March 4, 2011

Introduction to the Liturgy
By S. Maria Rita Ferraris, RVM

It was the 4th day of March, 1663, in the Church of the Holy Kings in the fifth Parian de Chinos, when the baby held in the arms of Catalina Malinang received the waters of baptism from the hands of Fray Alberto Collares, O.P.: “Ignacia del Espiritu Santo: you are now sacramentally a child of God.” The parish registry recorded her father as Juseph Iucuo, and her mother, Maria Jeronima, but the child was marked as belonging to the Holy Spirit: “del Espiritu Santo.” Was this a portent of Ignacia’s calling and election, to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit in igniting in the hearts of other women marginalized in the colony, the aspiration to live the evangelical counsels through the religious family she gave birth to?

Today we give thanks to God for the Venerable Ignacia, gift to the Philippines, to the Church and to us, the Religious of the Virgin Mary.