Journey to SVFP Shrine

 Note behind the Scenes

When Ma'am Clarita Jimenez first told me about her wish to have our parish church be declared officially as a shrine, we were about to finish her coffee table book on local Catholic church history. That was years ago. I was incredulous at the mere thought, for I grew up hearing local elders who claimed that the church had long been considered a "national shrine" of St. Vincent Ferrer. One surviving resident in her 90s attests that this has been so since the 1930s.

But apparently, being a people who don't keep archives of paperworks (understandable -- no one wants to attract mildew, mold, termite, and silverfish), we couldn't prove with authenticized documents that the once-popular acclamation was true, so I guess new work had to be done. But did the hard work of having the parish church declared officially as shrine have to be placed on our poor shoulders?

But you don't say no if you are asked to serve God or the church -- not in this special way.

The next thing I and the rest of her willing-unwilling 'victims' know, we were part of the St. Vincent Ferrer Parish Church's Ministry on Culture and Heritage, which was later renamed to Ministry on Shrine, Culture, and Heritage.

It was quite an unusual set-up in the sense that the members included the same people we know either as municipal consultants or members of the Bayambang Municipal Culture and Arts Council, thus blurring the lines between church (parish) and state (LGU). The move, after all, is not just religious in nature; a part of it is also about culture, history, and heritage. After all, stories about parishioners' devotion to the patron saint, for instance, are part and parcel of the town's lore.

In no time, we were holding a series of informal meetings for this purpose, until the main proponent finally asked the parish priest at the moment to lend his support to the idea of formally requesting the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan (a very familiar figure back in Metro Manila where I was based) to give his official blessing.

Due to my condition (I've been suffering from agoraphobia and hyperacusis), I couldn't attend other activities that required going out in the heat of the sun and other physically strenuous activities, but I handled other tasks like what else but writing and editing and the like when needed.

We knew the project was an uphill battle because we didn't know the archbishop personally and we knew that he was no pushover. And besides, there was a set of challenging conditions that must be met. These include a petition letter signed by all living Bayambangueño priests and the current parish priest and a historical sketch of the church and parish. The latter was alredy mission accomplished some years before, thanks to Ma'am Clarita's book. From the guidelines that we read, we added the reestablishment of a museum, a brochure, a visible tarp in front of the church announcing the church's services, and we even threw in a compilation of local townsfolk's testimonies about their St. Vincent Ferrer devotion and improvement works on the church and church offices.

Furthermore, meetings were quite hard to pull off because of constant mismatch in members' schedules. Then there was the matter of finding sponsors and additional hands to overcome these challenges and meet the conditions.

But apparently, we were able to prove that it can be done. Early this March, we finally received the good news.

There must have been some powerful prayer warriors at work all along. Not being an active churchgoer and church worker lately (thank God for live masses online), I am not privy to the other efforts being done by other church workers with this same aim, so this is the only side I am able to write about.

I am glad that in my very limited capacity, I can say I was a part of it.

(Not in photo is Fr. Rowell Rocaberte, who assisted us on the process of application for a parish to become officially a shrine.)