MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino and some members of his family attended the consecration of the EDSA Shrine on Monday night.
Aquino was accompanied by his sisters Ballsy Cruz and Viel Dee during the mass officiated by Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas.
Cruz received a miniature image of the Virgin Mary on top of the shrine in honor of their family’s contribution to the church.
In his homily, Villegas said the EDSA Shrine is a symbol of the country’s unfinished revolution.
“None of us, perhaps not even President Noy, imagined that he would be President of the Philippines on the silver jubilee of this church,” Villegas said.
He said the President’s mother, Corazon, was one of the main supporters of the church built after the People Power Revolution in 1986 that catapulted her to the presidency.
“The first adjective to describe the EDSA Shrine is that it was unfinished,” Villegas said.
Villegas noted that the altar’s floor was only carpeted, not tiled or marbled and that there was no sound system and the lights were not functioning well.
“And up to now, the EDSA Shrine should remain faithful to its original description – it is an unfinished church. Why so? Because the EDSA Shrine has no right…to stop moving. It has no right to be a maintenance church… Because if you will not move as a shrine, you are going to gather moss like the stones, or you’re going to gather dust like the pieces in the museum,” he said.
“The EDSA Shrine is an unfinished church and it will always be an unfinished church. I hope the rector or the succeeding rectors will not attempt to smoothen it because that is the perfect symbol of an unfinished church, of an unfinished revolution, of an unfinished mission. Everyone who comes to this church must embrace revolutions. We must be ready to pioneer. We must be ready to break boundaries. We must be ready to break records, like EDSA 1986 that broke the record of peace-making movements in the whole world,” he added.
Villegas said the EDSA Shrine should stand as the shrine of unfinished revolutions.
The EDSA Shrine – also known as the Shrine of Mary, Queen of Peace, Our Lady of EDSA – is a small church located at the intersection of Ortigas Avenue and Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Barangay Ugong Norte, Quezon City.
Built in 1989 to commemorate the People Power Revolution, the shrine stands on the site of two peaceful demonstrations that toppled former Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.
Villegas said the consecration of the church was supposed to be Dec. 8, but a coup was staged against Mrs. Aquino and that the artists, contractors and engineers failed to meet the deadline set by then Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin.
He said the shrine is transparent and small compared to other Catholic churches.
“There could be no democracy without transparency and the glass walls would show a church that was not restrictive but would help people look at the society and become agents of social transformation,” he said.
Villegas said the shrine was small because the Gokongweis could only donate 2,500 square meters of their property for the church.