PidroCom Japan

Novena to
Our Mother of
Perpetual Help

For the last 15 years, devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help has been a way of life for Gladys Martinez, an accountant of a Makati-based company.

“It started with a simple desire to pass the board exams,” she said after hearing the novena mass one Wednesday afternoon. “You know, when you are in a situation like taking a board exam, you will do everything to pass it.”

Together with hard work and determination, Gladys’ faith to the novena paid off when she passed the licensure examinations for certified public accountants. “I could not have done it if I relied on myself. There must be some divine intervention especially that only about 20 percent passed.”

Since then, Gladys says she never failed to pray the novena every Wednesday. “I only miss coming here in Baclaran when I’m very sick or on travel. I come here even if there is typhoon. I have been blessed with so many times because of my deep relationship with Our Mother.”

She has started to bring her husband and in-laws to the weekly novena, that has also become part of their family bonding.

REFUGE DURING CRISIS

Gladys is one of the hundreds of thousands of weekly devotees who come to attend novena every Wednesday.

“The appeal of the devotion is on its ‘perpetual help’,” explains Redemptorist pries Father Joseph Echano, rector at the national shrine in Baclaran.

Each week, the shrine receives some 3,000 to 5,000 letters of petition to Our Mother of Perpetual Help asking for a range of different favour. Letters of thanksgiving average aroung 600 a week.

“Petitions for help are usually for job here and abroad, passing the exams, travel abroad and for financial and economic help,” says Echano. “This has become a refuge for people in dire need.”

But for whatever reason, not all petitions are heard. This, however, never dampens the faith of the devotees.

“The feeling that you are not alone, the feeling of community sympathy you get from praying together, is already a source of hope and strength. It is one motivation why people continue to come for the weekly novena, they find strength and hope amidst all the problems,” he said.

53 YEARS OF PERPETUAL PRAYER

The devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran celebrated its 53^rd year last June 27, its feast day.

“It has already become part of Filipino Culture,” says Father Joseph Echano, rector at the shrine in Baclaran.

Since the first novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran was said in June 23, 1948 with only 70 people attending, “it spread so fast like a wildfire,” says Echano. (The first novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help was held in Iloilo on May 1946 at the Redemptorist Church of St. Clement at the request of American soldiers based there.)

A week later, an estimated 700 people came to the novena and on the third week around 1,000 people.

Now, conservative estimates of 120,000 people attend the novena every week in Baclaran, with around 10,000 in each 12 sessions of novena and mass on Wednesdays, with the numbers reaching as much as 150,000 on first Wednesdays.

The diaspora of Filipino worker to different parts world has brought the devotion to other countries. “Where there is a large number of Filipinos in a certain country, more often than not, there is also a weekly novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, Novena to Our Mother has become part of their identity as Filipinos,” Echano said.

Weekly novenas are held every Wednesday among Filipino communities in the United States, Canada, Hongkong, Singapore and Italy. DP