A few more days and we have to say adieu to February. March is the start of the Lenten Season and our culture has many unique practices during this period from bloody and self-inflicted flagging to visita iglesia.
Visita Iglesia literally means “church visits” and our country is just one of the few places that practice this age-old Catholic tradition. This practice requires Catholics to visit 7 churches during Holy Thursday at night but not later than midnight. It traces back to early Christianity when pilgrims visit the 7 basilicas in Rome. And with numerous churches in our country, it is very easy to continue this holy task.
More than just a “duty” to comply during the Holy Week, going on a visita iglesia is also a good activity for our summer vacation. There are many so-called visita iglesia destinations in the Philippines and one of these is Iloilo. There are more than 20 churches in the province with most of them heritage churches.
It’s not a secret that as a freelance writer, one of my favorite topics are old churches and houses. So I’m sharing some of the churches that you can visit. These churches are located within the city, south and north of Iloilo. You may notice that I didn’t include some of the famous churches in Iloilo. What I listed here are those that I have visited and wrote about in this blog.
So here they are…
St. Anne Parish Church – Molo, Iloilo
Sto. Tomas de Villanueva Parish Church – Miag-ao, Iloilo
San Joaquin Parish Church- San Joaquin, Iloilo
Santa Barbara Parish Church – Santa Barbara, Iloilo
San Nicolas de Tolentino Parish Church – Cabatuan, Iloilo
St. Joseph Parish Church – Janiuay, Iloilo
San Juan de Bautista Parish Church – Dingle, Iloilo
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