgrimage is Quiapo Church; the custom of visiting the shrine in May, however, was already recorded by the 19th century. On 6 June 1868, a young José Rizal and his father ''Don'' Francisco Mercado, visited the shrine in thanksgiving after the boy and his mother, Teodora Alonso, survived his delivery in 1861.

Television

In December 2011, the

Eternal Word Television Network The Eternal Word Television Network, more commonly known by its initials EWTN, is an American basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock Catholic-themed programming. It is not only the largest Catholic television network in ...

programme ''Mary: Mother of the Philippines'' ran an episode showcasing the statue as the “most traveled Marian icon in the Philippines”.

Gallery

File:AntipoloChurchjf5333 03.JPG, Nave and sanctuary of the cathedral, with a funeral in progress. File:AntipoloChurchjf5319 05.JPG, Main ''

retablo A retablo is a devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. More generally ''retablo'' is also the Spanish term for a retable or reredos above an altar, whether ...

'' of the cathedral, with the image enshrined in glass. File:AntipoloChurchjf5277 11.JPG, The original image in its alcove, clothed in blue and white vestments. File:3antipolochurchjf.JPG, A replica in the image's veneration chapel behind the main altar. The glass cases contain the original image's regalia, perfumes, and scale models of the galleons it travelled on.

References

External links

Shrine of Our Lady of GuidanceShrine of Our Lady of Manaoag
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peace and Good Voyage, Our Lady of Antipolo Marian apparitions Shrines to the Virgin Mary Religion in Rizal Catholic Church in the Philippines Titles of Mary Statues of the Virgin Mary