Antipolo Cathedral

Image: Wikimedia Commons

On March 25, 1626, the galleon El Almirante left Acapulco carrying the new governor of the Philippines and a small dark image of the Virgin carved in Mexico. The Pacific crossing was so mercifully calm that on arrival in Manila the image was honored with the title Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, and again and again in the following decades she sailed as patroness of the Manila galleons, crossing the ocean and bringing her crews home. Enshrined in the hills of Antipolo east of Manila, she became the Philippines' great pilgrim Virgin: a young José Rizal came here with his father in 1868 to give thanks for his safe birth, and to this day travelers and overseas workers visit her before a departure and after a safe return, many walking through the night from Manila. The church around her, rebuilt after war and earthquake and finished in 1954, is now a cathedral and has been declared the first international shrine in the Philippines. Crowned in 1926, the little brown Virgin still receives millions, in this month of the Rosary above all.