Testimony of faith!

At the Holy Hour of 3 p.m. it did rain during the Friday “traslacion” as the procession carrying the Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia trekked the 3rd of the distance to Her 9-day temporary home, the Naga Cathedral church. To an ordinary observer, it was a common downpour from the moonson, not to the faithful, it was a living testimony of faith.

The devotees, finishing or unfinishing the length that culminated in the Holy Mass, left with renewed vigor. Ina has spoken to them in the metaphors of Her Son. How else could they explain it? It’s the lingua franca of the Virgin since time immemorial in Nueva Caceres.

It’s more than superstition. It’s the feeling that once one was lost and now found. It doesn’t matter if it is borne on the belief of unruly voyadores disgustingly grabbing flowers at the andas for use in farming, fishing, or gambling. It disengages from reason. So that from noisy adoration to silence, everything is reborn. There is dependence, yes, more of covenant, too, like spatial dust and multiple of it with perfect amount of hydrogen and gravity for every conceivable habitation and motion of the living.

Lolo Gitoy, a Naqueño and a devotee, was in the throng that afternoon as an elderly wading just like anyone soaked in rain. He had been a voyador when only in teens. One time he skipped a Peñafrancia fiesta against the uncompromising advice of folks that a pledge with Ina should never be broken. The man almost drowned at Rungus point by the Pacific Ocean. Never again was he absent from any of the procession to this day. Twice, he left for abroad in two different countries; twice also he was forced to return to Naga in two Septembers. On his last return, his youngest daughter became a nun of the Virgin.

Countless other devotees are like Lolo Gitoy. They may know the Señora in various other ways. But all have a denominator: they love the Señora and Ina reciprocates in the same way.

Now, amidst the pandemonium at the plaza of rhythmic sounds from drums, engines, whistles, or whatever, and from the quivering sights of uniforms, flaglets, dancing and rushing bodies, in planned pageantries, the festivities inseveral days would end. What would be left in the memory of the devotees is the thought of Ina, strong and unabandoned.