A PRAYER for Blessed Pedro Calungsod will be aired live on TV and radio soon to mark the Visayan martyr’s canonization by the Vatican in Rome on Oct. 21.
Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and Ricardo Cardinal Vidal yesterday recorded the special prayer in English and Cebuano.
“We’ll be asking TV and radio stations to air the Calungsod prayer after the three o’clock Divine Mercy prayer in the afternoon,” said Msgr. Trinidad Silva said, social action committee chairman of the Archdiocese of Cebu.
He said the recorded prayer uses the same words in the stampita distributed after Calungsod was beatified in 2000.
In the video, Palma is shown at his office while Vidal is seen in his retirement house. Both church leaders sit near an image of Calungsod.
The video and audio recording will be released in time for the launching of the 100-day countdown to Calungsod’s canonization on July 14.
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama was pleased that the city’s South Road Properties (SRP) will be the final venue for the Nov. 30 national thanksgiving mass.
“Thank God SRP has been chosen,” said the mayor, who had offered the reclaimed area earlier.
A general traffic plan will be made to anticipate a huge crowd of up to 800,000 people expected to gather fo the liturgical celebration.
“There will definitly be rerouting,” said Sylvan “Jack” Jakosalem, chairman of the Cebu CIty Integrated Traffic Operations Management (Citom).
“Citom still has to come up with routing, transportation and general traffic plans. We will announce this in coordination with the archdiocese,”he said.
SM Prime Holdings vice president Marissa Fernan presented to the planning committee the other day a proposal for SM to develop the site for free.
SM’s offer clinched the decision of archdiocese officials who earlier worried about a cost estimate of P100 million for backfilling and preparing a 1,200 square meter site in the SRP.
Before the thanksgiving Mass in Cebu , an image of the soon to be canonized martyr will travel around the country for a Duaw Lungsod or pillgrimage from Rome to Vigan, Bicol, Samar, Northern Mindanao, Negros province, Iloilo and Bohol.. Correspondents Jessa Chrisna Marie J. Agua, Tweeny M. Malinao and Chito Aragon