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.