By Christina Hermoso
Marian devotees celebrate today, Nov. 21, the Feast of Nuestra Señora Virgen de la Regla (Our Lady of the Rule), venerated widely by the Cebuanos who believe that the prosperity they enjoy is a blessing achieved through the maternal intercession of the Blessed Mother.
(FLICKR / MANILA BULLETIN)
Currently venerated at the National Shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Regla in Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan Island in Cebu, the miraculous image was carved from the trunk of dark Philippine hardwood. The Brown Madonna holds the Infant Jesus in her arms.
The devotion to Our Lady of the Rule was started by St. Augustine, the revered founder of the Augustinian Order, who was believed to have carved an image of Our Lady with his own hands. The Augustinian Order introduced the devotion to Cebuanos in the 18th century, in a parish in Opon, now, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu.
In 1735, its first parish priest, Francisco Avalle, an Augustinian monk, showed his parishioners a picture of Our Lady of the Rule. The priest was a devotee, having lived for 10 years in the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de la Regla in Chipiona, Andalucia, Spain.
The residents of Opon chose Our Lady of the Rule to be their patroness. They had a big picture made and placed on the altar. Soon after, miracles began to happen and the devotion flourished. In 1909, Fr. Ambrosio Agius, apostolic delegate to the Philippines, gifted the parish with a cloth relic that was believed to have belonged to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The relic became an object of veneration of pilgrims who come to Cebu to pray and to kiss the relic.
On Nov. 27, 1954, Archbishop Julio Rosales canonically crowned the icon of the Blessed Mother, the first image in the Visayas to be canonically crowned, as a highlight to the Archdiocesan Marian Congress that year.