Our Lady of Peñafrancia is a wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated in Naga City, Bicol, Philippines. The image comes from the original image enshrined in Salamanca, Spain. It is currently housed at the Peñafrancia Basilica where every September is held for the novena festivities in honor of the image as the principal Patroness and Queen of Bicol. The image is known to devotees by the title Ina, a local term for "Mother".
■National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) of the Philippines
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Script
The Peñafrancia is a home. That’s why the word “Ina” is a word of endearment that finds home in the hearts of people.
….Home is a mother… and that mother is the mother of God. ….. she takes care of her children - all of us. And like children, we love her as a mother.
Viva la Virgen! Viva!
The Peñafrancia devotion is the local face of Mary to the Bicolanos which they can touch, they can feel, they can sing about.
So during vulnerabilities they would want to find anchor in a home - not only a physical home but a spiritual home.
…it sinks deeply in their hearts, and therefore it is a devotion that connects with the people.
….A fuller understanding of the Peñafrancia devotion is intertwined with the culture of the people, how they celebrate things, what is their mind frame and what is its implication in their life.
For the Bicolanos, Peñafrancia is what we breathe, what we eat because even in our elementary and high school days, I remember that was part of the annual routine of life and it is a story that is shared by everybody. It is a value that is celebrated not only in the family setting but region-wide.
So it’s part of our system.
Bicol is 6 provinces with specific language but the unifying, I believe, is the Peñafrancia devotion. And from a religious perspective, I think it’s the only regional fiesta celebrated by 6 provinces.
When it comes in Peñafrancia here in Bicol, there’s no politics here. They always emphasize, you forget everything here. You are just a devotee of our Lady. No politics. No nationality. No color. No rich or poor. You will see very rich people in that procession walking with the ordinary workers.
…A memory of the devotion is passed on from generation to generation. …because we have imbibed the personal religious practices testimonies in the family. …For instance, in our family there was a time that we were about 8 Imperial priests …. And so, it would be safe to say that in Bicol, a priest would always have another priest relative.
…From a historical educational perspective, the seminary played a role especially before at the end of Spanish time…..
I believe it was only in Bicol wherein the revolution did not take an anti-clerical slant because the priests played a very crucial role a unifying leadership role and most of the elite where products of the seminary.
… in 1434 somewhere in Castanares Spain, there was a man who entered the monastery where he was a brother or some kind of helper by the name of Simon and he was hearing inspirations sounds telling him that he should look for the image of Peñafrancia
Not knowing where the Peñafrancia was, he went to France looking for the image there. There was no Peñafrancia there. ….they did not know where it was. So he went shopping and he found two ladies somewhat quarrelling about charcoal one was saying, “My charcoal is better than your charcoal because it comes from Penafrancia.” So he heard the name Peñafrancia and he followed the woman…..He finally explained that he was looking for Peñafrancia, and so he found a mountain - a rocky mountain…..
Why was it called Peñafrancia? Because during the fight between the French soldiers and the Moors, the French soldiers took their stand in that place, so it’s a mountain of France. Peña francia. 200 years past when they were fighting the Moors and maybe that was the time they were destroying churches and people were burying their images somewhere.
So it was there they found this cave. It seems that there was something in that cave and so he decided to dig…..so he went out to look for some helpers and he found five men who had all defects somewhere in their bodies, and I have the record …. the official deposition of five people that attest that upon touching, kissing and embracing the image, they were instantly cured. So these were the five men that started …the first ones to touch that image …..and so it spread in Spain.
Now …. how did it come in the Philippines?
Sometime in… 1710, a family by the name of Covarrubias came to the Philippines and they had a son by the name of Miguel who wanted to be a priest but he was very sickly. So he wanted to enter the seminary …..so what he did was he had a picture of Our Lady. Wherever he felt pain he would put that picture on the pain and it would be cured.