Our Lady of Fatima

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Our Lady of Fatima
Sunday, 12 27, 2005

I am supposed to have stopped writing this year — for a well-deserved vacation in my hometown — after that Christmas story last Tuesday about the birth of my sister Imelda. But my son, Kenneth, had asked why the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which is supposed to be in my parents’ house in San Nicolas, now adorns our home in Quezon City. Hence, this sequel.

San Nicolas is the home of some of the leading lights of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), who took common cause with its founder, Gregorio Aglipay. The Hernandos of San Nicolas, like the Fonaciers of Sarrat, fought together with Aglipay from Batac for independence from Rome, and were able to wean away from Catholicism quite a number of people in San Nicolas.

And so it came to pass that the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which had become an object of veneration after the miracle at Billoca, traveled from house-to-house among the Catholics of San Nicolas. Everyone vied for its presence in the nightly block rosary. The IFI faithful, with the fervor of their own religiosity, could not care less. One night, however, the statue was carelessly brought to the house of an IFI member, who, unmindful of the tenets of her own church about the mother of Christ, had requested her neighbor to let the Lady visit her home.

Although the recitation of the rosary went smoothly on that night, a strong current of resentment directed against the lady of the house arose from the rest of her family. The statue, they maintained, could not stay overnight in a house that professes the IFI creed; it had to go somewhere else. The statue either had to be thrown out of the house or be transported that very night to a house of a Catholic where it would be most welcome. My mother, who owned the statue, decided to bring the statue to their ancestral home where lived her mother Geronima.

Now, Geronima was an ambivalent believer: she was both a practising Catholic and an IFI convert. By consanguinity, she was a cousin of the Hernandos, who were with the IFI; by affinity, she was the wife of one of the Barangans, who were and still to this day staunch Catholics. With equanimity, she would go to either church on Sundays and attend the rites of any between the two whenever it suited her convenience. And so with admirable evenness of temper, she gladly welcomed the Lady of Fatima to her house, and there to stay until someone else relieved her of the honor of being host to the venerated icon.

It was not after several days later that Lola Geronima had to let go the statue, because there was going to be some renovation done to her house, in preparation for the coming marriage of another member of the Hernandos to that of the Barangans. And so the statue went back to my mother’s house, only to be returned to Lola Geronima’s house on the day of the wedding.

Oh what a glorious wedding it was! The marriage was officiated twice, in two different churches. Religious tolerance, or practice of faith by convenience, was being observed in San Nicolas. But the star of the show was the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. She had brought together (yet again!) two families otherwise divided by faith.

It was my sister Imelda, who was by then 13 years old, to whom my mother had bequeathed the statue, and who took care of it until she decided 25 years later to migrate to the United States with her family. By then, I was already a law student, and Imelda explained to me well enough the miracles that the Lady had brought on the lives of members of our family and the town of San Nicolas where it was virtually venerated as a patron saint. My sister left the statue with me, and sure enough, the Lady took care of this country boy from San Nicolas. It is with unabashed pride when I say she brought me a miracle as well when I took the Bar examinations. She must have interceded very hard for my sake at the time when I was awaiting the results of the Bar with fear and trepidation. Since then, the statue has become permanently enthroned in a consecrated niche in our home, where it remains as symbol of the unflagging faith of the members of my family.

Christmas has descended on us once again, and it is time to take stock of how our faith has made us grow, how we have triumphed over adversity, how we have forgiven and loved our fellow men, how we have not looked back in anger but instead learned to look forward with hope and compassion.

The statue of our Lady of Fatima reminds me of all these, even as I dutifully recount to my sons Kenneth and Kevin — who will in turn do the same to their sons when the time comes — that Christmas in 1943 when the Lady showed herself to an oppressor who became an immediate disciple of peace and understanding in a season of thoughtless killing and wanton destruction.

A merrier Christmas than I to mine may you bequeath to yours.

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