Radio Veritas will open its chapel in Quezon City for the devotees of Nuestra Seńora dela Soledad de Porta Vaga (Our Lady of Solitude of Porta Vaga) for the public veneration of her icon from August 7 to 14, 2016.
Nuestra Seńora dela Soledad de Porta Vaga also received the title of “Patroness of the Galleons” because her icon was used to bless departing trade galleons plying the route between Cavite and Acapulco, Mexico. It is also called as “The Virgin of Thousand Miracles” because of miraculous stories associated with the image.
Her image was found during a sunny morning after a supposed apparition of Our Lady to a soldier in a stormy night in the Cavite City Port. They temporarily installed the image in the parish church. Eventually, the Ermita de Porta Vaga (Chapel of Vaga Gate) was built along the port’s walls, and for three centuries served as the shrine of Our Lady of Solitude.
Also, during the terrible typhoon in 1830, a fire caused by lightning bolt hit the wooden altar of the Ermita and razed the chapel to the ground, but the image of the Virgin remained intact among the ashes. In 1856, another terrible typhoon flooded the houses, churches and public buildings within the Port but the Ermita, as well as its patio were found dry so the people took refuge in the Church.
The miraculous icon was canonically crowned on November 17, 1978 by Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, Bruno Torpigliani, DD. It was the first Philippine Marian image crowned during the papacy of St. John Paul II.
The icon, which depicts the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Solitude, is enshrined at San Roque Church in Cavite City. Her feast is celebrated every second and third Sunday of November in Cavite City.
Devotees of Nuestra Seńora dela Soledad de Porta Vaga may visit her relic from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm at the Radio Veritas Chapel located at the second floor of Veritas Tower, 162 West Avenue cor EDSA in Quezon City. For inquiries, please call Ms. Renee Jose or Mr. Rey Isabela at (02) 925-7932 to 39 local 129.
Radio Veritas 846, the number one faith-based Radio in the Philippines, is owned and operated by the Archdiocese of Manila. Established in 1969, the Ramon Magsaysay recipient Catholic radio station continues to be the leading social communications ministry for truth and new evangelization in the country today.
