The 20th annual Asian and Pacific Island Catholics Marian Pilgrimage opened with a procession of nearly two dozen Catholic communities with roots in that part of the world May 6. The event was held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
The pilgrimage was sponsored by the Asian and Pacific Catholic Network, in collaboration with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, and the related offices from the Archdiocese of Washington and the Arlington diocese.
“Even though our cultures and languages are different, we are uniting under Jesus and Mary,” said Fred Semendy, a native of India and parishioner of St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Clifton. “Through Mary to Jesus, that is our goal,” he said.
A retired physicist and engineer, he serves as the president of the Asian and Pacific Catholic Network. He said the gathering began as an effort to bring Asian Catholics together at the basilica to pray the rosary, and has continued for the past 20 years as an annual pilgrimage, a shared spiritual journey for those communities.
The 600 pilgrims who attended came from Washington, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. They carried banners and wore native dress as they processed in carrying statues and portraits of Mary as the patroness of countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, China, Laos, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Korea, Samoa and the U.S. island territory of Guam.
As the pilgrims marched toward the altar, a choir sang a Marian hymn in Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, and the participants reverently placed their statues and portraits of Mary at the sanctuary and lined their banners in an area behind the altar.
Before the Mass, the joyful mysteries of the rosary were prayed in different languages and led by locals including members of the Couples for Christ from Northern Virginia.
Celebrating a Mass for the pilgrims that afternoon, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory said, “Your presence is a magnificent witness of how all-encompassing are the places and nations where God’s word has been planted and flourished.”
In his homily, the cardinal also noted, “As our neighbors from Asia and the Pacific Islands assemble here in Mary’s Shrine, you continue to remind the entire church that God’s Spirit is present in every corner of our world. His divine glory is to be found in every part of our planet.”
After the gathering began with time for confession and then the opening procession, a call to prayer featuring sacred songs and movements from various groups from St. Paul Chung Korean Catholic Church in Fairfax.
Then members of the Camacho family, Filipino Catholics from All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, participated in crowning a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“The Blessed Mother brings all her children together to her Son,” said Msgr. Vito Buonanno, the basilica’s associate rector and director of pilgrimages, as he welcomed the Asian and Pacific Island Catholics.
Prayers of the faithful were offered in Tagalog, Chinese, Indonesian, Burmese, a language of the Montagnards, the Konkani language of India, and then a final prayer in English, asking that God “grant the blessings we need as we journey together in his love.”
Then offertory gifts were brought to the cardinal by representatives of some of the communities wearing native dress.
Music at the Mass was led by a Filipino choir from Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Vienna; a Vietnamese choir from Our Lady of La Vang Mission in Chantilly; and a Bengali choir from St. Camillus Parish in Silver Spring. According to the Mass program for the pilgrimage, participating communities also included Catholics with roots in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand and Lebanon.
In an interview, Sister Myrna Tordillo, a native of the Philippines who is a Scalabrinian sister and serves as the assistant director for the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Island Affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, said the annual pilgrimage offers a vibrant witness of the religious identity and cultures of the participating immigrant and refugee communities as they seek to pass on their Catholic faith to younger generations.
“We are united in our diversity through our faith and our devotion to our Blessed Virgin Mary who is our model and example of being a disciple to her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,” she said.
Also participating in the call to prayer were dancers from St. Paul Chung. Maria Kim said their group volunteers in the community, performing traditional Korean dances at schools, hospitals and nursing homes, to share their culture. She said seeing the other Asian and Pacific Island Catholics coming together at the pilgrimage to pray, dance and sing nearly brought her to tears.
Among those attending the pilgrimage for the first time was Ogie DeLeon, a native of the Philippines who works as a software developer and is a member of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Lake Ridge. “It’s really wonderful to hear different prayers in different languages in the Asian and Pacific Island communities, and actually knowing that we are one in faith,” said DeLeon, who wore a traditional Filipino Barong shirt with ornate embroidered patterns.
