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The Breastfeeding Madonna
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Have your ever heard of Our Lady of La Leche? Her feast is celebrated every year on October 11. She is the patroness of mother and mothers-to-be.
Although in the past I had seen many pictures of Mary breastfeeding baby Jesus, it was only in the year 2000 that I was invited to join the Our lady of La Leche Movement here in the Philippines because I was the coordinator of pro-life. I still remember the day that Remedios “Baby” Ticzon-Gonzales visited me in the convent and told me of her concerns on how to promote the devotion. She said that a rare antique statue of the Blessed Mother was bequeathed to her by an uncle, Ramon R.Ticzon, who passed away in 1999.
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In the beginning, she did not even know how to call this icon of the nursing Blessed Mother. No one was familiar with the image. Her daughter-in-law, Tere, who was pregnant at that time, was searching in the internet when she came across the La Leche League, a group promoting breastfeeding. The website included an article on the devotion to the breastfeeding Mary in one of the shrines in Florida. Further research informed her that there is a such a devotion in Spain as well.
Through the years, I have been assisting the group in clarifying the direction of the movement, identifying the prayers and novenas to be distributed, and helping fund the reproduction of the statues that came in different sizes. Soon after, I was asked to be the spiritual director of the movement, joining them for recollections and for the annual celebration of the feast on October 11 held at the Harrizon Plazo chapel, through the kindness of the owner, her cousin Belen Ticzon-Martel. Dozens of pregnant women would show up for the special blessing after the Mass and receive gift packs for their babies.
I truly admire Baby Ticzon and her small .group of about ten women as they zealously contact hospitals where they would regularly bring the five-foot statue of Our Lady to the maternity wards and pray with the newly-delivered women to bless them and their babies. They have also traveled to private homes, health centers, maternity clinics and homes for unwed mothers. They solicit or personally contribute in order to produce novena leaflets, stampitas, posters, calendars and statues. Together, they embarked on the task of spreading the devotion, particularly to pregnant and childless women.
Numerous answered prayers by those who used the novena have been reported. I myself promote it in my radio and television programs and I have mailed a lot of the novenas to those who text or write to me, especially those longng to have a baby after so many years of childless marriage.
Special thanks goes to Fr. Nick Blanquisco, who was her parish priest at the time she started the movement at Our lady of Fatima Parish in Madaluyong City, for allowing the statue to be placed on one of the side-altars in the church. When the group were deciding on what day to choose for the feast, putting it on the same day as that of Our Lady of Fatima would not have been wise since the parishioners would of course honor their primary devotion to Fatima. Christmas Day, the day that Mary would naturally have started breastfeeding her Baby, would not be good either as the holiday festivities would outshine our celebration. I then suggested October 11, which is traditionally the Feast of the Maternity or Motherhood of Mary.
Official permission to promote the devotion was given by His Eminence Cardinal Sin, and later Cardinal Rosales also authorized the group to continue with the propagation of this devotion.
At this time when our DOH and many pro-breastfeeding groups are intensely fighting the aggressive promotion of infant formula by multi-national pharmaceuticals,
this devotion should be evermore promoted to educate the people on proper maternal and child care.
For copies of the novena to Our lady of La Leche, you may contact me at 0920-945-5494 or the La Leche Movement at 531-3063
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