THROUGH UNTRUE
Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P.
(The La Naval Novenas and Masses are held this year daily in Santo Domingo Church, from Sept. 30, 2022, culminating in a grand procession of the more than 400 year-old miraculous image of Our Lady of the Rosary, popularly known as ‘La Naval de Manila,’ on Oct. 9, 2022.)
Heroism is our instinctive yearning for a truly meaningful existence. Heroes defy the finitude of their lives by performing acts that make them worthy of eternal remembrance.
We often think that heroes are persons with extraordinary courage, flawless character, and saintly bearing. In truth, they are people like most of us. The only difference is that, when opportunities for greatness arise, they willingly seize these, and refuse to surrender to conformity and mediocrity.
These days, heroism appears too big for us, and we, too small for it. We cut heroism to size by equating it with our daily struggle against traffic, pollution, floods, starvation, high prices, and toothaches.
Worse, what we see today are heroics, not heroism. We see the heroics of some celebrities, influencers, and bloggers who use the social media to boost their fame and wealth; the heroics of politicians and government leaders who cling to power like leeches; the heroics of lawyers whose obsession with legalism often delays justice; the heroics of lawless elements in our society whose nefarious exploits are emulated by the young; the heroics of trolls, fanatics and sycophants who defend their patrons and idols at the expense of truth; and the heroics of media practitioners who advertise all of the above as models for heroism.
A wise man once wrote that there is nothing more heroic than secretly performing an extraordinary deed and being found out by accident. Perhaps it is about time that we tried this brand of heroism.
During this week, culminating on Sunday, the annual devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary of La Naval (or popularly known as La Naval de Manila), highlights a similar brand of heroism, seldom mentioned in history books, but has endured to this day in our memory.
In 1646, a Dutch armada threatened to annex the country to the Dutch East Indies and render extinct the Catholic faith. Using creaking galleons remodeled into warships, and armed with inferior weapons and substandard ammunition, Filipino and Spanish soldiers went to sea to repel the invaders.
But before the fighting began, they prayed the Rosary and pleaded to God for assistance, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother. They solemnly made a vow that, should they win the battle, they would walk barefoot to the Santo Domingo Church to thank God and pay homage to the image of Our Lady of the Rosary. The annual procession of La Naval de Manila originated from this vow.
Historians narrate that as the war raged on, the Dutch fleet retreated, with “heavy casualty,” while the outnumbered Filipino and Spanish forces suffered only minimal damage. The Dutch navy never again threatened to invade the country.
Looking back at that historic event that happened almost 400 years ago, Filipino heroes fought unafraid, prayed unashamedly, and later walked barefoot at dawn in solemn fulfillment of a promise made to God. Such heroism, spurred by devotion to Mary and her Rosary, 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.
Today, the insidious enemies that plunge our country into hopelessness and despair are no longer lurking outside. They are within us: our tendency towards rampant divisiveness, factionalism, and collective apathy. La Naval de Manila reminds us that, as a people, we have what it takes to overcome these, if only we get our act together, and draw strength from our most precious resource: our faith in God’s abiding providence and our devotion to the Blessed Mother.