The Great Maundy Thursday Adventure

Every year, we go to Dolores and Lucban to celebrate Maundy Thursday. This year’s a bit different, though, since we visited other churches in Laguna and Quezon. It’s really tiring but it was all worth it! I never fail to enjoy myself when I’m with my family. I have tons of cousins, anyway, so having a good time is inevitable. I asked my mother about this and she said that what we did is called Visita Iglesias. I am quite hesitant to call it that since we didn’t do the Station of the Cross. There were too many kids with us, and they were quite a handful. It would be hard to keep them still. We spend around 20 minutes for each church, making sure to say our prayers and sometimes, to light a candle or two.

I prayed so many times that day. I knew I’d be praying quite a lot of times and I couldn’t help but think at first that I might run out of things to say. But I didn’t. I know I’m not the most ideal Catholic. I have wronged one too many times; and I have too many objections and questions sometimes. But this Holy Week, I have learned a lot. I am tempted to write all my realizations here but maybe I’ll save that for another post. If I don’t get lazy, that is.

It was my first time to truly try out my 50mm lens and I had quite a hard time. The zoom is inflexible but I swear, in due time, that I will get used to it. The photos turned out good, though! However, I am a lame photographer so most of the photos of the churches were either out of focus or blurred. I also failed to exhaustively document the whole trip because I was too busy having fun.

If my memory serves me right: Lucban, San Pablo, Nagcarlan

The ride was excruciatingly long but it didn’t matter because Kynan was there

to entertain us. He was singing the whole time! I swear he has the cutest voice.

On our way to Lucban, we stopped over this little streetside cottage to have lunch. Nothing beats fried tilapia with kamatis and itlog na pula. Who needs luxury dining when you have this traditional Pinoy meal? We also got to eat dirty ice cream, and that’s pretty much the coolest part of my day. Literally.

I fell asleep after lunch because of the long ride. It always feels like forever when we’re on our way to Lucban. The traffic was so bad, kind of like a foresight of the crowd we’d see in Kamay ni Hesus. As usual the place was packed! The oldies attended the mass while the youngsters opted to climb up Kamay ni Hesus. The sweltering heat made the climb a lot worse. But it was kind of worth it, though. You know that feeling of actually accomplishing something despite its difficulty? Yeah, that’s how I felt. The sight was quite rewarding, too. I just think it would be a lot prettier during sunrise or sunset. We were an hour or so early.

We were so tired but we could still smile like a boss.

After we went down, I treated some of my cousins to pancit habhab and sweet corn! It was actually the first time I treated them because I’m a cheapskate like that. Anyway, the pancit habhab was good, a lot better than what we had last year.  The sweet corn was amazing, of course.

My sister looks like a cartoon character, noh?

Our second to the last stop was in Tayabas. It was a really old and pretty church but all my photos were either too dark or blurred so I’d rather not post it. Heh. Dolores was our last stop but I (and my sister and some cousins) failed to get out of the car because we were asleep.

Heh. I have more pictures but it would take forever to upload so I made a collage instead! Yay. I am rarely in the photos. Or I’m always alone. That’s the pang of being the one holding the camera. But no worries, I love taking photos! I look so chubby in photos (to everyone’s surprise!) anyway so it’s not really a loss.