8th Grand Augustinian Procession set in September

SANTA RITA— The Confradia Ning Cintas, a brotherhood of Augustinian devotees will be hosting this year’s 8th Grand Augustinian Procession this month of September instead of the yearly November 13.

The change in the date of the celebration was to coincide the event with the feast of Our Lady of Consolation observed by the Augustinian orders every month of September.

The event will be bringing together religious icons and hundreds of devotees in honoring the feast day of all the saints of the Augustinian Order.

Confradia Ning Cintas, based in Santa Rita town, said that the event is in honor of the Augustinian Orders who had helped shaped the history of Pampanga.

The group also aims at highlighting the all the saints under the Augustinian tradition, regardless of order, for purpose of veneration and as role models for Catholics.

The confraternity hosts processions of processions of saints from different Augustinian orders as well those affiliated with the Augustinian tradition.

While a fairly recent organization, the Confradia ning Cintas is actually inspired by an early religious confraternity during the Spanish times in the town that promoted the novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the Augustinian title of Our Lady of Consolation.

Pampanga is the first province organized under the Spanish rule and was effectively organized through the Augustinian missionaries who served in its various parishes and built the historic church structures of the province that still stand today.

Confradid Ning Cintas president Annabelle Abinales said the event is presented to bring public awareness on the values and lessons from the life and works of St. Augustine.

Abinales said that St. Augustine of Hippo was “as an early Christian theologian whose writings are considered very influential in the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy.”

The event also aims to honor the list of Augustinian saints, martyrs and blessed persons. She said participants in the procession will exhibit their images of various Augustinian saints a week before the grand procession at the Sta. Rita Parish Church.

She said people can learn valuable life lessons and values on faith through the lives of the featured Augustinian saints. The event also aims to promote the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary through her title of Our Lady of Consolation (Nuestra Señora de Consolación y Correa).