Filipinos in Europe are a close-knit community of religious believers, culturally, linguistically, and familiarly bound to come together wherever they may be.
Should you wish to meet a community of Filipinos in a new city or town, come to a church gathering. There, individuals and families bond in celebration of a church feast, or a patron saint, owing to hundreds of years of Spanish Catholic influence, making the Filipinos at home or abroad celebrate religious or cultural festivities in big numbers to this day.
In Winterthur, Canton Zürich, Switzerland the feast of God the Father was introduced some years ago. This devotion has been entrusted to the care of Fajosas (Fanny) Sacobos and family of Iriga, Camarines Sur, Philippines. Every first Sunday in August is the designated Feast of God the Father.
A novena in preparation for the feast starts 9 days prior. The community moves from place to place to pray the novena together, offers prayer intentions and joins at table in fellowship.
It all started in a series of private revelations in 2006 when Fanny was given a series of messages to honour the Father by building him a church in Iriga which she and her family did, to give Him place in the daily practices of piety, to thank Him who loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that all men might be brought together in the Mystical Body of Christ and, together with this Son, become His children.
This devotion rightly gives thanks to the most loving and generous of fathers.