ANGELES CITY, Philippines – The Blessed Virgin Mary was believed to have held in her hands the rosary that Sister Lucia gave to former President Corazon Aquino.
Sister Lucia is one of the three children who saw and talked to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917.
Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J., of the Loyola School of Theology and a close friend of the Aquino family, mentioned this in his story about Mrs. Aquino’s devotion to Mama Mary entitled “Sister Lucia of Fatima: Her Rosary and Mrs. Cory Aquino,” long before Mrs. Aquino succumbed to colon cancer.
The article is published at the mariansolidarity.com under the topic Ave Maria.
In the story, Arevalo mentioned that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, SDB, who was then Vatican Secretary of State and had officially interviewed Sister Lucia more than once, said that Sister Lucia reportedly saw Mama Mary in private visions periodically throughout her life.
“Some of the Sisters (in Sister Lucia’s convent) believe that Our Lady, during one of her visits, held the rosary in her own hands and blessed it for Mrs. Aquino, promising her presence and strength to her in times specially of suffering and need. That is why Sr. Lucia reminded Tita Cory to take good care of the rosary. Our Lady had held it in her own hands,” Arevalo said.
He quoted Mrs. Aquino later as saying that “Sister Lucia sent me this rosary which she herself made, with the message that I would be supported and protected in my presidency. She added, however, that more suffering would come my way. I now know that it was a prophetic message, as I had to fight back seven coup attempts to save my administration from power-grabbers in uniform. With Our Lady’s protection, I stood my ground and never left Malacañang, even when it was being attacked.”
Special rosary
Arevalo recalled that in September 1986, Jaime Cardinal Sin and then Ambassador to the Vatican Howard Dee organized an International Theological Symposium on the Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary at Fatima, Portugal.
While there, Sin and Fr. Socrates Villegas took time to visit Sr. Lucia dos Santos in her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal. The visit was made possible with the help of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
“Sister Lucia… was really happy to talk with the Cardinal. She had been told of the People Power events, and she assured the Cardinal that she and the other Sisters had prayed – prayed much – for our people’s peaceful liberation from the dictatorship. She seemed to be well informed about Edsa Uno,” Arevalo wrote.
He recalled that “Sister Lucia did something the Cardinal did not expect. She took out a rosary which she herself made, bead by bead. She wanted Cardinal Sin to give it as her personal gift to Mrs. Aquino.”
“Tell her (Mrs. Aquino) to take good care of it,” Sister Lucia told Sin. “It was a promise of Our Lady’s blessing on President Cory during her presidency and beyond,” Arevalo noted.
Mrs. Aquino’s visit to Fatima
Arevalo, in his article, said that after her presidency in 1992, Mrs. Aquino, together with daughter Kris, went to Fatima to join the 75th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions.
She was able to personally talk to Sister Lucia, with the former Father General of the Comboni Fathers, Fr. Manuel Lopes.
Again, Arevalo quoted Mrs. Aquino as later relating: “When I visited Sister Lucia in 1992, the first question she asked me was, ‘Do you still have the rosary I sent you?’ I replied, ‘Yes, but right now a niece who lives in Boston and is hoping to have a baby is borrowing it.’ I feel so blessed and privileged to have this bond with Fatima and so I shared this rosary with relatives and friends.”
“When we asked Mrs. Aquino the names of some of the people who had borrowed her rosary, usually at a time of crisis or health need (a grave surgical procedure, for instance) or when begging for some important grace from the Lord, she texted in reply: ‘Some names I remember, among the people who have prayed using the rosary given by Sister Lucia: Teddy Benigno, Chino Roces, Ed Angara, Violy Drilon, Bea Zobel and her daughter, Titoy Pardo, Sasa Lichauco, Doding Carlos, Meldy Cojuangco and her son Tony, Sr. Christine Tan, Mercy Tuason, Howard Dee and Dodo Dee, Arben Santos, Bettina Osmeña, and… my sisters, my children and grandchildren,” Arevalo said in his story.
“The list goes quite a bit longer, for sure, and there are moving stories connected with many of the ‘borrowings.’”
The miraculous rosary was also used by Chino Roces, one of the freedom fighters of martial law who prayed the rosary until he died.
“The heroic Chino had asked Mrs. Aquino to let him borrow the rosary as he waited for death. He prayed it daily with his loved ones, returning filial devotion to Our Lady when the end came.”
‘Three secrets’
Arevalo also quoted Mrs. Aquino as naming “three secrets” of Fatima that she and her late husband Ninoy had once discovered.
“First is the power of prayer, especially the daily praying of the rosary of Our Lady.
“Second is the acceptance in faith of God’s plan in our own lives, and the entrustment of our lives to Mary.
“Third is the spirit of sacrifice to carry out God’s designs, after the example of Mary, offering personal sacrifice for a greater good toward God’s purposes.”
Sister Lucia died in Coimbra on Feb. 13, 2005 at the age of 97. She had earlier witnessed the beatification of the two
other Fatima visionaries, her two cousins, Francisco and Giacinta Marto, on May 13, 2000 in Fatima.