2005 Mayflower Festival

Sunday, May 29 at San Lorenzo Spiritual Center

Welcome address by Becky Tolentino

     Good afternoon ... my name is Becky Tolentino.  On behalf of San Lorenzo Spiritual Center, I welcome all of you to our celebration of the May Flower Festival, otherwise known as Flores de Mayo.  I specially welcome our celebrants Bishop Emeritus Walter Sullivan and our dear Rev. Fr Leo Manalo.

     Embraced by Filipino Catholics throughout the world, and deeply ingrained in our religious heritage, Flores de Mayo has a long and rich history going back some hundreds of years ago.

     As the story goes, Constantine, the emperar of Rome had a dream in which he was asked to go to the battlefields in the name of the Holy Cross.  He conquered his enemies and these victories led to his conversion into a Christian.  Thus, he became the first christian emperor in history.  His mother, the queen, Reyna Helena was inspired by all these experiences that in the year 326 A.D. she set out to a pilgrimage into the Holy Land to seek the Holy Cross, the wooden cross on which Jesus Christ was supposed to have been nailed to.  She successfully found the holy cross complete with its inscription INRI on its top.  Thus, the name Santa Cruzan, a procession honoring the finding of the Holy Cross.  During the festival, flowers were offered to the blessed Virgin Mary. This practice was introduced to us, to the Phillippines by the Spaniards.

     And so today, we continue the tradition offering flowers to our blessed mother as a token of thanks for the many, many blessings she has bestowed upon us.

     We seek for her intercession for peace and justice in the world, especially in Iraq where our men & women in the military are making great sacrifices to the cause.

     We pray for the children, that our Blessed Mother will continue to protect them and for us grown-ups as well, that she may instill a child-like reverence and trust deep within our hearts in the practice of our faith.

     Lastly, we pray for acceptance of change.  Changes that have recently developed affecting members of the Filipino faith community in Hampton Roads.  See those butterflies?  (paintings at the altar)  there are nine of them;  each representing a novena night leading to our fiesta today.  It's amazing, isn't it, that a plain simple cocoon will one day burst into a colorful butterfly.  Change is like that.  As one author said  "change is not merely necessary to life.. it is life" and without change, there would be no butterfly.