A different Visita Iglesia experience
Submitted by karlytops at April 9, 2012 - 11:40 am
Every Thursday of the Holy week, Catholic Christians practiced Visita Iglesia wherein you will visit churches to read the stations of the cross. There are different practices done by the people. Some go to one Church and read the entire booklet while some chose to sacrifice a little more. The priest recommends to pay a visit to at least 7 Churches, and some had to endure the 14 visits to stay faithful to the 14 stations of the cross.
The family already practiced a habit of completing the 14 churches.We go around Metro Manila by car and we usually start early. We stay at around 15 minutes on each church and by around 2 pm, we were already finished. We take turns on reading each station scriptures and pray for our wishes, struggles and loved ones.
We’re getting old every year and the routine is getting predictable already. So we’ve decided to get creative with our bisita iglesia. This time around, we’ll do all the practices.
We went to 7 churches, completed the 14 stations of the cross in one church and visit The Fort for an interactive stations of the cross. I don’t have any idea what was the last one is, but we were game for it.
(one of the 7 churches we’ve visited)
We were surprised to hear that we are not taking the same route this time. The second church we’ve visited was the Chapel of Saint Pio de Pietrelcina located at Libis, Quezon City and has always been a curiosity to my father. I’ve stumbled upon pictures and stories of miracles such as dripping blood to idols were encountered there.
Read about more of Padre Pio here: Padre Pio was famous for his stigmata – bodily marks, pain, and bleeding in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ.
A line formed outside the Church. The volunteers gave each person a life-size cross.
When I carried the cross, it was heavy. My sister even offered help to carry mine because I was carrying a lot of “baggages“. She referred herself as Simon of Cyrene, the one who helped Jesus Christ. hehe. It was a refreshing encounter and I appreciated our tour. We can almost feel the burden Jesus went through, carrying the cross and praying at the same time.
When we were finished with the 7 churches, we went straight to Walkway, Serendra, Fort Bonifacio.
I’m actually expecting to see the traditional images of the stations of the cross. These stations of the cross has a different take, you really have to experience each station.
The first act read, “Go ahead, stand in front of the mirrors. Think about the honesty of Jesus’ prayer. He’s about to fulfill his mission yet he takes his time to expose to the Father exactly how he feels. No facade, no pretense.”
Surely enough, there were mirrors.
And every station, we acted upon it. We nailed and carried a very heavy cross, we wrote letters, we went to a darkness and so on. We were also ecstatic, touched and moved to each station. Here are the pictures:
The installation art runs until April 8, 2012. Churchsimplified made this all possible.
I realized before we went out, we had a feeling of unwillingness but because by God’s way of making us reach out again, he made us take a different route and experience. This year might be really interesting bec. of its interactivity, but it was more than that. It is also personal relationship with our Christ and to be reminded of the things what Jesus had done to us. More than glad and blessed that I had to experience these again with my family. 