The Mysterious and Miraculous Our Lady of Papaya of Don Galo, Parañaque City

Our Lady of Papaya

Us Filipinos are known to have high disposition to the supernatural since the Pre-Hispanic times. Stories of miracles still amazes the majority of the faithful and at the same time, something that skeptics will try to debunk. Some of these miracle stories are the finding or discovering of images with unusual origin ranging from stones, unusual silhouettes from trees resembling different figures of Christ, Our Lady and the saints. For this blogpost, we're going to learn the existence of an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary that was found inside of a papaya fruit - yes, you read it right, from a papaya fruit. This particular image of the Blessed Mother, known as "Birhen ng Papaya" became afocal point of devotion since its discovery in the 1930's and it is said that miracles were reported through the help of the Virgin of the Papaya fruit.

The image

The image of Our Lady of Papaya is a tiny image of the Blessed Mother whose appearance seemed like a pocket image of the famed Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje of Antipolo, Rizal. The tiny image has this dark color due to passage of time. The image is currently kept inside a wooden "urna" with flowers and cotton balls inside it.

Our Lady of Papaya of Don Galo,
Parañaque City

The origin of the image

The story of the "Birhen ng Papaya" dates back on July 25, 1937 where it is said that a certain Antonio de Leon who joined in the military exercises in preparation for the then impending Second World War. When Antonio returned home from the days long pilgrimage to Antipolo, his mother Aling Poten prepared a hearty lunch with tinola as the main course. Antonio's brother Alberto just finished his meal and asked his mother for a dessert, Aling Poten gave Alberto a piece of papaya with  seeds on it. While Alberto was eating, he bit on something hard and upon checking, he found the dark tiny image of the Blessed Virgin Mary inside the fruit.

Alberto called his mother and the rest of the family and showed the tiny image that she found from the papaya fruit. Aling Poten examined it and confirmed it was an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary which resembles that of Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje of Antipolo, Rizal. Aling Poten and his family attested that there was no hole in the papaya fruit that can insert the image to its meat. Aling Poten kept the image afterwards.  The remnants of the papaya fruit were kept as well.

Soon, the news of the myserious discovery of the image spread like wilfire in Barangay Don Galo in Parañaque City and the residents swarmed the de Leon residence to see and venerate the tiny image. The townfolk was in awe with the image. As much as the family wanted to keep this finding a secret, the residents just could not help it for early on, miracles began to be reported through the intercession of "Birhen ng Papaya".

Our Lady of Papaya inside her urna

Miracles

Since the miraculous discovery of the image, numerous miracles began to b reported through the intercession of the Virgin. it is said that the remnants of the papaya where the image was found was consumed by the visitors of the de Leon family and instatneous cures took place. During the Second World War, the family fled to the woods to hide from the Japanese forces and brought with them the image. The familty testified that the Virgin kept them safe from different elements and protected them on the duration of their hiding during the bloody war.

More miracles were reported through her intercession from the finding of a missing child, unexplainable cures from various diseases and ailments, alleviating families who have financlal crisis, internal peace and consolation to some devotees among others. it is also said everytime the image will be brought out of procession, there was no rainfall even though her feast day always fell on a arainy season.

Despite all of these wondrous miracles and how the image improved the lives of their fellow townsfolk, the family never sought fame or monetary gain, for the family and the townsfolk wanted to preserve the dignity of their devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary without much hype from the media.

Fiesta procession of Our Lady of Papaya

The devotion

The feast of Our Lady of Papaya is celebrated in Barangay Don Galo every July 25, the day of the discovery of the image. A nine day novena is held in the Chapel of Sta. Monica, just a few blocks from the family's residence, precedes the fiesta.

On the day of the fiesta, a solemn procession takes place and one can see the simplicity of their devotion to the Blessed Virgin from the way they celebrate their fiesta and express their love for this tiny image of Our Lady.

The story of Our Lady of Papaya of Parañaque City might seem strange and bizarre to some, but one cannot deny the fact that Our Lord will use different ways to shower his graces to his people and this was proven several times in history. in this case, he used a tiny image of Our Lady to demonstrate his love for us through the help of the Virgin, the Mediatrix of all graces that comes from her Son.

Reference:

"Kilalanin anf Mahal na Birhen nf Kapayapaan ng Don Galo, Parañaque", Retrieved from http://ourparishpriest.blogspot.com/2018/07/mahal-na-birhen-ng-papaya-hidden.html on September 22, 2019, 2018.

Special thanks to the owners of the photographs used in this blogpost
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