Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"The Manila Naval Ship: the vow of the rosary on the high seas"

Manila (Philippines) (1646)

In 1646, during the Eighty Years' War, a vastly superior Dutch fleet attempted to capture Manila and seize control of the Acapulco galleon trade from the Spanish Crown. The Spanish-Philippine defense consisted of little more than armed merchant galleons crewed by Spaniards, Filipinos, and Kapampangan volunteers.

Before and during the campaign, officers and sailors made a vow to Our Lady of the Rosary of Santo Domingo: they would pray the rosary together on board and, if they were delivered, they would offer her a grand procession of thanksgiving. Throughout five naval battles, between March and October of that year, the seemingly impossible happened: they lost none of their galleons, and their casualties were astonishingly few compared to those of the enemy, who eventually abandoned the invasion.

The devotion had an unusual continuation. In 1647, the Dominican friar Diego Rodríguez requested that the victories be examined as miracles, and on April 9, 1652, after a canonical process, the Archdiocese of Manila declared that those triumphs of 1646 had been obtained through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary. Since 1662, her feast day has been celebrated on the second Sunday of October, with the grand procession of "La Naval" that still draws huge crowds today.