Miracles
Our Lady of Manaoag has a 400-year history of renowned miraculous and pious events. Some of the earliest are replicated in the murals within the church. These include images of: the town miraculously spared from a wildfire, the origin of the basilica and the parish, and the original apparition. Devotees and foreign tourists visiting the shrine usually pray for good health or cure for diseases, among other intentions.
The magnanimously miraculous Our Lady of Manaoag has brought distinctive honor and fame to the eponymous town and to the province of Pangasinan.
In the early days of the Spanish colonization, animist mountain tribes burnt down newly-converted Christian villages. The town of Manaoag was among the settlements set afire. The thatch-roofed church was the locals' last refuge. The leader of the pillagers climbed over the compound's crude fence and shot flaming arrows into all parts of the church, but, miraculously, the building did not ignite.
The statue's miraculous powers became famous in the 1940s. During World War II, the Japanese dropped several bombs within the church's vicinity. The structure was only moderately damaged. Four bombs were released above the church, with three landing on the plaza and the façade, destroying both. The last bomb fell into the sanctuary, but it remained intact because, miraculously, it did not explode.
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Famous quotes containing the word miracles:
“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A star was broken
Into the centuries of the child
Myselves grieve now, and miracles cannot atone.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)