Toronto boasts the first and only Filipina circle of the international Catholic charitable association, and it will be hosting this year’s Ontario convention Sept. 20-21. Not only will it be the first Daughters of Isabella convention ever hosted by a Filipina circle, but the Toronto-based Filipina group will receive two of the organization’s three most coveted awards.

The 100-plus members of Our Lady of Peace 1297 will receive the Circle of the Year and Spiritus awards for its outstanding organization and promotion of spiritual life. Under the theme of “Women Celebrating Faith,” this year’s Ontario convention will be extremely significant, said Maria Ligaya Cana of the Toronto Filipina circle, Daughters of Isabella state regent.

“For the many, many years the women have come together believing, sharing, expressing their faith. We need to share our faith in this Year of Faith,” Cana said. “It’s not only a bonding of our membership. It’s actually promoting our faith, our belief and sharing it with others.”

The Toronto circle’s history is rooted in the Philippines where the Daughters of Isabella were a strong, popular organization prior to the rule of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

“During the Marcos regime, he didn’t want anything to do with America at the time so it was cut off from the international,” said Cana.

In Canada, immigrant Filipinas who either knew of or had belonged to the Daughters of Isabella back home began to search out the organization 30 years ago.

“We were searching for that kind of spirituality,” Cana said. “So some 30 years ago, when we were looking for that spirituality in which we were shaped, we connected with the Daughters of Isabella in Ontario.”

The Our Lady of Peace circle was chartered in 1982 — the first Ontario circle that wasn’t either English or French.

Catholic traditions from the Philippines are beginning to have influence on the older, non-immigrant circles of the Daughters of Isabella, said Cana. The Filipina circle has organized flores de Mayo celebrations at which statues of Mary are crowned with flowers, pilgrimages to Ontario and Quebec shrines over the Thanksgiving Day weekend, women’s institute gatherings and Holy Week pabasa readings — the practice of chanting the biblical story of Christ’s passion as a group on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

“So many non-Filipinas are really inspired by that,” said Cana. Among the Filipina innovations now being imitated by other Daughters of Isabella circles is the Our Lady of Peace Wednesday evening pauper’s meals. Parishioners pay $2 for a dinner of bread and water, with the funds going to support the Daughters of Isabella charity.

The Filipina circle’s charitable activities include sponsoring 35 seminarians per year in the Philippines.

The two-day convention will feature a keynote address from Daughters of Isabella international regent Madame Christiane Chagnon.

The organization has about 60,000 members, almost 40,000 in North America. It was founded in 1897 as a women’s auxiliary of the Knights of Columbus.