Penafrancia Festival 2015: A Festival to Remember

" Faith is seeing light with your heart, when all your eyes see is darkness."

- Anonymus -

                        Penafrancia festival is one of the most awaited festival here at Bicol Region. Every year, thousands of devotees, even tourists from other countries come here at Naga City just to visit our miraculous patron, Inang Penafrancia. They usually spend their vacation here to  witness the one week celebration of the said festival. There are many activities during the festival that you will really enjoy, these includes the Translacion of Inang Penafrancia, Marian Youth Congress, Military Parade, Fluvial Procession of Ina and many more.

                      Hi! I'm Devy Ann. I've been living here at Bicol, at Buhi specifically since then I was born. I knew  how people celebrate Penafrancia festival. They celebrate it with colors and magic. Honestly, I never experienced celebrating this festival with my family due  to some reasons and I'm actually looking forward to celebrate it with them.

                     This year's celebration of Penefrancia festival was totally a different one. I really enjoyed the entire celebration. I participated at the Marian Youth Congress held at Jessie M. Robredo Colliseum. It was an overnight activity participated by youth coming from different provinces and dioceses. The experience was great, I met new friends and new faces. There are many things  to learn. It is also a time for us to repent for our sins and give importance to those things that we do not value.

                        Military Parade is also one of the most exciting activity, wherein different schools compete to win the trophy. University of Saint Anthony got the first place as alwaays. Sadly, during the parade it rained hard but despite of that, the show continues.

                         Among all the activities, this is the most important, the Holy mass being held at the Basilica wherein it was attended by almost thousands of people or more. Despite of the huge crowd, you will notice everybody's eagerness to come closer to Inang Penafrancia. They don't care about the heat of the sun and they don't care if they might get  hurt in pushing themselves to be near to  Ina. Through this, you can conclude that indeed, the faith and devotion of the people is strong. The last activity is the fluvial procession of Ina in the Naga River. It is usually participated by lots of Bicolanos especially those who are residing at Naga City.

                         Celebrating Penafrancia festival 2015 was a memorable experience for me. Everything was worth it.