The San Agustin Church inside Manila’s historic district of Intramuros has launched the first ever pilgrim image of the venerated Our Lady of Consolation and the Cincture.
The image was presented and blessed during Mass for the First Archdiocese of Manila Shrines Principal Congress held at the parish church on May 1.
Augustinian Father Edwin Hari, the shrine’s rector, said the image was launched to further promote the devotion to Our Lady by, among others, “visiting local communities not only within the Archdiocese of Manila but also in different places across the country.”
“We want for pilgrims to further know and be familiarized with this centuries-old devotion to Our Lady of Consolation that sustained the faith life of devotees here in Intramuros and to share the practice of praying the ‘coronilla’ or ‘crown chaplet in honor of Our Lady to them,’” Father Hari said.
The initial plan is to first bring the image to parishes in the country where there are active units of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Consolation and the Cincture, a lay associations under the guidance of the Augustinian friars of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the Philippines based in Intramuros.
Designated by then archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime Sin, as an archdiocesan shrine in 2000, it was also during the Great Jubilee Year that the shrine’s original image of Our Lady of Consolation was granted a pontifical coronation.
The Mass was led by Quiapo Church rector Father Rufino Sescon Jr. with Manila Cathedral rector Rolando Dela Cruz, Sacred Heart National Shrine rector Roderick Castro and priests from the Augustinian order.
In collaboration with the Association of Catholic Shrines and Pilgrimages of the Philippines (ACSP), the event was attended by lay volunteers from a number of shrines and basilicas within the archdiocese.
The one-day gathering was part of a formation program for the pastoral care of pilgrims coming to shrines.
According to ACSP, the San Agustin Church is considered as one of the most popular churches of the country, being a member of the 15 founding churches of the association in 1991 even when it was only declared as a shrine 9 years later.
