At a Mass declaring a new national shrine, Cardinal Jose Advincula used his homily to stress that mercy should be shown through concrete acts of service.
The Manila archbishop on Sept. 15 led the liturgy to elevate the Diocesan Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of Mercy of Novaliches to national shrine status.
For the cardinal, to be granted with such a “tremendous privilege” is both a gift and a great responsibility.
“You are called to be a holy place where mercy overflows, where church as a mother should be deeply felt,” Advincula said.
But mercy, according to him, directs the Church and the faithful to concrete acts of service and charity.
“Faith without works is dead. So is mercy with works,” Advincula said.
“Let this national shrine of ‘Ina ng Awa’ be a living testament to the saving power of the Cross,” he added. “You may exemplify a life of mercy and truly become a community that witnesses mercy.”
Now known as the National Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of Mercy, it is the first church in the Diocese of Novaliches to receive such a title from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
The formal declaration took place more than two months after the CBCP approved the diocese’s petition to the church among the country’s national shrines.
Established by the Augustinian missionaries from Spain in 1856, it is the oldest church in the diocese.
In 2008, the church was designated as a diocesan shrine, and in January 2021, Our Lady of Mercy was declared the secondary patroness of the diocese.
Later that year, in June, the shrine was granted spiritual affinity with the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome.
In September 2021, the image of Our Lady of Mercy received the papal honor of canonical coronation during a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Charles Brown, apostolic nuncio to the Philippines.
