What our Lord wrought, by the intercession of our Lady of the Rosary,
who stands in a shrine between the two villages of Pia and Tuao.
[In the church of the village of Pia there was an image of our Lady
on one of the side altars. It had been made in Macan, and had been
first set up in the church of our order in the city of Nueva Segovia,
whence it was taken to the church of Pia. Here the image was greatly
beloved; and when father Fray Juan de Sancta Ana gave it away to
another village, after having received a second image of much greater
beauty, the people begged so earnestly to have it returned that the
vicar was obliged to have another painted on canvas and sent to the
village of Tuguegarao (to which he had given the one for which the
Indians begged), and to have the first image brought back. While the
father was considering where it would best be put, the idea occurred
to him that it would be well to establish a shrine on the road between
Pia and Tuao, at a distance of about a league and a half from each of
the towns. This shrine was set up on St. Stephen's day in 1623. On
the day on which the shrine was consecrated more than ten thousand
persons were gathered together from the neighboring villages. One of
the women of the highest rank in the village of Pia undertook the
care of the shrine, placing a lamp to burn constantly before the
holy image. This Indian was named Doña Ynes Maguilabun. The Virgin
was not slow to reward her for this devotion, for once when Doña Ynes
took with her to the shrine her little nephew, a child of five years,
who was suffering from a large swelling under his left arm--a disease
among the Indians which runs into an abscess, and, being so near the
heart, is very dangerous indeed, because of the lack of medicines and
of medical science among these Indians--the little one was left in
the shrine, and fell asleep on the steps of the altar. While there
he had a vision of the Virgin, and, when he awoke, the swelling was
entirely healed. Other miracles were wrought by the same image. One
particularly worthy of mention happened in the year 1624. There being
a severe drouth, the father who was at that time in the village of
Tuao, Fray Andres de Haro, [44] and father Fray Juan de Sancta Ana,
decided to make some processions and offer prayers to the Lord for His
mercy. They accordingly arranged to make processions on a certain day
from each of the villages to the shrine. The Indians of Pia confessed
their sins, that the burden of them might be removed from the land;
and on that same Sunday it rained so copiously in the region of this
village of Pia that it seemed as if the village would be drowned and
as if the floodgates of heaven were open. On the day appointed for
the processions, the father of the village of Pia told the Indians
that it was not necessary to make the procession, but that he would
say a solemn mass of thanks to our Lady, which could be done in the
church. They, however, insisted; and when they reached the shrine
they found there all the people of the village of Tuao, where not
a drop of rain had fallen, because the inhabitants of Tuao had not
thought of confessing. They immediately began to prepare themselves for
confession, and all that day the inhabitants of Tuao and Pia confessed
their sins, revealing some which, from lack of faith, or pusillanimity,
or shame, they had concealed. When they reached home in the evening it
began to rain in both villages and in all the fields around them; and
it rained so hard that it was impossible to bring back the ornaments
which had been taken to the shrine for the saying of mass. On several
other occasions our Lady showed mercy by granting rain in answer to
the prayers of those who besought it before this holy image.]