THROUGH UNTRUE
Today marks the end of the annual festivities in honor of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. Her image, fondly called La Naval de Manila, is enshrined in Sto. Domingo Church and is now more than 400 years old. People often ask: “How much is it worth?” To answer that question, let me tell you this story.
Once upon a time, a young man named Pedro received from his father a beautiful necklace embellished with sparkling stones. With great solemnity, his father said: “My son, this is our family treasure. This has been passed on as our family heritage from one generation to the next. Keep it safe and protect it from all harm. Remember, a treasure is only as good as the hands where it rests.”
After his father died, Pedro became curious about the worth of the necklace. He heard about a collector who was an expert in antique jewelry. Excitedly, he had the necklace appraised. He imagined it was worth millions. But the collector’s verdict shocked him. The jewelry was not made of real gold, and its glittering stones were fake. The collector would not even pay five hundred pesos for it. Baffled, Pedro took the necklace to another collector, then to another. But the verdict was the same.
He was about to throw away the necklace when he remembered what his father said: "a family treasure is only as good as the hands where it rests." For the first time, the meaning of those words dawned on him. He realized that he had placed more importance on its price tag when he should be more concerned about its value, that is, what it meant for him and his family.
The image of Our Lady of the Rosary (La Naval de Manila) is like Pedro’s necklace. If we bring it to the jewelry experts to be appraised, they might say it is worth very little. If we bring our Marian devotion to be appraised by born-again Christians who are allergic to images, they will tell us to burn it for it is a sign of idolatry.
But if what Pedro’s father said is true—that a treasure is only as good as the hands where it rests, then the worth of the image of La Naval should be measured by what it means to us as a people and nation. In truth, the image has ceased to be merely the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It has become a symbol of what we, Filipinos, would become if only we could get our act together.
The image reminds us that once upon a time, in 1646, a well-equipped Dutch armada threatened to annex the country to the Dutch East Indies and render extinct our Catholic faith. The Filipinos, together with Spanish soldiers, remodelled two creaking galleons into warships, and fought the invaders using inferior weapons and substandard ammunition. It was a battle that seemed lost even before it had begun.
But historical records show that after the hostilities, the Filipinos miraculously emerged victorious. They attributed their victory to the fact that before and during the fighting, they prayed the Rosary unashamedly, firmly believing that the outcome of the war would depend more on God's grace than on their efforts.
Their heroism, fuelled by faith in God and their devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, was repeated throughout our history: in the revolts for our independence from Spain and America, in the People Power Revolution of 1986, and many other occasions where we showed the world why the Filipino is worth dying for.
La Naval de Manila is the family treasure of the Filipino nation. It is the symbol of what is good in our character, what is true in our culture, what is powerful in our Catholic faith. There is no better time than now, when we are facing the challenges of the pandemic and the uncertain prospects of the forthcoming election, to show our better selves.