The Lady of the Galeon

Our Lady of Peace and Good Journey · Antipolo, Philippines · since 1626

A dangerous journey and a promise fulfilled

On March 25, 1626, the galleon The Admiral He sailed from Acapulco to Manila with the new general governor of the Spanish East Indies, Juan Niño de Tabora, on board. The trip was extremely difficult: almost four months of crossing, violent storms and an on-board fire that may have ended in catastrophe. The tradition shows that Tabora attributed the salvation of the ship to the image of the Virgin she had with her, carved in dark wood in style. de bastidor, about 120 centimeters high.

When he arrived in Manila, the governor deposited the image in the Jesuit chapel. After his death in 1632, the parents installed her in Antipolo, in the mountains east of Manila. Shortly after his arrival, he began to circulate stories of wonders: the image disappeared from the sanctuary at night and dawned on the top of a tipolo tree (kind of bread tree, Artocopus blancoi). The phenomenon was repeated several times, and the faithful interpreted it as a sign of the place where the Virgin wanted to be venerated. The church moved at the foot of that tree.

Six Pacific crossings - without a single shipwreck

The most amazing fact of the cult of Our Lady of Antipolo is of an eminently historical and navigational nature. Between 1648 and 1748, the image crossed the Pacific on six round trip trips aboard the Galleons of the Manila- Acapulco race:

Saint Louis (1648–49) · Incarnation (1650) · San Diego (1651–53) · San Francisco Javier (1659–62) · Our Lady of the Pillar (1663) · San José (1746-48). On two additional occasions the ship had to return to Manila for bad time, but without shipwreck or loss of life. No galleon carrying the image on board sank.

Official recognition and living pilgrimage

On 8 September 1653, Governor General Sabiniano Manrique de Lara signed a public decree giving the image the formal title of Our Lady of Peace and Good Journey. The image was canonically crowned in 1926 by the apostolic delegate. Every May, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos make the pilgrimage on foot to the Basilica of Antipolo - one of the country's most entrenched devotional traditions - making this small city a mountain one of the most visited Marian shrines in Asia.

Our Lady of Peace and Good Journey,
You who crossed the great ocean six times without fear,
guide our steps, save our trips,
and take us to the port of salvation.
Amen.