OCTOBER, the month of the Holy Rosary, has come and gone but it seems there was no major activity to promote the devotion on campus, very ironic in an institution that calls itself Dominican since the Dominicans are historically the champions and propagators of the devotion: in fact their founder, Santo Domingo de Guzman, was supposed to have received the rosary from the Blessed Mother herself.
There was hardly any recitation of the rosary in October in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, which prays daily throughout the schoolyear the 3’Oclock Prayer, a devotion totally alien to a Dominican campus.
“I was not aware of any kind of celebration took place in the university during October,” said Catherine Belano, a Faculty of Pharmacy sophomore.
Pax Romana, the leading campus religious organization, also was noticeably silent last October. Officials did not make any reply to repeated queries from this paper whether or not it held a block rosary or organized anything remotely connected to the rosary on October.
If there were campus rosary celebrations, they were connected with institutions elsewhere.
The Office of the Secretary General again issued a memorandum enjoining administrators, faculty, employees and students to join the annual procession of La Naval de Manila in Quezon City.
As expected, the UST contingent in the procession was mainly composed of students and teachers from the UST High School.
The Office of the Vice-Rector for Religious Affairs, which is in charge of promoting the spiritual development of Thomasians, held a rosary celebration but in connection with the annual feast of the Santissimo Rosario Parish Church.
“In union with the Santissimo Rosario Parish, we held a nine-day novena in preparation for the feast of our Lady of Manaoag,” said Fr. Filemon De la Cruz, Jr., O.P., vice-rector for religious affairs.
(Our Lady of Manaoag is the Pangasinan image of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. Her shrine, which is managed by the Dominicans, is the most visited Marian shrine in Northern Luzon.)
In fact, Father De la Cruz said, UST Rector Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. celebrated the concluding novena Mass last Oct. 5.
But the novena was really the activity of the parish church, which covers the Sampaloc district and is under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Manila. R.G. Padilla
