Homily of Most Rev. Charles John Brown D.D., Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines
Pontifical Coronation of Nuestra Señora de Caridad de Agoo
Minor Basilica and Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, Municipality of Agoo, La Union
December 6, 2024
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38).
Your Excellency, the Most Rev. Daniel O. Presto, D.D., Bishop of San Fernando de La Union; brother bishops who have traveled here this morning and last night to be present here in the Minor Basilica and Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, also known as Santa Monica, Parish and Church, the Agoo Basilica; priests of the Diocese of San Fernando de La Union; religious sisters gathered here in the front rows of the Cathedral of the Church; civic officials, government leaders, you, the lay people, the faithful of Agoo:
It gives me great joy and happiness to be with you this morning as your apostolic nuncio, having come from Manila early this morning to share your joy on this day in which we will enact the Pontifical Coronation of your beautiful image of Our Lady of Charity, locally known affectionately as Apo Caridad. This beautiful image enshrined here in the middle of the sanctuary, this beautiful image of Our Lady, holding the baby Jesus, and listening to all of our prayers.
From Episcopal Coronation to Pontifical Coronation
Here in this very place, more than 50 years ago, my predecessor, the Apostolic Nuncio in the Philippines, †Archbishop Carmine Rocco, came here on May 1, 1971, and crowned, did the coronation of Our Lady; but it was an Episcopal Coronation, not a Pontifical Coronation. Today, more than 50 years later, me as apostolic nuncio comes in the footsteps of Archbishop Rocco 50 years ago, for this Pontifical Coronation—a coronation that has been authorized by the Holy Father, through the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome.
So, this celebration, in a certain sense, is the highest form of coronation of an image of Our Lady that the Church knows. So, today is a day of great joy, of great rejoicing, in which we lift our voices to God in thankful recognition of the presence of Our Lady here in Agoo, our beautiful and wonderful Apo Caridad.
Not only was she crowned in an episcopal way back in 1971, but then in 1982, this Church was elevated to the status of a Minor Basilica; and we see in the sanctuary the symbols of a basilica, especially the umbrella and the bell, which are symbols of a pontifically elevated church to the status of basilica.
Today, all those preceding events come to a joyous culmination in the Pontifical Coronation of Our Lady, in which all of us have the opportunity to show our love and affection for our mother, for our Blessed Mother, Our Lady, Apo Caridad—our love, our affection authorized by the Holy Father in this Pontifical Coronation, more than 50 years after the Episcopal Coronation.
A Coronation of Our Lady is a moment in which all of us, her devotees have the opportunity to say, in a very humble way, “Thank you, Mary”. Because we know that Our Lady is already crowned, Queen of Heaven and Earth. She's there in heaven, watching over us, interceding for us, listening to us—having Jesus listen to our prayers and answer our prayers. So, today we say thank you to Our Lady. We, in a very humble way, try to show our appreciation for her. So, today is a day of great joy.
God Chooses Mary
The Gospel that's been chosen is the Gospel of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), which we hear ordinarily on March 25th, nine months before Christmas. When Our Lady became pregnant with the baby Jesus—the gospel of the Annunciation. What does the Gospel of the Annunciation really show us? It shows us God's choice. God chooses. This is fundamental to our faith as Christians: God chooses, God selects.
Interestingly, in the Old Testament, before the coming of Jesus, God chose a people, a tribe, we can say, or 12 tribes, the people of Israel as the chosen people. In the Old Testament, in the Book of Deuteronomy, we learned that God did not choose the Israelites because they were the biggest, or the most powerful people on Earth. Rather, He chose them because they were the smallest, and the less numerous among the peoples of the earth (cf. Deuteronomy 7:7).
So, God chooses, but God's choice is not the way we choose. We tend to choose whatever is best, biggest, and most exalted. God's choice is often on the periphery, in the smallest places, the far-flung places. That is what we see in Our Lady in the Gospel, this morning. The Gospel takes us to what is now Israel, but not to Jerusalem, not to the capital, not to the place where later on, Jesus would be crucified and rise from the dead, but to the provinces, to Galilee. Not in the center, but in the north, in the north of Israel, into a town of Nazareth. That's where God chooses. Who does He choose? This humble girl, this teenage girl, there living a normal life, there in Galilee, in Nazareth. God's gaze, we can say, the eyes of God were diverted to her, to Mary.
God chooses Mary, out of all the human beings on earth to be the person through whom God would become man, in Jesus. God chose her, not because she was famous, not because she lived in the capital, not because she was somehow honored by everyone in the world. No. God chooses those who are on the peripheries to do great things for Him. God's choosing is different from our choosing.
Of course, God sends the Archangel Gabriel with that announcement that you [Mary] are to be the mother of God; and Mary is kind of startled, and astonished by this message of the angel. “How can this be?” she says. In the traditional translation, “How can this be because I do not know man—I have no relations with a man?” The angel reassures her, “The power of God will come upon you. The Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and the child to be born will be Son of the Most High.”
Then God's choice has to be, what we say, “ratified” by a second choice. That's Mary's choice. God chose Mary, just like God chose the Old Testament people, the Jewish people; but God's choice needs to be ratified. It needs to be received. It needs to be corresponded by Mary's choice. Because Mary, at the end of the Gospel, says, “Yes, let it be done to me according to your word.” “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” “Behold the servant of the Lord, let it be done to me according to thy Word.” God's choice, but then Mary's choice.
God, the all-powerful Creator of the entire universe—the stars, the galaxies, everything, chooses this teenage girl in Nazareth. That Almighty and amazing choice of God has to be ratified, received by her choice—the choice of a girl to say “yes” to God.
So, that's what we see in our faith always: God choosing us, but we need to choose Him. That's why we honor Mary, because more than anyone else, her choice had ramifications and consequences for all of human history, but as St. Paul teaches us, not only was Mary chosen, but we have been chosen. You and I are chosen by God. God chose us in Him, in Jesus, “before the world to began, to be holy and blameless in his sight” (cf. Eph. 1:4).
Choosing God, Like Mary
So, every one of us who has faith, we have faith because God has chosen us individually. God has an idea of you. He chose you. He gave you the gift of faith. You believe in Him because He chose you. We are Christians, not because we have loved God, but that He has loved us (cf. 1 John 4:19).
First, God chose us, but we need now to choose God. That is the point of the celebration of a pontifical coronation. We look at Mary. Of course, we celebrate God's choice of Mary, but also we celebrate Mary's choice of God, and that reflects on our own lives as Christians. Yes, God has chosen us. He has given you the gift of baptism. He has fed you with His Body and His Blood in the Eucharist, but now we need to choose Him.
Our lives, brothers and sisters, if you think about it, our lives are a series of choices, of decisions. All of us are here this morning in front of Apo Caridad in this beautiful Basilica. Why? Because all of us chose to come here this morning. We could have done something else. We could have gone to work, or gone to school, or whatever we needed to do, but we chose to be here. We're choosing all the time. At every moment, we're making choices, “What shall I do?” To be a Christian and to be found holy and blameless in the sight of God means to try to choose the way God wants us to choose, to make our choices in the light of God's will.
That is why Mary is so beautiful, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” All of us, in our big choices and our little choices, need to strive to choose for God in every choice that we make, our conscious and our unconscious choices. One of the ways to do that is to entrust ourselves to Mary. Mary, who made that amazing choice, to say “yes”. Asking her, “Mary, help me to make the right choices, the right decisions.” Because every decision we make, and making them, even at this moment, every decision we make, are footsteps on the way to the kingdom of heaven.
When we make bad choices, we go off the track, off the path. When we make right choices, inspired by God and with the intercession of the Blessed Mother, we begin to walk quickly and joyfully in the way in which God wants us to go. So, we need to ask Mary. “Mary, help me to make the right choices. Help me to choose for God the way you did, then I will find joy.” When we do that, we begin to receive all the blessings that God wants us to receive.
Agoo, a Place of Pilgrimage
This place, this wonderful Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady of Caridad, Our Lady of Charity, here in Agoo, is a place of pilgrimage. People, I'm sure, stop their cars as they're driving North. They come here to say a prayer to Our Lady. Think of how many people have knelt in these pews, and offered prayers to Our Lady for all of their troubles, difficulties, asking Mary to intercede for them, asking Mary to direct their lives.
We do the same thing this morning, but when we do that, we begin to receive all the blessings that God has in mind for us. Because when our lives are directed by God, we begin to receive all the blessings that He has intended from all time to give us. It is important to choose for God, and to receive all the blessings He wants to give us.
Your Apo Caridad is so beautiful, so maternal, so wonderful. She is really the Mother of La Union, this beautiful area here in Northern Luzon. You can tell from me as your Apostolic Nuncio, walking in the footsteps of my predecessor more than 50 years ago, it gives me so much joy. What an honor it is for me, in the name of Pope Francis, to place the crown on Our Lady's head. By doing so, what do we say? We're saying “Thank you, Mary. Thank you for all the blessings that you have shown us, all the intercessions that you have given us. Thank you for giving us, Jesus. Thank you also for directing our steps, and help us to be sensitive, Mary, to your very subtle indications.”
Because just like at the Wedding Feast of Cana (John 2:1-11), that famous feast in which Jesus changes the water into wine, Mary has those very famous words, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). That is the way in which we choose for Jesus. Jesus has chosen you. You need to choose Jesus. “Do whatever He tells you.”
Conclusion
So, dear brothers and sisters, as we get ready to crown Our Lady, we say thank you to her. We continue to thank her for all the gifts of intercession that She has showered upon us.
We also pray this morning for our Holy Father, Pope Francis. We pray in a very special way for Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, who is on his way to Rome to become a cardinal, which will happen later on this week—a beautiful celebration of the importance and the wonderful Catholic character of the Philippines, that you'll have a new cardinal by the end of this week, in Cardinal David. So, we pray for him during this Mass. I also ask you to please pray for Pope Francis. Whenever I go to Rome, and I was there about three weeks ago, Pope Francis is always asking me to ask you to pray for him. So, please remember to pray for Pope Francis.
May God bless you!
Transcribe by Joel V. Ocampo
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