Controversial Lipa Marian apparitions take centre stage in Floy Quintos’s final work

“Grace is a fictionalised narrative based on events that occurred in Lipa Carmel from 1948 to 1951,” Quintos wrote in his notes. “I developed, researched, and wrote the play independently over a period of three years. Grace is not a commissioned work,” he clarified.

Quintos seems to have devised many scenes based on statements and reports published years after the devotion to the Lipa Marian apparitions subsided. In a mix of documentary-styled scenes featuring PowerPoint-esque video projections and realistic scenes of confrontations and encounters among characters, the play was an imaginative face-off of varied perspectives in Quintos’s mind. The result was a balanced outlook on the Lipa Marian apparitions and each character’s life and personal motivations.

The playwright and the rest of the artistic team have taken creative liberties in adapting the historical events for the stage. While the story is inspired by actual accounts—documented reports, diary entries, official communications, archives, and interviews with key sources who asked that their identities be kept secret—some of the characters and incidents in the production have been altered, allowing the artistic team to highlight the essence and the emotional truth of the story. The main characters—Teresita, Mother Cecilia of Jesus, Monsignor Egidio Vagnozzi, and Father Angel de Blas are all inspired by actual individuals; the role of Monsignor Alfredo is a compendium of Bishop Alfredo Obviar and Bishop Alfredo Versoza; and the roles of Sister Agatha, Sister Lucia, and Guillermo are fictional characters representative of the Discalced Carmelite nuns and devotees at that time.

“The Lat-Castillo family and the Community of Lipa Carmel wish to make it clear that: (1) They are not in any way connected to the production. (2) They are not recipients of any monetary benefit from the production,” Quintos continued in his notes.

This parallels the accusations made against Lipa Carmel’s nuns when the issue was at its height in the 1950s—that the convent has been receiving and keeping the monetary donations for its own gain.

But the pressing questions of whether Sister Teresita Castillo’s accounts were true, if she actually had seen the Blessed Virgin Mary, and if the miraculous rose petals with visual impressions of religious images were manufactured by the nuns... were left open to interpretation.

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“Grace does not aim to sway the audience towards a particular belief, but it strives to delve into the intricacies of faith complicated by human frailty,” Marvin Olaes and Davidson Oliveros jointly wrote in their dramaturgical notes.

As the actors recalled their characters’ memories of how the petals fluttered in straight lines mid-air in most scenes yet were left unseen by audiences until they surprisingly showered just before the curtain call, the mystery of the Lipa Marian apparitions was opened, tackled, and tested in real-time the faith of audiences throughout the play’s duration. Watching it felt like you were anticipating to see it to believe it. But ultimately, what is unseen but felt—the passion of Sister Teresita—strikes deeply into the audience’s hearts.

The 1948 Lipa Marian apparitions

The Vatican released the controversial 1951 handwritten ruling on the alleged Lipa Marian apparitions last March, about two months before Grace’s opening. After 73 years, the reasons behind the declaration to stop devotion to Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, were made public.

It all began when the novice nun Sister Teresita claimed that after many encounters with the devil, the Blessed Virgin Mother appeared to her as Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace. In the play, Sister Teresita uttered the name first in Filipino, then in Italian, and then at the spur of the moment. Mother Cecilia of Jesus exhorted it in Spanish and then in English. She then baptised her with the nickname “La Mediadora”, which became popular among the devotees.

Later in the play, Papal Nuncio Monsignor Egidio Vagnozzi contested the grammar as the name implies a theological error. Only God has the right to be named “grace”, while Mary can be identified as “mediatrix of all graces”. That error left room for doubt in the apparition’s authenticity and sanctity, as the name sounds heretical.

Eventually, Mother Cecilia of Jesus, who claimed to receive interior locutions (written messages) from Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, was removed as Prioress of Lipa Carmel in 1950. In the play, this was enacted after the Papal Nuncio assessed the prioress as dissident.

A year later, the Vatican and a committee of six Filipino bishops declared that the Lipa Marian apparitions had no supernatural origin. At the time, the public veneration of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, was slowly reaching international mileage. Swiftly, the patriarchal authority of the Church outvoted the peoples’ faith. Thus, orders were made to prohibit public veneration of the religious statue and burn the documents about the phenomena.

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After nearly 40 years, Lipa Archbishop Mariano Gaviola allowed the veneration of the image of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace. In 2015, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles declared the 1948 Marian apparitions in Lipa “worthy of belief”. Still, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith upheld the 1951 ruling that the events lacked a supernatural origin. This would continue in 2023, when the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, by Vatican order, prohibited all celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the alleged Lipa Marian apparitions.

Sister Teresita was asked to leave the convent in 1951, and she lived a quiet life with her adopted daughter, Grace, until she died in 2016.

On shedding light on the politics of the Church

The news of the events in Lipa spread, along with accounts of miraculous healings attributed to the veneration of the image of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace; devotion quickly grew, capturing the adoration of the faithful and the attention of the Catholic Church.

One of the most striking scenes in the play was when Mother Cecilia of Jesus blatantly asked Monsignor Rufino Santos, bishop of Manila, if she were a male priest, would the accounts of the Lipa Marian apparitions be believed to be true instead? The matter of gender disparity inside the Church was briefly explored in the play, but that dialogue was somewhat unnerving and left the audiences in deeper conversations after the show.

“At the heart of the narrative is the examination of the complex nature of faith and the rules, spoken or otherwise, in the Catholic Church that operates within strict, patriarchal, and conservative frameworks,” Olaes and Oliveros wrote in a statement.

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“The church, like other social constructs, is political. Ever-present in its hallowed walls are age-old hierarchical structures, the tensions of power dynamics, and the vulnerabilities of the men who run it,” they continued.

As Quintos’s final play, Grace is easily one of his most memorable works. But—the acclaimed playwright’s portfolio aside—because of its intriguing topic and intricate writing, Grace is one of the finest, thought-provoking straight plays of 2024. Timely and yet nostalgic, brave yet fair, this play has taken the route of offering the Philippine theatre scene a serious play that challenges one’s moral compass amidst the continuous rave for lighthearted spectacles.

Encore Theater’s Grace still has shows on June 15 and 16, both at 3pm and 8pm. Recently, it announced extended shows on June 23, also at 3pm and 8pm.

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