Dress rehearsal for International Eucharistic Congress

The Philippines is all agog over the prospect of hosting the International Eucharistic Congress (IEC), but no Catholic organization or group is more excited than members of the Cebu Archdiocese led by Archbishop Jose Palma.

Cebu City is the venue of the 51st International Eucharistic Congress slated on Jan. 25 to 31, 2016. The schedule is more than two years away and preparations are already getting hectic for this very important Catholic gathering.

The IEC was previously scheduled to take place in May 2016, but the Vatican adjusted the timetable to four months earlier on the same year, prompting speculation that Pope Francis will visit the Philippines.

The Vatican through the Pontifical Commission on IECs is the main driver of the IEC. The Vatican commission collaborates with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), which in turn, coordinates with the Cebu Archdiocese. The Church in the Philippines is expected to join forces with the government and private groups to ensure the smooth and orderly flow of the program, not to mention the safety of tens of thousands of Catholics worldwide who are expected to attend.

I have a number of friends in the Archdiocesan clergy and each time I engage them about the IEC, they cannot contain their excitement. Many had been tapped to handle important tasks in logistics, like transport, accommodations, security; protocol, mass communications, etc.

Reliable sources say Archbishop Palma has assembled various working committees composed of the clergy and lay people to handle the myriad tasks involved in a massive Church gathering, one that will most likely have the Pontiff at the head of the meeting.

Two weeks ago, a team from the Vatican came here to reconnoiter our city and based on media reports, Archbishop Pierro Marini and Fr. Vittore Buchardi who represented executives of the Pontifical Committee for the IEC were satisfied with what they saw and heard.

In particular, the Vatican team visited the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu to ascertain if the church may be counted as one of the venues of various IEC programs. A reliable source in the basilica told this corner the Vatican VIPs together with Archbishop Palma were led around the basilica by members of the Augustinian community.

The Basilica del Santo Niño is a significant venue because it is the shrine of the Holy Child Jesus called Santo Niño by ardent Filipinos especially Cebuano Catholics.

But more than that, the Vatican needs to know that an important Catholic milestone will be marked in 2015: the 450th year of the finding of the Santo Niño de Cebu coinciding with the arrival of the first Catholic Order in the Philippines.

Historians note that in 1565, the Augustinian Order set foot in Cebu under the leadership of Fray Andres de Urdaneta or 44 years after the Christian faith was brought to the island.

When the Spaniards arrived, a soldier of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi recovered the image of the Santo Niño, the same image given by the Portuguese expedition leader Ferdinand Magellan to Juana, wife of Rajah Humabon who converted with him to the Christian faith in 1521.

The image was found in a burned hut where the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu of the Augustinians stands today. Cebuanos mark this historic event with intense prayers in a celebration called “Kaplag” held every year around the last week of April.

From 1565 to 1898, the Augustinian Order organized some 300 towns all over the country. That means the religious order succeeded in evangelizing a sizable length and breadth of the Philippines and to say that we owe the Augustinians a great debt of gratitude would be a gross understatement.

I wonder if the Augustinian clergy who received the Vatican visitors mentioned this important milestone because it seems to me the CBCP in general and the Cebu Archdiocese in particular has not given this important event its due significance.

The milestone is going to happen one year ahead of the IEC.

If national and local organizers have not realized it yet, the Augustinian event presents itself as the best dress rehearsal for the IEC.