Anything under the sun
The world of Mother Rosario (1)
As previously discussed here, the family of Mother Rosario led by her pious parents made the most impact on the child’s life. However, other environmental factors also contributed to the upbringing and growth of this child – like Molo itself, her birthplace.
When Mother Rosario was born in 1884, Molo which was then a pueblo (town) was already a religious, educational, business and political center in the alcaldia (province) of Iloilo. Each of these aspects of Molo somehow contributed to what she was during her life.
Let us take one by one each one of these:
- Molo – a religious center
At the time of the birth of Mother Rosario, Molo was already a famous pilgrim destination. During its town fiesta on July 26 in honor of Sta. Ana – the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, hundreds of people pilgrims from Panay and Negros trooped to its church.
These pilgrims asked for favors or thanked for past favors already granted by Santa Ana – patron of peaceful and harmonious family life, childless couples and catechists.
At this time, the beautiful Molo church was just finished. It is the only Gothic one in the entire region and is majestically lording it over the plaza even until now. Every fiesta day, the saint’s devotees are crowded inside the church and spill over to the plaza.
This grand demonstration of religious piety must have awed and greatly inspired the child Rosario in admiring the statue of Santa Ana at the main altar teaching the Scriptures to the Child Mary thus laying a very firm foundation in the young Rosario’s heart the importance of teaching religion to the young – a charism of her future congregation.
The young Rosario must have also heard of a popular story in Molo handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth about a young catechist from Molo brought by the priests, hundreds of years ago to Cebu and later, to Guam where he was killed by the natives. Just recently, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II as Blessed Pedro Calungsod.
As time went on, Molo became more and more a religious center by being the first seat of the Carmelite Motherhouse in the Philippines in 1923 and the present seat of the Mill Hill Missionaries in the country.
There are also religious centers in the neighborhood of Molo. They are:
the pueblo of Arevalo (less than two kilometers west of Molo) where the third oldest image of the Santo Niño (1572) in the country is enshrined is another pilgrim destination every third Sunday of January, the town’s feast day.
- Around five kilometers west of Arevalo is Oton whose church was the first in the country to be dedicated to Our Lady of Immaculate Conception (1572). It was also the seat of the first motherhouse in the country of the Augustinian Order under its first Father Superior Fray Martin de Rada considered as the “Apostle of Panay.”
- around three kilometers east of Molo, was the Spanish main defense fort in the region La Fuerza del Santisisimo Rosario which was saved from the Dutch attack by the prayers of the defenders to the image of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.
- Also around three kilometers north of Molo is Jaro – the seat of the diocese of Jaro where the image of Our Lady of Candles, the third Marian image in the country (1587) was enshrined inside the cathedral. It is just a stone’s throw from Colegio de San Jose where the teenager Rosario studied for years.
This image is the only Marian image crowned by Pope John Paul II when he made his pastoral visit to the Philippines in 1981.
In sum, under these varied scenarios of events, places and stories, it is safe to say that somehow they must have contributed to the laying of the foundations of faith, hope and charity in little Rosario.
