The Philippine Catholic bishops will reconsecrate the nation to the care of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the national consecration will be held on June 12, her feast day.
Msgr. Bernardo Pantin, CBCP Secretary-General, said that the event falling on the same date as Independence Day will be an “added relevance” to the consecration.
This consecration reaffirms the bishops’ previous consecrations of the country to the Blessed Mother.
In January 2014, the bishops approved that the consecration to Mary’s Immaculate Heart is renewed every year on her feast day until this year that marks the 500 Years of Christianity.
Like the recent consecration to St. Joseph, the upcoming national consecration will be led by Archbishop Romulo Valles, CBCP President, from the Davao Cathedral at 9:45 a.m.
The Mass in honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will then follow at 10:00 a.m. in the different cathedrals and churches led by the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Valenzuela City.
The National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima is the home of the National Pilgrim Image (NPI) of Our Lady of Fatima, the image that became the forefront of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.
Two years after the blessing of the basement, in the middle of the enormous construction project, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), then headed by Julio Cardinal Rosales, declared that the parish would become a National Shrine on June 12, 1976. Deeply honored and jubilant, parishioners and devotees of Our Lady presumed leadership in spreading the devotion to and message of Our Lady of Fatima not only in Valenzuela but throughout the adjacent towns of the Bulacan Province and Metro Manila and eventually in the whole Philippines.
Msgr. Pantin said that after the post-communion prayer, a diocesan or parish consecration could also be made especially for those that could not follow the national consecration.
All the dioceses and churches will be linked up to the event on Facebook, radio and television.
