Our Lady of Knock-Gigaquit Traces its Roots in Ireland
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Feeling At Home
If you happen to pass by the road leading to the elementary school on the west side of town, say, you come from the vicinity of the main building of Saint Augustine Institute, you would be surprised to see a chapel humbly situated in the garden of the late Ma'am Nellie Dinneen Roa's Spanish-Era ancestral home. "What is inside this place?" one might ask. Then as you approach the entrance of the small building, and if the front door is open, you might notice something that looks familiar to you. Inside is a statue of the Blessed Mother typical to the one you might have seen in the Gigaquit Parish Grotto just left of the main gate of the Parish Church of Saint Augustine. This is the same Blessed Mother who made the apparition in Knock, Ireland in 1879.
Of all places in the Philippines, why the town of Gigaquit? The unexpected reply is that the Miraculous Mother has found this place - a simple and solemn place just like the Town of Knock over a hundred years ago. Who brought the Blessed Virgin to the town? That must be the only daughter of Ma'am Nellie, Grace Dinneen Roa Gonzalez. "But who is this generous woman?” ... you might be asking me now. Well, she is one whose mission is to spread the good news about the apparition of Our Lady of Knock.
I personally met her a month ago in Manila. I was with the Gigaquit On-Line Group that was invited to meet a woman who is on her own devout mission. Although Grace had come a long way from the United States, she can trace her roots to Gigaquit, Surigao del Norte, Philippines and Ireland. She is familiar with her native Gigaquit, as she grew up in our little town. She even recognized each of our family roots and she readily remembers many of the prominent people and leaders of Gigaquit. Now a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, Grace travels quite a bit and has returned to the place of her birth. Indeed, the story of why Our Lady of Knock was brought to Gigaquit is inspirational. Grace's family's roots can be traced back to Ireland through her maternal Grandfather, Charles Augustine Dinneen who was the first teacher of the English language in Gigaquit. He came to the Philippines from Oakland, California and was himself descended from the Dinneens of County Cork, Ireland!
Grace remembers an Unforgettable Experience
With the restoration of her grandfather's house, Grace wished a portion of it be dedicated to her devotion and personal passion. "Never in my dreams did I believe that I could become such a devout follower of the Blessed Virgin," Mana Grace hinted. "I was a sporadic churchgoer until I came to realize the blessings offered by Our Lady. I had just begun to trace my Irish roots as my mother was dying - her hope was that I would reconnect with the land of my Grandfather's ancestors. I was lucky enough to have some Irish friends in Las Vegas who were also friends of my mother. They visited my mother everyday at the nursing home where she was recuperating from a broken hip, but because of her age, her health was steadily going downhill. These Irish friends gave my mother a Mass Card from Knock, but I didn't pay much attention to it as I was dealing with the fact that she was about to join Our Father in Heaven. When she passed away, I was driven to finish the restoration of my family's ancestral home, and to build a Chapel on the grounds as a “Thank You” to God and the people of Gigaquit. I was searching for a Patron Saint to whom I could dedicate the Chapel, when I was drawn to my late mother's belongings - and I discovered the Mass Card from Knock. It was as if Our Lady, Herself, had whispered to me. I was moved to tears as I was going through Mamma's things, and then I knew that she and Our Lady were together in Heaven watching from above. From then on, I was inspired to action; a passion grew within me to bring Our Lady home, to my hometown of Gigaquit."
European Jesuits in Mindanao Mission
It may appear that Gigaquit may be too far from the place of the apparition in Ireland, but history shows how precious Gigaquit was to Europe in the 19th century, particularly to Spain. In the latter half of the 1800's, missionaries were dispatched to the Philippines to bring the Word of God to the people. The mission was part of the mandate of Spain's Queen Isabella II, who in 1859 permitted the initial sending of ten Spanish Jesuit Missionaries to the Philippines. In Mindanao, Jesuits had found their home in Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga and Butuan. From Butuan, one Philippine town had welcomed one fine, humble, European clergyman in the late 1800's. That town was Gigaquit. That clergyman was the Reverend Father Esteban Yepes, S.J. He spent some time in this conservative small town of Gigaquit, some 47 kilometers south of Surigao, the capital, from 1876 to 1879 before becoming the first Parish priest of Dipolog City, the capital of Zamboanga del Norte. He served the people of this small town, which was led by Don Macario Egay. Father Yepes preserved their faith and extended to them their basic education as epitomized by early Jesuit teachers. (Note: 1879 was the year of the Knock Apparition).
In that period, the Philippines was still shedding blood for its independence from Spain, then later on from the United States. It was notable also that, although, greater Manila was subdued and managed by 'conquerors', Sultan Kudarat and his proteges were quite successful in maintaining hold of some portions of Mindanao, and even posed great resistance to Spain's infamous global 'shopping' of slave lands. The Jesuits made humble beginnings and left a stigma of pure religiosity, education and Catholic conservatism even until the advent of the Martial Law years in the1970's - they had marked in the minds of early Filipinos to live within their means and attain self-rule, despite the continuous pressure of the Spaniards.
Present leaders and town folks of Gigaquit, and the progressive City of Dipolog still remember the Big-hearted European, who once lived in Gigaquit and spread the Good News about life and preservation of faith.
The Knock Story
Stories were told far and wide of an Irish village, a small, quiet and unassuming place. It all began on the 21st of August 1879, when Our Lady, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of Knock Parish Church, Fifteen people, young and old, witnessed the apparition.
I can only get some glimpses of people's accounts from the net, as I still have neither printed sources nor personal contact from the very place to tell me of the Town of Knock. At any rate, here are some excerpts I got from the web: On the wet Thursday evening of that very day, at about the hour of 8 o'clock, Our Lady, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist appeared in a blaze of Heavenly light at the south gable of the Church of St. John the Baptist. Behind them and a little to the left of St. John was a plain altar. On the altar was a cross and a lamb with adoring angels. The Apparition was seen by fifteen people whose ages ranged from six years to seventy-five and included men, women, teenagers and children.
The poor humble witnesses distinctly beheld the Blessed Virgin Mary clothed in white robes with a brilliant crown on her head. Over the forehead where the crown fitted the brow, she wore a beautiful full-bloom golden rose. She was in an attitude of prayer with her eyes and hands raised towards Heaven. St. Joseph stood on Our Lady's right. He was turned towards her in an attitude of respect. His robes were also white. St. John was on Our Lady's left. He was dressed in white vestments and resembled a bishop, with a small mitre. He appeared to be preaching and he held an open book in his left hand.
The witnesses watched the Apparition in pouring rain for two hours, reciting the Rosary. Although the witnesses standing before the gable were drenched, no rain fell in the direction of the gable. They felt the ground carefully with their hands and it was perfectly dry as was the gable itself.
The Knock Town's Architect
Knock (An Cnoc in Irish, meaning The Hill - but now more generally known in Irish as Cnoc Mhuire, "Hill of (the Virgin) Mary") is a small town in County Mayo in Ireland. Knock's notability is derived from the Apparition of 1879.
In the 1870s, Ireland was undergoing a period of dramatic upheaval. Some parts of the island had experienced the last waves of what proved to be a minor Famine, which was reminiscent of the Great Irish Famine of the late 1840s that had decimated the countryside. Knock was a town unheard of, but typical of European villages at the time. In 1879, however, the aforementioned Vision of Our Lady brought this little village into the limelight.
Though it remained for almost 100 years a major Irish pilgrimage site, Knock established itself as a world religious site during the last quarter of the twentieth century, largely due to the work of its long-term parish priest, Monsignor James Horan. He presided over a major rebuilding of the site, with the provision of a new large Knock Basilica (the first in Ireland) alongside the old church, which could no longer accommodate the growing number of visitors. In 1979, the centenary of the apparition, Pope John Paul II, himself a devotee of Mary, visited the Knock Shrine and stated that it was the goal of his Irish visit. On this occasion he presented a Golden Rose, a seldom-bestowed token of papal honour and recognition.
Monsignor James Horan, sensing a need to bring more pilgrims to Knock, ignored controversies and skepticism in the region and fast-tracked Knock's pilgrim's cause that included easy transportation and billeting facilities.
Controversially, Horan secured from Irish Taoiseach (President) Charles Haughey, millions of pounds of state aid to build a major airport near Knock. The project was condemned by critics in the media. At the time the Irish economy was in depression with massive emigration. Contrary to the critics' expectation however, Horan International Airport (now known as Knock International Airport) became a commercial success, drawing not just pilgrims as passengers, but also becoming the air-gateway for the entire Connacht region. In that seemingly infamous decision, Horan had established Knock as one of the favorite pilgrimage areas in the world today.
In the 20th century Knock became one of Europe's major Roman Catholic Marian Shrines, alongside Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. One and a half million pilgrims visit Knock Shrine annually.
Our Lady of Knock Filipino Pilgrim's Account
(Published on page C4 of the August 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer: IRELAND CELEBRATES the feast day of Our Lady of Knock on Aug. 21)
"Our Lady of Knock is to Ireland as Our Lady of Lourdes is to France," says Sally Lamson who visited the Marian shrine in 2003. She asked the Virgin to help her open a medical clinic for Filipino workers going overseas. Sally promised the Virgin of Knock that she would name the clinic after her.
Our Lady of Knock Medical Clinic is located on the ground floor of Rizal Tower on Sinjian St., Makati. Framed photos of the Virgin hand on the walls of the clinic. Mila Dolores, who left recently for Knock, and I, visited Sally's clinic and saw she really fulfilled her promise.
Mila, on the other hand, fulfilled her dream to visit all eight places where the Virgin appeared. Knock was the last place she visited.
The Need for a Gigaquit Town Architect
Gigaquit does not need an apparition to put the lessons of the past into action. Centuries-old legacy will forever be in the minds of Gigaquitnons. It was clear that Gigaquit had become a Catholic town when it received its first ever Parish Priest in the person of Rev. Father Yepes.
The story of the apparition has reached so many people, and the Word of God as told through the apparition of the Virgin Mary was spread by the many pilgrims that visited the Shrine. Analogous to this notion is the opening of Gigaquit to the world as a religious site- Our Lady of Knock's extension chapel-- in the midst of this conservative town that was once shielded by the town's patron saint, St. Augustine, from the fiercest and most blasphemous Moro bandits.
This Chapel of Our Lady of Knock in Gigaquit, Surigao del Norte, is not just a family Chapel; it is a symbol of faith and devotion to the Virgin Mary, whose blessings we can all attest to in our everyday lives. All are welcome to worship in the Chapel; to sit and reflect on one's life, and perhaps find peace and serenity. True spiritual inspiration, combined with the quiet determination of a “balikbayan (immigrant) Gigaquitnon” has brought this blessed place home to the Town of Gigaquit. It is Mrs. Grace Gonzalez's wish that the Chapel will bring inspiration and hope to the people not only in her hometown, but throughout the world.
Note: Some entries are excerpts from internet sources:
http://www.knock-shrine,i.e,http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock-Shrine
&
www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/approved/appariti/knock.
Other entries came from a dialogue between GOL and Mrs. Grace Gonzalez in Manila, February 2008.
