Sta. Ana

When Pope Francis was elected Pope on 13 March 2013, the next day he surprised the world when he went to a church unannounced to celebrate his first Mass as Roman Pontiff – at the Chiesa di Sant’Anna. Quietly but very significantly the walls of that parish office bears the long tradition of contemporary popes who visited their parish church.

In today’s celebration for grandparents and as our Santa Ana Shrine Parish celebrates its 73rd parochial fiesta, we turn to the liturgy in deepened devotion to her. There are two feasts that are closely connected to our devotion to St. Anne. The first is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (8 December). A descriptive title for this is, ‘St. Anne Conceived the Immaculate Mary”. It has been three years now that we make the consecration to the Immaculate Virgin Mary after an annual 33 Days of Morning Glory. The second is the Feast of the Birth of Mary, which we could also describe as, “St. Anne gave Birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary” (8 September). Recently, I was at Rogate, a coffee shop and religious shop at the same time with Bishop Julius Tonel, Bishop Abel Apigo and Bishop Bong Lunas. It was Bishop Lunas who pointed out to me a unique image of Maria Bambinella – the image of the infant Virgin Mary, which I procured immediately for our Shrine. The reason being is that I have been looking for an image and devotion on the Birth of Mary. This year, with the help of a Rogationist priest, we shall begin our special devotion to Maria Bambinella.

There are predominantly two pictures of St. Anne, one showing that she and St. Joachim as parents of the Virgin Mary. This shows that St. Anne is patroness for families and for those who wish to be pregnant. The other picture of St. Anne depicts her with a book, teaching the young Virgin Mary. The PME Fathers chose this image in our Shrine here in the Archdiocese of Davao not only as patroness for students, teachers and parents. It is a stroke of spiritual insight because of the long-standing connection between the Holy Cross of Davao College and the Sta. Ana Shrine Parish.

Finally, this year’s theme for our 73rd Parochial Fiesta is “An Awakened Faith with Sta. Ana”. This is a part of the threefold Spirituality of Stewardship, namely Awakened, Grateful and Engaging Discipleship. We wish that through Mary we can tread this path of stewardship like the biblical image of the aged wine. In the thoughts of St. John XXIII, a wine that has grown in age can become sour, but strive instead to be the best wine there is to offer for others.