Visita Iglesia | Mega Manila South Itinerary

VISITA IGLESIA : The Mega Manila South Itinerary

It’s been a yearly tradition for all Catholic Filipinos to conduct a Visita Iglesia pilgrimage while doing the Via Crucis or the Way of the Cross (Station of the Cross).

This tradition have evolved in many forms. It started out as a copied out activity from ancient roman tradition of visiting 7 pilgrim churches as penance during Maundy Thursday.

The pilgrimage then paired with the Via Crucis – and when the way of the cross was expanded to 14 stations – the pilgrimage was expanded to 14 churches as well.

Here are the variations:

Visit 7 Churches and do 2 stations for each church visited
Visit 14 Churches and 1 station for each church visited
Visit a single Church and do all the stations
Stay at home and watch the Via Crucis
Walk to a famous grotto of your choice: Antipolo or Bulacan – you can also do it on barefoot – Manilenos call it as “Alay Lakad”
Or, just go to Boracay or Puerto Galera or Palawan – and think of it as a pilgrimage too (this is what all the celebrities are doing this time)

For the past years, we’ve been doing our Visita Iglesia on foot and within the City of Manila only. It’s easier to finish all the stations here since the proximity of Churches are very near with each other. The only problem? – It will take you ages to get inside each churches because of the volume of pilgrims doing the same thing that you are doing.

This year, we decided that we go south of the Metro. Our Itinerary last night:

VISITA IGLESIA ITINERARY