News

Ozamiz fiesta to focus on priestly vocation

OZAMIZ CITY, July 15, 2009—The fiesta of Nuestra Señora del Triumfo de la Cruz (Birhen sa Cotta), titular patron of Misamis Occidental, will focus on strengthening the priestly vocation as the universal church celebrates the Year for Priests.

The celebration of 253rd feast of Nuestra Señora del Triumfo de la Cruz (Berhin sa Cotta) coincides with the 61st Charter Anniversary of Ozamiz City on July 16, 2009.

In an interview with CBCPNews, Fr. Marvin O. Osmeña, parish administrator of Immaculate Conception Cathedral Parish this city, said the fiesta of the titular patron officially named Nuestra Señora de la Immaculada Concepcion y de la Cruz de Migpangi, or endearingly “Ang among Pinangga nga Berhin sa Cotta (Our beloved Virgin of Cotta), has chosen the theme on priestly vocation in solidarity with the whole church celebrating the Year for Priests.

He added that Pope Benedict XVI announced the Year for Priests on June 19, the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, patron of parish priests.

“I would like all of you to pray much for priests and to our local ordinary and recite the prayer for priests every day because the year for Priests is an opportunity for Catholics to pray for their pastors,” Osmeña told his congregation.

For his part Ozamiz Archbishop Jesus A. Dosado, CM called the faithful to invoke the miraculous intercession of the patroness for the strengthening of the priestly vocations. 

“For more than two centuries our people have come to the Shrine of the Virgin Mary at the Cotta, which they claim to be miraculous, to invoke her protection,” Dosado said.

Around the year 1758 an image of the Nuestra Señora del Triumfo de la Cruz was etched into the wall of the Cotta which the people started and continued to venerate.

The prelate added “This is for the purpose that we be rooted to our past and preserve our identity as a local Church. Our devotion traces its history back to 1756 when the Jesuit Missionaries brought from Spain a statuette of the Immaculate Conception and placed it in the chapel of the Cotta.”

In 1992 a new statuette of Birhen sa Cotta was crafted when the antique image of Nuestra Señora del Triumfo de la Cruz was stolen from Ozamiz Cathedral during the Martial Law years.

“May the Shrine of the Berhin sa Cotta never be profaned, defiled and desecrated and may the faithful of this local church pray always for their priests to overcome challenges and difficulties in life so that they become real pastors of their flock,” Dosado concluded.  

(Wendell Talibong)