It’s a tradition in our family every Maundy Thursday to go on a Visita Iglesia. Years and years ago, we just spent the day by visiting the Dolores church then going to Mount Banahaw. But over the past few years, we decided to spend more time in prayer and that’s by visiting different churches across Laguna and Quezon. I know that when you do the Station of the Cross, you have to visit 14 churches since it’s one church for each station. However, we only visited 8. The churches we visited were the parish churches in Alaminos, San Pablo City, Dolores, Tiaong, Candelaria, Sariaya, Tayabas and lastly, Kamay ni Hesus. It was a long punctuated by long car rides. We also prayed the rosary and the chaplet when we’re traveling. I fell asleep quite a few times.
Just some of my Maundy Thursday musings:
- I know we’re supposed to be fasting. Heck, we didn’t even eat meat! But it didn’t stop us from binging. We were eating all the time! There’s really no pause from the feasting that happened last holy week.
- The saint sculptures in churches are usually covered with purple cloth during this time but I was surprised that the ones in Tayabas church weren’t. But I still don’t know why they cover the saints, though. Where did this tradition come from?
- I have learned tons of prayer when I was still in school, but the only ones I can remember now are Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and Apostle’s Creed. My religion teacher is weeping.
I have once talked about my faith, and I am happy to say that I have changed since that point. I just kind of think too much and question a lot, and I just have to figure what I really feel and think. Today, I read Roger Ebert’s How I Believe in God. It doesn’t represent where my faith stands now, but it resonates with me. I was born and raised as a Catholic, but growing up I started to question things. Suddenly, my brain cannot wrap itself around things that I could neither touch or see.
My Psychology teacher once said that people believe in God because they need to believe in something. They need to believe that there’s a higher power that started everything. That’s why religions exist, he said. Ebert said the same thing:
“I believe mankind in general evidently has a need to believe in higher powers and an existence not limited to the physical duration of the body. But these needs are hopes, and believing them doesn’t make them true. I believe mankind feels a need to gather in churches, whether physical or social.”
I’m not saying that this statement defines my Catholic faith, but it definitely has a truth in it. And besides, there’s definitely Someone who planted that idea in our minds, right? 🙂
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