The heightened religious fervor, the devotion and the age old practices just come together and intertwine to produce one of the spectacular Semana Santa (Holy Week) observance that I have seen. Lucban in Quezon is one of the must go to places to witness such events.
The hazy yellow green sea of palms sway in all directions blanketing the plaza at the church grounds as the faithful is gathered while a priest blesses.

Lucban in Quezon is rich in tradition, culture and heritage be it from the annual harvest festival called the Pahiyas, its potent lambanog (coconut vodka), lively people, religious fervor and cool climate being located at the foothills of Mt. Banahaw. During the Holy Week, the town is transformed into one great catholic community where age old ritual observance springs to life.

On the morning of Saturday before Palm Sunday,

This post kicks off my Semana Santa series where I feature rituals and traditions observed in certain places during this most solemn week in the Catholic calendar. Click on the image at the right to check the rest of the articles.

For purposes of travel for the visita iglesia, I have compiled a series of churches primarily found in Central and Southeast Cebu and Bulacan at simbahan.net.

Ormoc at last! Despite not having made it to the midnight boat for Cebu, I was just glad that I finally reached this city at around 0400H from Tacloban. Its been a year since I’ve last visited this place while I was in transit to Guiuan in Eastern Samar to shoot the church there for the book. But back when I was still based in Cebu, Eastern Visayas was part of my area of responsibility and have constantly been here for work as well as leisure.

See the photo above? That’s me at the extreme left with only my left ear visible still taking this shot. If you noticed, thank you, the row I’m at is already full while I was given the kiddie seat just beside the sliding door of the van. It was small for my 5′10″ frame. Really. To give me a semblance of comfort and spare me less of a sore butt, they had these wooden stool, around 4 inches in width propped up beside the kiddie seat that is removed whenever the door is opened as it might fall.