The Beautiful and Miraculous Immaculate Heart of Mary of Minglanilla, Cebu

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Immaculate Heart of Mary of Minglanilla
The Municipality of Minglanilla, located in the province of Cebu is known for its famed Sugat–Kabanhawan Festival held every Easter Sunday in this municipality in Cebu where the Sugat (or Salubong in Tagalog) is done in a festive way the meeting of the Resurrected Christ and the Mater Dolorosa is celebrated with street dancing, a wide assortment of day games, and entertainment features. The festival is held outside the beautiful church dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, probably one of the earliest in the country dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The image

The beautiful image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Minglanilla, Cebu is one of the most unique depictions of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the country. The Virgin is that of detallado wooden image with ivory face and hands. In this image, she is depicted standing in a globe, crushing the serpent oon her feet, wears a pink robe, a blue cloak and white veil, eyes looking downwards. What is unique to this image is that her heart at the center emits 2 rays and her arms outstretched in a manner that she is distributing graces from her Son through her heart.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary and
the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The nature of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

The devotion of the Heart of Mary is analogous to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There are, however, differences in this analogy as devotion to the heart of Jesus is especially directed to the "divine heart" as overflowing with love for humanity. In the devotion to Mary, however, the attraction is the love of her heart for Jesus and for God.

The second difference is the nature of the devotion itself: in the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesusis a sense of love responding to love, in the devotion to the Heart of Mary, study and imitation hold as important a place as love. The aim of the devotion is to unite humankind to God through Mary's heart, and this process involves the ideas of consecration and reparation. The object of the devotion being to love God and Jesus better by uniting one's self to Mary for this purpose and by imitating her virtues.

St. John Eudes
The origin of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

The devotion takes its roots from the Sacred Scripture, most specifically in the Gospel of St. Luke where the Gospel explicitly mentioned the heart of Mary, twice, first on Christ's Nativity and when Jesus answered them after finding him in the temple.

Historically, devotion to the Heart of Mary grew up in parallel, but at a lesser intensity  than that of devotion to the Heart of Jesus, only starting to become more prominent during the time of St John Eudes. St. John brought people to love Christ and the Virgin Mary by speaking tirelessly about their Heart, the sign of the love God shows for us and the communion to which we are called. To offer them liturgical worship, he composed Masses and Offices in their honor and had the first Feast of the Holy Heart of Mary celebrated on February 8, 1648, at Autun (France,) and the Feast of the Heart of Jesus celebrated on October 20, 1672.

The apparitions of Fatima (1917) and Rue de Bac (1830)
explicitly shows the emblem of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary.
Nevertheless, it was not until after the Apparitions at Rue du Bac concerning the "Miraculous Medal" made to Catherine Labouré in 1830, and the establishment of a society dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, at the Church of Our Lady of Victories in Paris in 1836, that this particular devotion became really well known.

Since then devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, has gradually grown more widespread in the Church, particularly since the apparitions at Fatima where she emphasized the devotion to her Immaculate Heart on her June 13, 1917 appearance where she showed her heart to the three children and stressed its importance, its definitive role when she revealed the three secrets on her July 13, 1917 visit. The Virgin in Fatima expressed the Five First Saturday devotion in reparation to the offenses she received which she later gave instructions on her appearance to Servant of God Lucia dos Santos in Pontevedra, Spain.

Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1944 to be celebrated every 22nd of August, the Octave day of the Assumption.  In 1969 Pope Paul VI moved the celebration of the Immaculate Heart to the Saturday immediately after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Memorial of the Queenship of Mary takes its place which was then celebrated every May 31.

The processional image of Immaculate Heart
of Mary of Minglanilla
The devotion in Minglanilla

The devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Cebu began when Bishop Romualdo Jimeno initiated the setting up of the parish on October 30, 1857 under its patroness, the Immaculate Heart of Mary whose feast is observed every August 22. August 22 is the Feast of The Immaculate Heart of Mary, Traditional Calendar and the Queenship of Mary in the current Roman Calendar. Father Fernando Sanchez, an Augustinian, was Minglanilla's first parish priest is credited as the founder of the town in 1858.

Since the introduction of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, miracles began to manifest and devotees grew over the years. On August 23, 2007, the parish was elevated to an Archdiocesan Shrine, so far the lone Shrine dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Philippines.


The processional image of Immaculate Heart
of Mary of Minglanilla
The devotion at present

In Minglanilla, the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the center of the town's religious activities where it is built over the hilltop which is overlooking the famous island of Bohol.  But though the feastday has been moved to another date, the people of Minglanilla still continue to celebrate their patroness feast day instituted by Venerable Pope Pius XII. The August 22nd Feast day is kept and celebrated with much solemnity.

Honoring Mary's Immaculate Heart is really another way of honoring Mary as the person who was chosen to be the Mother of God, recognizing her extraordinary holiness and the immense love she bestowed on Jesus as his mother, the person who was called to share in and co-operate in his redemptive sufferings.

The aim of  the devotion is to unite mankind to God through Mary's heart, and this process involves the ideas of consecration and reparation. A person is consecrated to Mary's Immaculate Heart as a way of being completely devoted to God. This involves a total gift of self, something only ultimately possible with reference to God; but Mary is our intermediary in this process of consecration.

References:

"The Immaculate Heart of Mary", Retrieved from https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/mary/popular-marian-devotions/the-immaculate-heart-of-mary on August 13, 2019.
"Immaculate Heart of Mary Church", Retrieved from  http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php/Immaculate_Heart_of_Mary_Church_(Minglanilla,_Cebu) on August 13, 2019.
"Minglanilla Church", Retrieved from http://atonibay.blogspot.com/2012/01/minglanilla-church-immaculate-heart-of.html on on August 13, 2019.
"Minglanilla Church now a National Shrine", Retrieved from http://www.philstar.com/cebu-news/15218/minglanilla-parish-now-national-shrine on on August 13, 2019.

Special Thanks to Mr. Nonotch Redula for the photographs of the processional image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Minglanilla, Cebu.

Credits to the owners of  the photographs that were utilized for this blogpost.
+AM+DG+

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