Filipino-American bishop to visit for festival

ST. BENEDICT — The popular Filipino devotion honoring Santo Niño — the holy child Jesus — is coming to Mount Angel Seminary.
Filipino seminarians are extending an invitation to all Catholics to join the festivities on Saturday, Jan. 16.
Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Solis of Los Angeles will be the principal presider at an 11 a.m. Mass. He is the first Filipino American ordained to the episcopacy in the United States.
Festivities will include a blessing of Santo Niño statues and a Sinulog festival. Sinulog, a dance ritual, commemorates the origin of the Cebuano people and their acceptance of Christianity. Traditionally, it’s a street parade filled with bright-colored costumes and loud beats of drums and native gongs. This year’s Sinulog festival will be hosted by Sinulog Portland under the direction of Rudy del Rosario.
To culminate the festivities there will be a reception with Filipino food, traditional Filipino dances and entertainment.
On Sunday, Jan. 17, Filipino seminarians will accompany Bishop Solis as he visits St. Mary Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland. Later in the day, he will visit the National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother, better known as the Grotto, and pray at the Dambana, the first Filipino shrine in the Archdiocese of Portland.
The evening will conclude with solemn vespers at the Grotto with the seminarians and Filipino lay leaders from throughout the archdiocese.