Thousands brave the rain for “Our Lady of Fatima”

Rains poured Friday evening in Cebu City. And so was the devotees' unwavering faith.

Thousands of Catholic faithful occupied the stretch of Osmeña Boulevard during the evening procession last Friday, the day the Our Lady of Fatima performed a miracle 100 years ago.

But the people in solemn prayers of the Holy Rosary seemed unmoved even if they were drenched with the sudden downpour.

Touched by the scene, Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, in his homily during the Mass that followed, likened the foot procession to a person's journey.

He said a Christian must continue to walk "in faith" with the Blessed Virgin Mary who will intercede in leading the faithful to Her Son Jesus.

In yesterday's literal depiction, people accompanied the images with different titles of the Holy Mother in going to Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu, the sanctuary of the Child Jesus' famous relic.

“Not only that we worship, but we, as Catholics, let us also imitate the virtues of the Mother. We follow her (qualities) and that it may bring us to the Lord,” Palma said in English and Cebuano during his 19-minute homily.

The 67-year-old prelate challenged the faithful to never stray from the path amid the several challenges such as the bad weather. Past 10 p.m. last Friday while the procession was not even halfway yet, drizzle start to be felt until it rained hard a few minutes later.

Palma recalled that during the sixth and last apparition of the Our Lady of Fatima, it also rained throughout.

During this apparition that has been approved as authentic by the Church, she identified herself as "The Lady of the Rosary."

The 70,000 pilgrims who came to witness "saw the sun make three circles and move around the sky in an incredible zigzag movement."

The story of the famous miracles in Fátima, Portugal stretched back in May 1917 when three shepherd children – Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto – claimed to have encountered the Virgin Mary.

Palma said God sent the best instrument through Mary to remind people of the Lord's great plan to gather all people to become His adopted child, with Mary the mother of Jesus and also the mother of all.

Joining together on Friday evening reached to thousands of Marian devotees walking down the 2.5 kilometer road from the Cebu Provincial Capitol to the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu.

The city's police estimated that there were 20,000 people who joined the procession. The city disaster team, on the other hand, counted participants reaching to 230,000.

Msgr. Ruben Labajo, spiritual director of the World Apostolate of Fatima, admitted the crowd turnout was beyond the organizer's expectation.

“We thought the crowd will only come in 30,000 and so we expected for the procession to finish for one hour. But, it ran for about two hours since we didn't expect the big turnout,” he told reporters yesterday.