The golden gala mantle of Our Lady of La Naval de Manila

Rafael Casal and Arnold Reyes designed and 

executed, respectively, the new mantle of Our Lady 

for the La Naval of 2016.

In the inventory of Santo Domingo Church properties in 1750, according to our friend historian Romeo B. Galang in his Cultural History of Santo Domingo (2013), only the images of Our Lady and San Vicente had big silver frontal or pechero.

He also wrote that the 'the gala vestments of the images were rarely seen by the public [and] were used only during important feasts such as La Naval procession and the octave preceding it.' 

The gold vestments of the image of Our Lady of La Naval could have started during the feast of October 1890. Galang wrote --

"[O]n the Sunday before the high mass, the image of the Virgin was borne in procession, accompanied by the images of San Pio V and Santo Domingo, richly vested in traje de tisu de oro [vestments of gold thread].  

"Only one other image of the La Naval procession – that of San Antonino de Florencia – was known to have golden vestments."

In his caption of the picture of the mantle, 'the gala mantle of Our Lady, made of woven gold threads ornately decorated with brocades, is still preserved, and was used during the Canonical Coronation of the image of 1907,' he wrote.

The mantle as seen from the back.

By tradition, the image of Our Lady has always been called the "Santo Rosario"; hence, the mantle is also referred to by that name: the Santo Rosario Gala Mantle.

Last year, the Dominicans marked the 800th anniversary of their order (Order of Preachers). In celebration, a new gala mantle was commissioned that would harmonize with the silver frontal, which dates back to the nineteenth century.  

Artistic details of the mantle embroidery.

Artist Rafael Casal designed in 2015, and it took almost three months to make the full-scale drawing; and actor Arnold Reyes and his Bordados de Manila executed the intricate design for nine months. We were able to talk with these two artists about their work before the start of the grand procession last year.

That new gala mantle which Our Lady wore during the October 2016 procession was described as of 'golden hue and embroidered lavishly with gold thread befitting a Queen. Design elements such as ribbons and garlands were culled from Western sources and melded with a local motif, the tamborin. Certain components rendered in high relief, possess almost sculptural effect.'

Furthermore: 'The mantle is replete with symbols pertinent to the history of the Dominican Order and perhaps devotion to the Holy Rosary. Eight tiers of celebratory swags (symbolic of eight centuries of the Order) intertwine with festoons and garlands of roses (alluding to the devotion to the Holy Rosary). These are held together by a plethora of flowing ribbons. Hanging from these ribbons are tamborin medallions bearing seals of the BVM, the Order, the Holy See and the city of Manila. Alternating with the swags, draped tamborin beads call to mind the countless rosaries offered by devotees for over four centuries since the arrival of the first Dominican missionaries in our country.'

It was described as 'a testament to the unwavering devotion and fidelity of  ... the Camarera of Our Lady to the Santo Rosario. It is also a shining example of Philippine artistry and craftsmanship at its best!

References: 

• Souvenir Program. Maria: Ina ng Awa. La Naval de Manila 2016 / September 29-October 9, 2016. Sto. Domingo Church, Quezon City.

• Galang, Romeo B. (2013). A Cultural History of Santo Domingo. Manila: UST Publishing House.

Mary in the stained-glass windows of Santo Domingo Church

It's October in Quezon City! It used to be 'October in Manila!' in the fond memories of the late National Artist Nick Joaquin of the fiesta of the La Naval in Intramuros, the old Manila. 

The Santo Domingo Church rose again after the bombs of the so-called American liberation forces razed it to the ground, but not any more in Intramuros but in Quezon City. The new church was inaugurated in October 1954, and the La Naval was brought there in 1957.

The church has been declared a national cultural treasure in 2011 because it possesses a rich trove of religious, historical and cultural materials.

It is surrounded, for example, by large beautiful stained-glass windows designed by Galo Ocampo after returning from Rome. The Archbishop of Manila sent him there to design the windows for Santo Domingo and the Manila Cathedral. 

Among his designs were the fifteen windows depicting the old joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries of the rosary. Other windows are portraits of the leading saints of the Dominicans like those of St. Vicente Liem de la Paz and other martyrs in Indo-China, Japan and China.

We heard mass on the third day of the feast week of the La Naval (29 September to 09 October 2016), and our attention was focused on her image on the altar. After the mass, we focused on the stained-glass windows that feature Mary in white and blue. The triptych on the right side depicts the victory of the allied Christian forces against the Turks at Lepanto in 1571 (right side of the panel), and of the Spanish naval forces against the Dutch invaders in Philippines waters in 1652 (left side of the panel), both of which were attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary. 

The middle panel could be a rendition of the image of Our Lady in the side chapel of the Santo Domingo Church in Intramuros before the battle of Manila in 1945. A historical account says it had Saint Dominic and Saint Catalina de Siena kneeling before her image, and the former receiving a rosary. 

The names of the donors can be discerned at the bottom of the panels: Andres Soriano and family (battle of La Naval de Manila), [Asosacion?] de Honor de Maria (central panel), and Don Manuel [Elizalde?, name not very legible] (battle of Lepanto).

Large panel at the right side depicting the battles of La Naval de Manila and Lepanto.

Mary is featured in other windows: all of the five depictions of the joyful mysteries, two in the sorrowful, and three in the glorious mysteries.

 

As installed. the mysteries are in reverse sequence following one's movement from the entrance to the altar. Here, left to right, are (1) the Annunciation, (2) the Visitation, (3) the Nativity, (4) the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple, and (5) the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple.

We were not able to discern the donors of the Annunciation and Nativity windows. The Visitation was donated by the UST Medica Association and MEDSCA, the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple was from the family of a 'vda. de Cacho' (first name not discernible), and the Finding of the Child Jesus came from Dr. and Mrs, Constantino P. Manahan,

Mary can be seen in the Carrying of the Cross and the Crucifixion in the Sorrowful Mysteries windows. The donors' names however were partly hidden and could not be discerned.

Mary in the Sorrowful Mysteries windows: the Carrying of the Cross and the Crucifixion.

The Glorious Mysteries are depicted in two individual windows (the Resurrection and the Ascension) and one large triptych comprising the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Coronation of the Blessed Mother.

Mary figures in these three mysteries:

Mary witnesses the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven.

The Ascension is on one side of the choir loft (right side if one is facing the main door), while the triptych is the back of the loft.

Mary in the Descent of Holy Spirit (right panel); her Coronation (left pane;), and her Assumption (center). 

One discerns the following as donors of the large window: Mr. and Mrs. Luz T. Engalla (coronation), the Vicente Madrigal family (assumption) and the Quezon family (descent of the Holy Spirit).

Facing this glorious window on the opposite side is the triptych depicting the martyrs of the Dominican order. In the chancel are six windows, three on each side of the altar, saints and martyrs honored by the Dominicans,

October in Quezon City! A La Naval experience

Viva La Virgen!

October in Manila! The exclamation was Nick Joaquin's who left us historical portraits of the old Manila, the walled city in Intramuros, before the bombs of the American liberation forces of 1945 leveled it to the ground.  What comes to mind was that last scene in his elegiac play A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino when the old generation proceeded to the balcony of the Marasigan house to watch the grand procession of the La Naval de Manila.

It's now 'October in Quezon City!'  The Santo Domingo Church of yore moved to Quezon City after the second world war. The iconic ivory image of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario de la Naval de Manila, or Our Lady of the Rosary, popularly called the La Naval, survived the bombs, and is now in residence here.
 

The sculptural triptych at the facade of Sto Domingo: a historical vignette.

The religious devotion--steeped in culture and history--lives on every second Sunday of October. Many devotees may not know it but when they raise their mobile phones or digital cameras to snap pictures of the antique images of Mother and Child with their jewels and in rich garments, they are capturing a piece of our history. After all, their devotion to La Naval dates back to 1646 when the inferior Filipino-Spanish naval forces sent the invading powerful Dutch armada to the bottom of the sea, a triumph that was attributed to the intervention of Our Lady.  To the Spaniards, their veneration of La Naval dates back much earlier to the Battle of Lepanto of 1571, when Christian soldiers stopped the spread of Islam in their country.  

We've photo-covered the La Naval grand procession years ago.  This year, we tried to attend the rites from the enthronement of the image on October 3 until the grand procession on the 13th, and that includes the nine-day novena-masses between those dates too, but we missed the first two novenas.

The enthronement of the antique ivory image of La Naval de Manila.

There was much anticipation as devotees awaited for the enthronement.  The niche above the altar was vacant, and as soon as the image emerged, the people became jubilant, and pretty soon almost everyone with a camera trooped to the front to take a picture of the Nuestra Señora, while others knelt to pray.    

To us, the highlight of the daily novena prayers was the beautiful rendition of the Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii  with the Tiples de Sto. Domingo, the oldest existing boys’ choir of the Philippines, singing the solo parts, and the Grand Choir of Sto. Domingo leading the choral response of ora pro nobis. 

The daily novena prayers culminated with the celebration of the Eucharist.  The early evening masses had different celebrants including Archbishop Socrates Villegas, and the novenas also had various organizations leading the rosary.  The masses were sung, some days in Latin and some in Pilipino.  It was a matter of sacrifice to stand for quite some time as the choir sung the Kyrie to the Gloria of the Latin missas.  It was nonetheless a joy to listen to different musical versions of the Ave Maria rendered by several sopranos during the Communion.  

The novena-masses were always brought to a thunderous finale with the mass singing of the Despedida a la Virgen.  This is the same song that closed the feast of the La Naval when the image was once again enthroned after the grand procession.

The besamanto, an opportunity to get a close look of the La Naval.

Three novena-masses were followed by the besamanto (roughly, kissing the cape). The image was brought down again for the veneration of the faithful.  Instead of the cape, devotees kissed encased relics from her old garments and medallions tied to the image by ribbons.  The queues were long, even if there was a separate one for seniors and the physically handicapped, and took until about ten in the evening.   

Rain or shine! The grand procession emerged from the church at four o'clock on feast Sunday.  The image of Our Lady of the Rosary was preceded by 27 others--those of San Lorenzo Ruiz, the saints and the blessed from the Dominican community, and of St Joseph, in that order.

The La Naval in procession.

 The procession was interrupted by a brief rain, not more than five minutes, we estimated.  The caretakers of the images had always been prepared. As soon as the first raindrops fell, the raincoats were up to shelter the images.  We caught the La Naval still with her raincoat when the procession on its way back to Santo Domingo passed under the pedestrian overpass where we were perched to take photographs.

Detail from the banderetta.

The Pinoy's Marian religiosity

In the 1900s, the 'war' among the religious was as to who should be proclaimed the patroness of the Philippines.  The Dominicans wanted Our Lady of the Holy Rosary (La Naval); the Jesuits favored the Immaculate Conception.  The Aglipayans insisted on Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage (Antipolo) because she's katutubo, a native of the country. (Source:  Lipang Kalabaw, 04 Jan 1908)

The rains yesterday, 04 December 2011, did not stop the grand Marian procession from the Manila Cathedral to wend its way around Intramuros, the walled city.  The annual event held on the first Sunday of December is an echo of the first procession held on 08 December 1619 to commemorate the feast day of the Immaculate Conception.

Thus, as photo-documented by the media, some eighty flower-bedecked and beautifully lit carrozas of Marian images, under an umbrella or covered by clear plastic, were pulled by devotees through the streets along the ancient walls of Old Manila.  Because of the rains, we could only recall the pleasure of photographing the event from various vantage points atop the walls during the last two processions.

The images invoke the many titles of the Virgin Mary.  Our Lady of the Holy Rosary (La Naval de Manila), Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage (Our Lady of Antipolo) are some of the more popular ones, and they happen to have figured in intense religious arguments in the early 1900s, more than a century ago.

We found two issues of the satirical weekly Lipang Kalabaw in 1908 heckling the Dominicans and the Jesuits because of their un-holy war on who should be Patroness of the Philippines.  The Dominicans were rooting for Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, and the Jesuits, the Immaculate Conception. In one of these satirical illustrations (04 Jan 1908), Gregorio Aglipay was depicted arguing for the Our Lady of Antipolo.

A perplexed Marian devotee asks a Dominican friar and a Jesuit priest on who should be the patroness of the Philippines.   

The Dominican tells her to stop this nonsense when told about the Jesuit claim, that it's thedevotion to Our Lady of the Rosary that's most profitable being the patroness of these unhappy islands. He calls the Jesuits rogues.

The Jesuit tells the woman that the Holy Father has not yet resolved the issue, but the Immaculate Conception is the official patroness. He admonishes the woman to honor the La Purisima if she wants to save her soul.

Since she doesn't know who to believe, she thinks she will just go to the [Philippine] Assembly.  (Source:  Lipang Kalabaw, 30 May 1908) 

The Dominicans and the Jesuits had very strong historical arguments for their respective Marian titles.

The Immaculate Conception was invoked in 1578 by Pope Gregory XIII with the construction of the Manila Cathedral, and in 1595 by Clement VIII with that of the Nueva Segovia and Caceres cathedrals. 

The image of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary arrived in the Philippines in 1587 and has been honored ever since with the La Naval procession in October every year. To her has been attributed the incredulous Spanish naval victories against the Dutch invaders in 1646.  The image was canonically crowned on 07 October 1907.

The Antipolo image also had its own history.  It was brought to Manila in 1626 from Acapulco, Mexico and was placed in the San Ignacio church of the Jesuits in Intramuros. Tradition has it being transferred to a new church where it disappeared twice to be found in the branches of a tipulo (breadfruit) tree.  The Antipolo church was built near this site. This popular lore and its dark color could have made Aglipay to claim, in the words of Lipang Kalabaw, that Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage is a katutubo, a Philippine native, and therefore the right patroness.

We can imagine this debate among the clergy and the Marian devotees that rankled for years until the Vatican stepped in.  First it was Pope Pius XI who declared Our Lady of Guadalupe the patroness of the Philippines in 1935. However, seven years later in 1942, Pope Pius XII declared the Immaculate Conception as the country's principal and universal patroness of the country.  Thus today, Our Lady of Guadalupe is considered the secondary patroness. 

The pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in 1975 entitled "Ang Mahal na Birhen. Mary in the Philippine Life Today" spoke of "over 100 of the parishes honor[ing] the Immaculate Conception, over 60 are dedicated to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, while others carry various titles like the Assumption, Our Lady of Carmel, Mother of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Lourdes, etc." ... and "some of the shrines dedicated to Mary have won nation-wide popularity either as focal points of national pilgrimages or as well-known centers of devotion [like] Our Lady of Charity and Our Lady of Badoc in Ilocos, Our Lady of Piat in Cagayan Valley, Our Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan, Our Lady of Salambao in Obando, Bulacan, Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage in Antipolo, Rizal, the Purification of Our Lady (or La Candelaria ) in Mabitac, Laguna, Our Lady of Caysasay in Taal, Batangas, Our Lady of Peñafrancia in Naga City, Nuestra Señora Virgen de Regla in Lapulapu City, Our Lady of the Pillar in Zamboanga, etc."

The Marian religiosity of the Filipinos was the subject of that pastoral letter, which was addressed to "the people of God in the Philippines, especially the clergy, religious men and women, and members of the mandated organizations" so as to encourage them "to continue fostering a fervent and authentic devotion to Mary."

The CBCP acknowledged "that the cult of Mary and the devotion to her image have helped many simple people to remain Catholics" but it called for "reform and renewal" with regard to the "aspects of the devotion [possibly deflecting] from genuineness and purity."

We wonder how Marian devotees with their images, medals, scapulars,and novenas, and organizers of Marian processions, Flores de Mayo and Santacruzan events, take to heart paragraph 85 of the pastoral letter: "Above all we wish to emphasize that all veneration of Mary is to be subordinated to the adoration of the triune God and of Christ who is the Mediator.  Mary's dignity is the most exalted among all the saints because of her divine maternity and hence she is worthy of special veneration as the Mother of God.  Her place and role in the economy of salvation is to be clearly proposed to the faithful, as the Second Council of the Vatican has expressed.  This, we think, is a very important point and, if wrongly understood, is the root and source of any ill-advised form of Marian devotion." 

The next time we visit our churches, let's check if the parish priest remembers this particular instruction of the CBCP:  "We cannot approve, for instance, of the presence of several images of Mary in the same house, chapel or church -- even parish churches -- with their devotees extolling the power of their statues over the others as if they were rivals." 

References:

• Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines. (1975, Feb 02). Ang Mahal ng Birhen. Mary in Philippine Life Today.  Pastoral letter on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Retrieved from http://www.cbcponline.org/documents/1970s/1975-mahal_na_birhen.html  

• Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. (n.d.). Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage Antipolo. Retrieved from http://www.kintera.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=etITK6OTG&b=309286&ct=160378

• Darang, Josephine.  (2010, Jul 11). Purely Personal. Our Lady of Guadalupe is secondary patroness of the Philippines.  Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved from http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/sundaylifestyle/sundaylifestyle/view/20100711-280491/Our-Lady-of-Guadalupe-is-secondary-patroness--of-the-Philippines

• De la Rosa, Fr. Rolando V. (2011, Oct 09). Through Untrue. Veneration of the Blessed Mother.  Manila Bulletin.  Retrieved from http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/337088/veneration-blessed-mother 

• Front Cover. (1908, Jan 04). Lipang Kalabaw. 2(24):1. Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/aah0606.0001.001 

• Rivalidad.(1908, May 30). Lipang Kalabaw. 2(42):18. Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/aah0606.0001.042