The Feast of the Our Lady of Peñafrancia is a grandiose celebration every third Sunday of September in Bicol. A wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, patterned after the one in Salamanca, Spain, is venerated by millions of pilgrims who travel as far as Naga City in Bicol. The entire region honors their patroness with the usual Filipino merrymaking activities, parties as well as novena prayers in churches all over the region. Many images of the Virgin Mary, in the entire country, are also paraded and honored in synchrony with the Bicol procession.
Ina is the name many Bicolano devotees call the miraculous image of the Lady of Peñafrancia. |