HOW many times has it been said that time flies? Countless of times already. And so it goes that before we knew it, our gang called the Kapalohan Bisita Iglesia Group (Kabig) had just had its tour of churches. It’s been an annual thing for us—a devotion, a panata.
Yes, as you may have guessed it, we had just completed our Bisita Iglesia, that most revered tradition in all of Christendom’s Roman Catholic religion when Holy Week is at hand.
The Bisita Iglesia (Visita Iglesia to many) sends the Roman Catholic faithful to visit churches to pray while commemorating the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For us in Kabig, it all began in 2007, when Joven and Elvie Florido, Dante and Ching Fernandez, Sol Juvida and yours truly, and Louie S. Visorde decided to go up North for our 14 Stations of the Cross. At one time, Tito and Baby Laurel from New York joined us.
It is always nice to remember the first time, as the first time is almost always the best part in every life’s journey. As in, a kiss isn’t just a kiss if it’s the first time. Get the drift?
And so, our first-ever Station in our first-ever Bisita Iglesia in 2007 was at Our Lady of Grace in Mabalacat, Pampanga, and then to Santo Niño, Bamban, Tarlac.
Then on to San Nicolas de Tolentino, Capas, Tarlac; Our Lady of Sorrows, McArthur Highway, Tarlac; Saint Michael de Archangel, Tarlac City; San Sebastian, Tarlac City; Expiatory Parsolingan, Gerona, Tarlac; Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Gerona, Tarlac; Saint Rose of Lima, Paniqui, Tarlac; (Saint Anne) Saint Raymund Nonnatus, Moncada, Tarlac; Saint Remedios, San Manuel, Tarlac; Saint Anthony Abbott, Villasis, Pangasinan; Immaculate Concepcion, Urdaneta City; and Our Lady of Manaoag Shrine, Manaoag, Pangasinan. We did it every year since and, for Kabig’s next eight Bisita Iglesias, it covered many towns of Rizal, Laguna, Quezon, Batangas, Cavite and the northwestern parts of Pangasinan. In this year’s ninth pilgrimage, Kabig decided to retrace its first foray up North. But whereas we visited 14 churches in 2007, this time, we shortened it to six.
We did 2/3 Stations in each of the six chosen churches.
We started at Immaculate Concepcion in Rosario, La Union (built in 1869), then to Agoo, La Union’s Our Lady of Charity, after we inadvertently missed the miraculous church of Santo Tomas, La Union, where the statue of the Nuestra Señora del Mar Cautiva was enthroned on July 19, 1845, amid innumerable miracles, conversions, healing, including safe and easy childbirth.
The Basilica Nuestra Sr. de la Virgen de la Caridad (also the patroness of Cuba) in Agoo was badly damaged by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in 1990 that killed more than 1,600 in La Union, Baguio, Dagupan and Cabanatuan.
From there, we went to Aringay’s Saint Lucy Church, where two stories surround Lucy’s legend. One story tells us that Lucy gifted her eyes to a Pagan madly in love with her eyes and next asked him to leave her alone. The second story tells us that during the torture, Lucy’s eyes were taken out and that God had restored her eyes back. Either way, Lucy’s eyes were taken out but God had restored her eyes.
That was the reason she became the patron saint for the blind and for those with eye problems.
Next Station was Saint John the Baptist in Caba, La Union, the birthplace of Diego Silang, the leader of the Ilocos Revolt of 1762-1763 against Spain. When Diego was assassinated by his own aide on May 28, 1763, his wife Gabriela continued the revolution. But upon her capture four months later, Gabriela was executed in Vigan on September 20, 1763, ending the heroism of the so-called Joan of Arc of Ilocandia.
Next was Saint William the Hermit in San Fernando City, and then the finale in Bauang, La Union’s Saints Peter and Paul, one of the oldest churches in the country built in 1580 by Augustinian missionaries.
We repaired up in Baguio before dusk, thank God. The weary mind, if not the creaky bones of the seniors-laden Kabig entourage (youthful Ken and Mom Liezl were welcomed guests of ours, of course), had been more than soothed and kneaded by the famed energy-boosting balm of the nation’s summer capital. Likewise, the Baguio Country Club became a most excellent retreat conclave—thank you, thank you to such God-sent angels, like Rico Agcaoili and Anthony de Leon.
The Toyota Super Grandia, with Bogs Mendoza expertly behind the wheel as usual, was again in its perfect best, nine years to the day it first transported us to our Bisita Iglesia inaugurals in 2007. And it goes without saying that pilot for Navara Benjie Romero and Mayor Visorde’s chief shadow Reggie Abadines had also accomplished their duties minus even a minor glitch.
And who prepared Kabig’s brilliant itinerary again? Why, who else but Sol Juvida, the cerebral writer whose passion for detail and historical facts has always been beyond compare.
God willing, Kabig’s 10th journey next year will be as soulful and as spiritually rewarding as ever.
PEE STOP A safe, sound and shared moment to all in this hour of reflection. Happy Easter!