The Redemptorist Fathers of the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish in Cebu City paid homage to the image of Sto. Niño on the eve of August 10, 2017 at the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño. The visit commemorates the bringing of the original image to their parish for safekeeping during the World War II. Pictures were taken to reenact the 1955 photograph of the image’s return to the pioneering caretakers, the Augustinians, after the World War II.
The original image was brought out from his chapel and placed on the altar table of the church for veneration and posterity. This is one of the activities of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer or the Redemptorist Fathers to celebrate the 150th Jubilee Year of the celebration of the Mother of Perpetual Help.
It is to be remembered that the miraculous image of the Santo Niño was kept inside a steel safe from September 1944 to April 1945. This was placed behind the main altar of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in the Redemptorist Monastery Chapel during the onslaught of World War II.
Rev. Fr. Cruzito Manding, CSsR, Prior Provincial of the Redemptorist Fathers and Rev. Fr. Crispin Mostajo together with Prior Provincial also of the Augustinians, Rev. Fr. Andres Rivera, Jr, OSA and the Rector of the Basilica, Rev. Fr. Pacifico Nohara, Jr., OSA, had a posterity picture with the original image.
A Redemptorist priest and his Augustinian counterpart (I think this is Fr. Leandro Moran) during the return of the Sto Nino. (Photo courtesy of MacArthur Memorial Museum, Norfolk, Virginia, USA)
(from the web: santoninodecebubasilica.org)
