St. Nicholas Church , Laguna Woods, CA
Picture courtesy of Mary Ann Puzon
First Saturday Mass and Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived and discussed after the First Lenten Retreat in 1993. Mel Gallardo, the South Chapter Director at that time requested Dr. Lita Co-Casquejo to work with St. Nicolas Pastor, Rev. Theodore Olsen, on the feasibility of the celebration at St. Nicholas. The Pastor approved but instructed to start on July, 1993 after the arrival of the new Pastor. Rev. Juan Caboboy approved the idea and suggested to do as a Novena from October to June, 1993.
With great excitement, Area II led the First Mass and Devotion with the newly formed choir with a handful of devotees who sang with only a guitar accompaniment. Soon it became the South Chapter incorporating all areas. Other FFRGOC chapters/areas joined for awhile but because of the logistics, with the time and distance, the devotion reverted back to South Chapter/Areas.
At about the initiation of the devotion, the choir progressed to have a Choir Director, Inday Sosmena and Larry Orque Jr. as accompanist. The choir at that time voted to call themselves Holy Rosary Philippine Chamber Chorale with Larry Orque, Jr as the main Choir Director, Pianist and Mentor to the members.
Currently the choir has gone a long way and have lots of members and its own officers and the President is Glenn Puzon and supports FFRGOC in most of our events. Please read our blog on this website that is dedicated to our choir called "Know our Choir".
Fast forward, during the past year and a half due to COVID19, the South Area officers and members continued the novena to our Blessed Virgin Mary via Zoom. The devotion via Zoom started last April 2020 from 7:30pm - 8:30pm then continued until June, 2020. Ongoing devotion continued from October 3, 2020 and ended up last June 5, 2021 as shown on the project timeline in the referenced prayer guide with other participating chapters/areas members of FFRGOC.
South Chapter Director Mars Del Villar and all the Chairpersons of each area announced each month the First Saturday devotion. FFRGOC President Debbie Gonzales hosted each month's prayer meeting and send an email to all FFRGOC Chapter Directors to disseminate the information plus supported by each South Area Chairperson/In Charge who were diligent enough to call their members to join the novenas and they are as follows:
South Area 1 - Cora Narciso
South Area 2 - Fiza Du, Cherry Ison
South Area 3 - Elena Casanova
South Area 4- Gloria Jaucian, Annie Ursabia and Zeny Sy
South Area 5 - Aileen Daag
South Chapter Director, Mars Del Villar sent an email to all, the prayer guide as shown below:
During the month of May, 2021, FFRGOC honor our Blessed Virgin Mary and in happenstance. Mother's day is also celebrated during May. To honor our Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts and Sisters, living or dead, a powerpoint presentation was prepared by Mary Ann Puzon and is being shared with everyone.
Please open with Microsoft Powerpoint for Good Memories with Mom
For the month of June, 2021 , we had the last novena for the season and this time everyone honors their Fathers, Grandfathers, Uncles and Brothers, living and dead, plus honor our Graduates for 2021 and most of the commencement celebrations also fall in June. A powerpoint presentation prepared by Mary Ann Puzon is as follow.
Please open this file with Microsoft Powerpoint.
On behalf of FFRGOC, we want to thank everyone who participated and we are happy to mention that St. Nicholas Parish is willing to host FFRGOC Novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary and future date and time will be announced later.
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