Filipino Catholics in the Washington, D.C., area made a pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 18, 2021 to celebrate a 500-year journey of faith that continues.
The Mass commemorating 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines and the Feast of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino martyr and saint, drew about 450 people, including women wearing native silk dresses in pastel colors with delicate stitching, and men wearing traditional barong tagalog embroidered long-sleeved shirts.
The morning began with a procession of about 100 Filipino Catholics who sang hymns and marched around the basilica’s exterior and through its main entrance, led by young adults carrying a cross and followed by children and adults, some who carried banners representing different Catholic groups. Statues of St. Lorenzo Ruiz and of Santo Niño de Cebú, an image of the Holy Child Jesus sacred to Filipinos, were reverently carried to the front of the basilica’s sanctuary and placed there.
In accord with coronavirus safety guidelines, some participants wore special red face masks with the theme and logo of the anniversary year, “Gifted to Give,” referring to how Filipino Catholics received the gift of faith 500 years ago and are called to share that gift with the world.
Echoing that theme, Washington Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, the main celebrant at the Mass, in his homily told Filipino Catholics, “You are gifted to go out and give.” Bishop Dorsonville, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, encouraged them to follow Pope Francis’s call by going out and being missionary disciples bringing Christ to the world, especially to those on the peripheries, like the poor and migrants and refugees.
The Mass at the basilica was part of the jubilee year commemorating the first Mass in the Philippines, celebrated on Easter, March 31, 1521, by a Spanish priest accompanying the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, the explorer who died after engaging in a tribal battle there, but whose expedition that began with five ships and 260 men eventually accomplished the first circumnavigation of the globe, with 18 surviving crew members arriving in Spain on one remaining ship loaded with spices in September 1522.
The Christian faith blossomed in the Philippines in the past five centuries. Today the Philippines has the third largest Catholic population among the world’s countries, with Catholics constituting 86 percent of its nearly 110 million people. More than 10 million Filipino migrants, most of them Catholic, are living in 100 different countries around the world. An estimated 2.9 Filipino Catholics live in the United States.
That faith could be seen dramatically in 1995, when an estimated crowd of more than 5 million people attended Pope St. John Paul II’s closing Mass at World Youth Day in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and in 2015, when it was believed that even more Filipinos attended Pope Francis’s closing Mass during his visit to that nation.
In April 2021, as bishops across the Philippines opened holy doors at cathedrals to help launch the anniversary year, Pope Francis in a video message encouraged Filipino Catholics to “be grateful for the gift of faith… Reach out to others and bring them the hope and joy of the Gospel.”
Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the former archbishop of Manila, also issued a video message for the jubilee, praising the “hidden simple witnesses to the faith” over the past 500 years who contributed to “our character as Filipinos, to the betterment of the Filipino culture and to the formation of the Filipino nation.”
Cardinal Tagle said the anniversary was a time for Filipino Catholics “to recommit ourselves to faith (and) to act on it… This is also a time to share the gift of faith with our families, in our communities, in our parishes and even to the rest of the world. The gift that we have received, we should not keep to ourselves.”
At the National Shrine Mass, Msgr. Walter Rossi – the basilica’s rector – welcomed the Filipino Catholics, noting that over the years he had witnessed that community’s joy and faith. He noted that St. Lorenzo Ruiz is depicted in the shrine’s dramatic Trinity Dome mosaic, and that its Crypt Church level includes an oratory to Our Lady of Antipolo that marks its 25th anniversary next year and was donated by the nation’s Filipino Catholics.
Bishop Dorsonville in his homily said the prominence of the basilica’s artwork depicting St. Lorenzo Ruiz reflected the vital role of Filipino Catholics in the Church in the United States. He praised the witness of that saint, who was martyred with missionaries in Japan in 1637 after he refused to renounce his faith, was canonized 300 years later, and is venerated as a patron saint to the Philippines, to youth and altar servers, and for people working overseas.
The bishop said that saint brought Christ to others, and he praised today’s Filipino Catholics for the faith that remains close to their hearts and families and spurs them to serve their parishes and to be evangelists throughout the world. Praising faithful laypeople as a blessing to the Church, the bishop also asked the Filipino priests and women religious at the Mass to stand, and he joined the congregation in applauding them.
Before the Mass, people prayed decades of the rosary in English and then in the Filipino languages of Tagalog, Bicolano, Ibanag and Cebuano. The petitions at the Mass included one read in Ibanag “for victims of the pandemic, the earthquake in Haiti, the North American wildfires, Hurricane Ida, the Afghanistan withdrawal, (and) especially migrant refugees and orphans all over the world.”
The Mass was organized by the Filipino community in the Washington region, collaborating with the Archdiocese of Washington’s Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach, and the Asian and Pacific Island Affairs section of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity.
