Visita Iglesia: Visit, Reflect and Pray in the Seven Churches of the Philippines

Visita Iglesia (or Church Visit) is a pious practice of Filipinos during Holy Week to visit at least seven (or 14) churches to pray. It is among the popular Holy Week panatas (or sacred vows) that Filipino Catholics make. Accordingly, this tradition was started by St. Philip Neri way back in the 16th-century. The Spanish friars and missionaries brought this practice to the archipelago and have become a Holy Week tradition. The number of churches to visit, be it seven or 14, corresponds to the Seven Last Words of Jesus or the Seven Holy Wounds of Jesus. Some choose to visit 14 churches to match the 14 Stations of the Cross.

This Maundy Thursday, 14 April, at 3:00 pm (Philippine Time), the priests and brothers of the Society of Saint Paul Philippine- Macau Province invites us to join them as they bring us to seven different churches of Central Luzon.The theme for this year’s Visita Iglesia is “Synodality: the path of the Church towards the Third Millennium.”

To join, here is the link.