PRAYER has the power to “make the impossible possible,” and the faithful can best experience this by looking up to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a “woman of prayer,” a Manila cleric said on Oct. 6, the fiesta of the UST Santisimo Rosario Parish Church.
Fr. Reginald Malicdem, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Manila, reminded Catholics in his homily that Mary became proof of the power of prayer when she was chosen to become the Mother of God.
“If we don’t pray, we cannot hear and understand the word of God. If we don’t pray, it will be difficult to heed the call of God,” Malicdem said in Filipino.
“Pray and you will be able to hear clearly God’s Word for you. And pray so that you may be able to say yes to God like Mary…Mary, the woman of prayer, is also the woman of trust and faith.”
Malicdem also urged the faithful to rediscover prayer and hope in the year 2024, which Pope Francis declared as the Year of Prayer.
He underscored how the Santisimo Rosario Parish Church’s walls have heard students’ prayers in times of difficulty.
“When we are confronted with a situation that is very difficult to handle, when there are problems that are beyond us, when we are confronted with impossibility, we ask God through prayer, ‘Lord, how can this be?’” he said.
“A lot of students have already prayed here before exams…In prayer, we will be given the assurance. Nothing is impossible with God.
The Misa Mayor was offered on the final day of the parish’s month-long fiesta celebrations.
It was followed by a grand procession of the image of Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario and those of 20 saints who were Marian devotees.
The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated on the first Sunday of October, to mark the decisive victory of the Christian fleet in 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto. Vince Alfred M. Pillagara
