And it was through Sister Lucia that Mrs. Aquino knew, even before the coup d’etats her administration survived and any sign of colon cancer manifested in her, that she had a lot to suffer.
These are among the interesting details that Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J., of the Loyola School of Theology wrote about Mrs. Aquino’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The article, written when Mrs. Aquino was still healthy, can be found in the website mariansolidarity.com under the topic Ave Maria.
Arevalo recalled that in September of 1986, Jaime Cardinal Sin and then Ambassador to the Vatican Howard Dee organized at Fatima in Portugal an International Theological Symposium on “the Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.”
He said that Sin and Fr. Socrates Villegas took time out from the symposium to visit Sr. Lucia dos Santos, one of the three visionaries of Fatima in 1918, 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 said) 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.
Arevalo said that “Our Lady had held it (the rosary) in her own hands.” He recalled that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, SDB, who was then Vatican Secretary of State and had officially interviewed Sister Lucia more than once before her death on Feb. 13, 2005 once said that the nun continued to be visited by the Blessed Virgin after the initially apparitions in Fatima.
“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 as later saying” “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.”
What Arevalo did not know at the time he wrote the article was that Mrs. Aquino was to suffer the pain of colon cancer before her peaceful death last Aug. 1, the first Saturday of August, which commemorates on the 15th the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven.
Mrs. Aquino was known to have also fulfilled the so-called First Saturday devotion sought by the Blessed Virgin at Fatima as assurance of salvation for one.
Arevalo also recalled that after her presidency in 1992, Mrs. Aquino, together with her 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.”
The remains of Mrs. Aquino holds a rosary, but it is reportedly not the same rosary gifted her by Sister Lucia. She was reported to have lent the rosary to many other people seeking favors from the Blessed Virgin, among them the late Star columnist Teddy Benigno.
Arevalo also quoted Mrs. Aquino as naming “three secrets” of Fatima that she and her late husband, national hero Ninoy Aquino had once discovered.
He quoted Mrs. Aquino naming the secrets thus:
-“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 dos Santos died in Coimbra on 13 February 2005. She had earlier witnessed the beatification of the two other Fatima visionaries, her two cousins, Francisco and Giacinta Marto, May 13, 2000 in Fatima.
