Mayor leads Marian rites

JAGNA's 375th founding anniversary opening salvo took on a highly symbolic religious tone with the entire community led by Mayor Exuperio Lloren doing the coronation rites of virgin Mary on her birthday, September 8. Jagna united with the churches around the world in honoring the mother of the savior with highly elaborate and solemn rites, with the mayor and first lady Nimfa crowning the Mary's icon at the St. Michael Archangel parish church, early dawn.

The ritual opened with devotees singing mañanita songs offered to the Blessed Virgin. Then a rosary was recited after which the coronation, floral offering by church organizations, sectors and the general public rolled on. Jagna resident priest Fr. Eusebio Soliano said the idea of the symbolic re-crowning of the image of the Immaculate Conception was a call of time.

Accordingly, sixteen years after the February 8, 1990 earthquake which almost toppled the centuries-old Jagna church, the original crown of the image was lost with nobody realizing that it was. The original crown, installed in 1852 by the Recollect priest Fr. Mariano Gutierrez de los Dolores, OAR to the image located at the upper center of the retablo mayor, could have been a treasure so priceless for Jagnaanons.

Fr. Soliano pointed that image is could be 154 years old this year and since the parish is celebrating its 375th founding anniversary, it was just a fitting tribute. He also added that it is a spiritual gesture of thanksgiving to God through His heavenly mother to bring her back the crown symbolic of the love and devotion of the Jagnaanon faithful.

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