PRESS RELEASE: MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES

2024 Update: A Catholic religious book that I collected and edited has a new edition - MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY'S PILGRIM SITES gathers 24 people's accounts of Marian sites wherein they found comfort, solace, and sometimes miracles. The pilgrim sites include familiar shrines in Lourdes, Vailankanni, Guadalupe, Fatima, Ephesus, as well as lesser known ones including several in the Philippines (Antipolo, Manaoag, Odlot, Caysasya and more).  It is available from Amazon.

PRESS RELEASE                                       For Immediate release – 6/2012

ANVIL RELEASES NEW MARIAN BOOK

“MAGNIFICAT: MAMA MARY’S PILGRIM SITES”

           

            Anvil Publishing Inc, is proud to announce that the book, Magnificat: Mama Mary’s Pilgrim Sites will be released on June 30, 2012 at Powerbooks, Greenbelt 4, Makati.

The book collects 24 essays by devotees about their experiences in Marian Pilgrim sites. The sites are located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, India, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United States, and there are eight Pilgrim sites in the Philippines.

The book includes short write-ups of other international pilgrim sites and some Catholic Prayers. Archbishop Tagle of Manila has issued an Imprimatur for the book, Magnificat: Mama Mary's Pilgrim Sites.

The contributors are: Lucy Adao McGinley, Angelita Caluag Cruz, Maria Ciocon, Celeste, Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Millicent Dypiangco, Ma. Milagros T. Dumdum, Penelope V. Flores, Almira Astudillo Gilles, Ma. Teresita Herrera-Tan, Fe Aida Lacsamana-Reyes, Jaime C. Laya, Guia Lim, Linda Nietes-Little, Ma. Teresa Z. Lopez, Aimee Gaboya Ortega Lucero, Lynley Salome R. Ocampo, Ma. Cristina Padilla-Sendin, Marsha C. Paras, Rev. Dr. Sebastian Periannan, Brian Ascalon Roley, Julia H. Wolski, and Linda Yamamoto. Dr. Paulino Lim Jr. has written the Introduction.

The essays in the book are varied. Some are factual, as that by Jaime C. Laya about the Shrine of Our Lady of the Abandoned, Santa Ana Church. Ma. Ceres P. Doyo also writes an informative account of Our Lady of Caysasay in Taal, Batangas.

Other essays are more personal such as the work of Linda Nietes-Little who is known as a book seller of Filipiniana books, and whose article in this book marks her debut as a writer. Of her essay, When Mama Mary Called From Fatima, Nietes-Little says, “This recollection of our visit to Fatima is a memorial to my sister, Violeta. She passed away on January 28, 2010 at the age of eighty.”

Celeste, the pseudonym of a contributor, writes about an unwed daughter who finds herself pregnant, and the spiritual journey mother and daughter make when they make the pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

Penelope V. Flores, Professor at San Francisco State University, writes of her visit to the Maryam Monastery in Lake Tana, Tigray, Ethiopia, and how, using a local twig brush, started painting. “It was as if Mama Mary told me, ‘Lose yourself. Paint my Lake Tana emanation and your canvasses will show feelings’,” Flores writes.

Millicent Dypiangco testifies in her article, At Maria Lanakila, Our Prayers were Heard and Answered,  about yearning for a child and how her prayers to Our Lady of Maria Lanakila in Lahaina, Maui were answered with the birth of her daughter, Miranda.

As Erlinda E. Panlilio, writer and editor, says in her blurb for the book: “Running as a leitmotif in all the essays in this book is the writers’ palpable love for Mama Mary. Each writer has undergone a change in his or her life or outlook following a visit to a Marian site. Some may have experienced a “miracle,” or felt consoled and renewed; others a deepening of spirituality, or an epiphany, an insight into the divine. Although we know that Jesus is the only Way to the Father, it is our belief in the power of Mary’s intercession to her Son, borne out of the Bible’s Cana story, that makes us all turn to Her, whom Her divine Son will never refuse.”

The book has also received praise from Reverend Father Dionisio M. Miranda, SVD, President of the University of San Carlos: The Magnificat has always been a testament to God’s paradoxical dealings with his people. This book assembles a tableau of witnesses to how a fleeting visit with Mary can turn into a life-changing introduction to her Son. Through their stories the author offers their readers the distinct possibility of setting the stage for a personal, if vicarious, epiphany.

            Bishop Leopoldo C. Jaucian, SVD, DD, Bishop of Bangued, says: “This is another outstanding book by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard. Profoundly Marian and beautifully written by the contributors as these are their personal experiences! To our fellow devotees and would-be devotees of the Blessed Virgin Mary, you will surely fall in love with "Magnificat: Mama Mary's Pilgrim Sites" and love Our Blessed Mother even more.

            As Father Reuter succinctly says, “The devotion to Mary is strong in the hearts of every Filipino.” Magnificat: Mama Mary’s Pilgrim Sites provides testimonies of just that – the firm devotion and love Filipinos have for Our Lady

The book’s editor is Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, award-winning author and literary figure in the Philippine and Philippine American communities. The book, Magnificat: Mama Mary’s Pilgrim Sites follows her recent book, Out of Cebu: Essays and Personal Prose, released last February by the University of San Carlos Press.

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