In the words of Pope St John Paul II:
"From Mary we learn to surrender to God's Will in all things.
From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. ​
From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God"

My first memory of encountering Mary under Her title Our Lady of Peñafrancia came about when my mother took me to Our Lady’s Shrine in Naga City when I was a little child. Theafternoon visits to the Shrine remain indelibly etched in my mind, quietly watching my mother while she meditated before the Stations of the Cross painted around the walls of the church as she “walked” on her knees! After prayers, she made sure we greeted and paid our respects to Our Lady of Peñafrancia by kissing the hem of Her golden Mantle of Protection.

My parents, Ernesto and Leonor were devotees of Ina and the seeds of devotion were sown very early in my heart, mind and soul with daily 6:00am Masses, Angelus, Rosary and Litany (in Latin) in the evening at 6:00pm before dinnertime.

Remembering my high school days, I learned more about Christ through Mary when I was invested the Miraculous Medal as a Child of Mary and the Scapular of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. The first Saturday devotions to Our Blessed Mother Mary were deeply instilled with regular catechesis.

From childhood, until the time I finished college then on to graduate school in New York, my life experience and faith journey also took turns, twists, detours and lapses. By the grace and mercy of God combined with the prayers and thousands of Hail Mary’s recited by my parents, who never ceased in recoursing to Mary, I passed through the various vicissitudes of life in my faith journey.

Coming to New York in 1982 was a pivotal point in my life when I met my future husband Thomas Joseph, a fine arts and metalsmith, and a Catholic! He was my classmate at the graduate school where we completed gemological studies. Soon after, in 1983, we married and moved back to Philippines.

In 1984 and 1985, our two eldest daughters Dianna Michaellaand Maria Cristina were born in Naga City. Dianna was baptized and confirmed by the late and highly esteemed Bishop SofioBalce at the Old Peñafrancia Shrine. Maria received baptism at the Holy Cross Parish, our family parish in the village of Tabuco.

By early 1986, the year when the intervention of the Lady of EDSA manifested miraculously through the bloodless People Power revolution in Metro Manila to depose the dictatorship of the Marcos era, our young family returned to upstate Rochester, NY.

During the early years, God blessed us with three more children namely, Peter Benjamin (1987), Patricia Isabella (1989) and Matthew Arnold (1990). They were all baptized at our new parish of St John of Rochester Church where God planted us in His garden to grow and bloom as a family.

The 1990’s were very eventful years for my husband and me as we nurtured and cherished one another with the challenges and trials in providing and caring for our young family. There were times when the “weeds and thorn bushes” of life could sometimes prove our patience, endurance and perseverance. In the same token, those were times of grace-filled moments as our family learned more deeply about what is essential and vital in family life.

I remember that saying of Fr. Peyton that “a family that prays together, stays together” which my own parents likewise echoed while we were growing up. Evening prayers and recitation of the mysteries of the Rosaries with our kids gave me much consolation, peace and direction.

Through the Blessed Virgin Mary’s ever intercession, the challenges of raising a big family and building our family business would have been insurmountable. As a wife, mother and co-partner in our own small company, my day-to-day living depended on daily Masses and Holy Communion, Rosary prayers, Divine Mercy Chaplets and lots of Novenas to the holy angels and saints! In like manner, without the blessings, love and care of my husband’s parents, family and parish community friends, adapting to a new culture, environment and travails of family life would be more difficult and trying.

From St John of Rochester Catholic Church and School, our children received formal religious education and as they learned about our Catholic faith, my husband and I, as a couple, also grew and bloomed in parish work. As a family, we participated in the various ministries and encountered persons who have a great love and devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ and the BVM. With mentorship from close family friends, we were blessed knowing Rev. Frs Henri JM Nouwen and Jean Vanier of L’ArcheCommunity in Toronto, Canada; Donald MacCarthy, a Basilianpriest; Michael J Hogan (former personal secretary of Ven. Bishop Fulton J Sheen) Michael Constanzo, a professor at St John Fisher College, and many, many more great priests of the Diocese of Rochester.

In the Jubilee year of 2000, after discerning and receiving blessings from our elderly parents, spiritual directors, priests and intimate friends, we left Rochester, NY and travelled for four days heading toward the deserts and mountains of Arizona and the southwest. Little did we know, that God’s Divine Plan and Providence through the patronage of Our Ina, awaits us in the dry heat, bright sunny days of Arizona that peak summer month of July.

As early as 2001, Bikolano priests started to visit us at St Mary’s parish where we served since we arrived. First of whom was my cousin Fr Alvin Cayetano, a SOLT missionary who was leaving Papua, New Guinea for a needed respite. In 2002, while making my sojourn to Bikol, I met Fr. Wilmer Tria who had just launched a coffeetable book on Our Lady of Peñafranciaentitled, “Ina nin Bikol: A Journey of Faith.” Not long after, he came to visit our parish in Chandler, Arizona and likewise launched the book which proved to be a phenomenal success among the parishioners and devotees of Our Blessed Virgin Mary in the valley of the Diocese of Phoenix.

The events that unfolded revealed to me that Our Ina had set before me a mission and vision to be fulfilled in this part of the southwest of USA. This was confirmed in 2003, when I visited my elderly parents in our house in Tabuco. They counselled me to bring a replica of Ina back to St Mary’s. I obediently agreed but not without apprehension and some form of anxiety.

Soon after, more priests from the Archdiocese of Caceres came to our parish and most notably was our beloved Msgr. Antonio Rebanal. He remained as a retired priest assisting in the ministerial duties of celebrating regular Massses and Confessions, visits to the homebound and those ill in hospitals.His decision to retire and serve at St Mary’s was divinely ordained for he guided and mentored us in the true devotion to Mary being himself a devotee of Ina and spiritual director of the Legion of Mary. He remained serving the parish community of St Mary’s and other parishes of the Diocese of Phoenix as a Marian spiritual director until his lingering illness and demise in 2014. To this day, I am convinced of Our Ina’s intervention of sending him to us. Historically, we are now celebrating the 15th year of devotion to Our Ina here in our parish of St. Mary’s.

In November 2014, Our Ina miraculously intervened and saved me from a fatal massive hemorrhagic stroke. My complete recovery baffled my neurologists and doctors. The MRI's and CT scans taken on my brain did not show any previous injury or damage. My brain was completely healed by Our Lord through the intercession of Ina.

On September 24, 2017, the Chapel Shrine of Our Lady Penafrancia will be dedicated under Her Title and Patronage. It is located at the new St Juan Diego Catholic Church, second church of St.Mary’s Parish also to be dedicated that same day by the Bishop of Phoenix, Bishop Thomas Olmsted and the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Caceres, Most Rev.Rolando Octavus J. Tria Tirona, who will officiate the rite of Enshrinement and Blessing of Ina’s image.

It has been 17 years now since our family had been “blown” from Philippines via N.Y. unto Arizona. And in all these years, I can truly avow of Our Lady’s protection and patronage to our growing family and 2 lovely young granddaughters and one more, on the way.

For now, I would like to close my sharing on my personal journey with Our Ina, Our Lady of Penafrancia and Her Pilgrimage to Arizona, ever mindful of the author of the book of Ecclesiastes:

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.