May is not only a month to honor mothers. It is also a month set aside to honor Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since we love going on field trips, I prayed to God that we’d have a field trip related to mothers or Mama Mary. I’m so grateful that God answered the silent prayer of my heart through a Marian exhibit in a nearby parish.

We wanted to go to Confession and Mass the other day. I asked my husband to check the schedule in nearby parishes. Then, he found out that there is a schedule for Confessions before the daily evening Masses in our neighboring parish, Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians.

During the Mass, we found out during the announcement that they have an ongoing Marian exhibit. This brought joy to my heart instantly. I knew right away that this was God’s answer to my silent prayer. Truly, God grants us our heart’s desires even when we do not repeatedly tell Him about them.

We happily trooped to the Marian Center after the Mass. At first, I thought that there is only a small room for the exhibit. To my surprise, there were 2 rooms on the ground floor for it and the second floor of the building was also used for it. It was a good thing that my youngest child kept telling me to check out the second floor also. I’m so glad I listened to him. We discovered that there were more images and items on exhibit on the second floor of the building.

I didn’t know that there were so many images of the Virgin Mary that were crowned and deemed miraculous. I knew some of the images. But there were many more that I didn’t know about. My family and I eagerly read the descriptions and details about each statue.

A lot of the images were really old, as in a century old at least. It’s amazing that they lasted this long. I hope and pray that we could continue to preserve them for future generations to see.

I learned that for an image of the Virgin Mary to be crowned, it has to be really old, it must be popular and with a lasting devotion, and/or there must be recorded miracles surrounding that image. Ultimately, there has to be a Papal Bull or decree approving the coronation of an image. Once an image is approved, a representative of the Pope is sent to officially crown the image. You may read more about the process of how images are crowned and the many crowned images of the Virgin Mary in the Philippines here.

I wished that we had more time to explore the exhibit because there were at least 50 images of the Blessed Mother that were already crowned in the Philippines. But my eldest child was already hungry and wanted to eat dinner already. Before we left, I told him to pray to the images for healing from his allergies.

Our field trip/visit may have been short and sweet but I was still grateful that we had this opportunity. We still learned a lot about the many titles of the Virgin Mary and the miracles that happened surrounding her images.

I think this field trip is perfect since our boys are also participating in the daily Flores de Maria activities of our parish wherein they learn the catechism, pray the Rosary, learn Marian songs/hymns and offer flowers to Mama Mary.

Mama Mary, please continue to pray for us.