the confradia

Of all the images of the Blessed Virgin Mary (and there are countless with titles only God can count), the Candelaria is nearest my heart and my mind. Permit me to tell you my reasons:
First, she carries with her the Child Jesus. She directs our attention to Jesus and not to herself. She presents Jesus to us. The image is one that takes seriously the saying, to Jesus through Mary, of which others pay mere lip service. She is after all the Theotokos, the God Bearer, that is, she is the Mother of Christ and the Mother of God, the first title she received from the ancient church.
Second, with her holding the candle she depicts exactly what the ancients have called her, “one who shows the way.” The image in a way encapsulates what is always being said of her - the exemplar of the church, the first disciple, our pattern of holiness and the promise of our perfection. The emphasis here is not only on her particular position in the history of salvation as the one who gave birth to Christ but more so because of her cooperation in the most perfect way to the plan of God.


I have always counted myself a devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a devotion I have learned to love even when I was a child. The Flores de Mayo in our Barangay was its first expression. Those were the days when I learned to climb trees (the kalachuchi) to get flowers and to run as fast as I could while dogs were chasing us (after stealing our neighbors’ flowers!). Then I got myself actively involved in the Barangay sang Birhen where the transfer of the estandarte from one house to the other became part of my weekly and even daily routine. It was also the time when I joined crusades and penitential processions and I can still vividly remember, twice, we all walked from our town to San Agustin and the Sports Complex barefoot ,to listen to the likes of Fr. Peyton, Mr. Tajanglangit or just simply to pray the rosary.
When I was in the seminary my devotion to Carmel began and since then I always wore with me, even now, the brown scapular.
But I would always remember with vivid details, the first time I went to Jaro as a little boy with my aunt (I think it was before my first communion). It was a fiesta, very early in the morning, and I remember very well the crowd pressing to get inside the church (the Candelaria was still up there in its niche). We wanted to get inside the church too and we tried every door of the cathedral if only to find enough space for me to squeeze in. We finally found one when we reached the last door – that little door on the left transept which is now blocked by the mortuary (which is the reason why, for memory’s sake, I was so elated upon hearing that they are planning to demolish that beyond-repair mortuary which is practically blocking two doors and two windows!). I only came as far as peeping through the crowd, though it was enough to imprint in me a lasting impression of the people’s love for the Candelaria. After the mass we went for the Palapak and then proceeded to somebody’s house here in Jaro whom my aunt probably knew, and I remember eating ripe mangoes, ibos and tsokolate. That is how I came to know and love the Candelaria and that experience as a boy never left me even as a priest.
Talking to some parishioners one day, we came to realize that the propagation of the devotion to this wonderful mother is being neglected or should I say aside from the fiesta nothing is ever done to propagate the devotion. We don’t even have a perpetual novena in her honor here in her shrine (even though we have one for San Antonio de Padua, Sto. Nino, Perpetual Help, Sacred Heart, Souls in Purgatory, and countless others.). And so we resolved to do something about it and that was the reason why we established the Confradia de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria. It is a year old now with more or less 15 members. We envisioned that the Confradia will not just be like any other Marian Organization of which this parish has already many, but would assimilate qualities of the devotion as taught by the most recent church documents including the Second Vatican Council, the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines and the Third Synod of Jaro. Beside propagating the devotion, full pledge members are required for example to render part of their time to their parish as volunteers (in their own parish) in whatever capacity, be it as ministers, members of parish councils, catechists, etc. A full-pledged confradia member has to be actively involved in their own parish. This is our way of taking seriously Mary’s important role in the life of Jesus when she made herself available for God, available for mission – to permit ourselves to be used for the mission of Jesus.
At this time there is not much movement in the Confradia except to gather at the shrine of Our Lady every first Saturday at 6:00 PM to pray the rosary.
We hope that upon reading this, you too will come to love and appreciate Our Lady of Candles and help us promote true devotion to her and become a member of the Confradia de Nustra Señora de la Candelaria.