NAGA CITY -- Once again on Saturday, barefooted voyadores will trek back to the Naga Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown Naga where the miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin of Penafrancia begins her journey back to her home at the Basilica via a fluvial procession.

        At about 1:30 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 15, throngs of burly voyadores will once again bear on their brawny shoulders Bicol’s most revered icon in a foot procession that winds up at the foot of Tabuco bridge where the flower-decked pagoda waits for her over two-kilometer long journey upstream the Naga River, where on both banks of the river will swell an immense crowd, with lighted candles held on one hand and the other waving white handkerchiefs to witness the passing image amidst shouts of “Viva la Virgen!”

        The whole spectacle which has been captured by camera lenses so many times is “one that is sublime, poetic, and enchanting portrait, difficult and almost impossible to describe” unless your heart and soul are there to personally witness the passing of a religious event.

        At about 5:30 p.m. when the pagoda reaches the arrival berth in Bgy Balatas that leads to the Basilica, a mass will be concelebrated by bishops from the different dioceses in Bicol amidst thousands of devotees, pilgrims and fiesta visitors who came from as far as Ilocos in the north and Mindanao in the south who will honor her, thank her for the blessings received, and ask for her intercessions as they pray for safer and better days ahead.

        The deep seated faith and devotion of the Bicolanos to the Virgin, whom they fondly call “Ina” can best be felt in the pageantry witnessed in Naga every September.

        A historian wrote that how solemnly the feast is celebrated is better described by those who could pass as mere observers, like one seated in a modern-day cultural center witnessing an opera or a stage production.

        The big difference, according to him, is that the latter is stage-managed while the former is welled up by the spontaneity of human emotion borne out of centuries-old tradition of faith and love.

        The culmination of this year’s festivities begin with the Sunday mass the following day at the stately home of the Virgin of Penafrancia who would now be safely installed in her precious temple, the Basilica.