What do these songs have in common: Immaculate Mother, Mary Immaculate Star of the Morning, Mother of Christ, and Hail Mary? Does the prayer, “Loving Mother, help us” ring a bell?
Most Filipino Catholics of various statuses would have definitely come across these items. They all comprise the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a Marian devotion held every Wednesday that has been popular through the ages.
I do remember that, after attending Mass in St Rita Hospital, we would remain in the chapel to recite the novena. I continued fostering the devotion when we moved to Cavite and then back to Gagalangin. However, it was a different experience if you go to the center of the devotion in Baclaran. Every Wednesday, from the rising of the sun till its setting, people flock to that church to attend the novena. Devotees too can avail themselves of the Mass or Confession. The church has a huge patio that can accommodate people if the church is already jam packed.
I have frequented this place on many occasions like whenever I am going to/coming from Cavite as the bus and LRT stations are quite near the place, during my high school days in Letran, and when I was working in Cargohaus in NAIA Complex.
During my last college year -“forced year”, as some would call it-I started to revisit and revive the devotion. After classes, normally took the España-Tayuman jeepney. More often than not, I would pass by the Espiritu Santo Church. There was something that inspires me to come inside the church. Most of the time, there’s Mass going on. I would find myself coming out of church when the Mass is finished. Apart from that parish’s devotion to the Holy Spirit every Monday, the Novena to Our Mother stands out. “Para kang nasa Baclaran Church” as I once described it to a friend. Indeed, apart from the Novena, Mass, and Exposition/Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, one could also have the chance to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
From then on, I started attending the Wednesday devotion and have even brought others with me: my brother Gio and, later my then fiancée and now wife Nidz. Nidz and I found these Wednesdays as our encounter with the Lord and the Blessed Mother. It was also our way of deepening the relationship and preparing ourselves to what would become of us in the future.
Our love for Our Lady has been such that we have decided to get married on a Wednesday, her day.
When we moved to the UK, I really thought that I have left everything back home. Our parish church, I found out, is under the patronage of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. “Succour” is an old English word for “help”. True enough; the Blessed Mother whom we have always sought has been here all along, calling us to be near her Son, calling us to be near her - the mother whose help we can count on.
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