It is the Roman Catholic's culture to celebrate the Lenten season and it starts with the Ash Wednesday in which everyone gets a cross in our forehead during this day, from then, we are to start observing the lent season and one of this is by not eating meat during Fridays. Holy week comes afterwards and normally, offices still have work until Holy Wednesday, so we are only about to start our penance on Maundy Thursday. I can say that it's still better to spend the holy week in the province as you can really experience the silence where you can do solemn prayers and reflections. Unfortunately, we are not given a chance to go home to the province as the tickets from all means of transportation were all sold out.... and it is very unfortunate for my brother and sisters that they are required to report to work during these days and they have no choice though as their line of works are in hotels and in an airline. So, I am spending my holy week with my boyfriend's family.
For Maundy Thursday, we did the Visita Iglesia to different churches within Metro Manila. Visita Iglesia are the latin words which mean to visit churches. Celebration of mass is forbidden on this day, so some of the churches are closed and just have the stations of the cross prepared outside the church. We are supposed to visit 14 churches where we can do 1 station of the cross for each but with the heavy traffic around the metro, we were only able to visit 7 churches and did 2 stations of the cross for each churches. Here are the churches we visited: 1) Our Lady of Abandoned Parish - Marikina, 2) Immaculate Concepcion Parish - Concepcion, Marikina 3) St. Peter Parish: Shrine of Leaders - Commonwealth, Quezon City; 4) Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish - Quezon City 5) Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish - Project 6, Quezon City, 6) Our Lady of Assumption Parish - Tandan Sora, Quezon City; 7) Sto Nino Parish - Bago Bantay, Quezon City.
There were lots of people in every church so praying solemnly is kind of hard. So I just took the night to say my own prayer before finally giving up to my dropping eyes.
naalala ko din nong bata pa ko. we were told not to smile, not to take a bath and not to eat meat thursday and friday. At nagbabasa pa kami ng pasyon. But those were the days. Now I can smile and thank Jesus that he died on the cross , payed our sins and has given us new lives.
ReplyDeletehahaha! those were the days. It is still the norm in the province though, you can't take a bath after 3pm, can't talk or should be very discrete during these times, that's why I can say that it's still more solemn to celebrate the holy week in the province. :D
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