My favorite religious places

(First of two parts)

Religious sites as tourist destinations? There’s a lot of that all over the world (in Lourdes, France, Fatima in Portugal, etc.) and even here in the Philippines. This Holy Week inspired me to go over my list of favorite religious places here in Manila and in the provinces. ( I haven’t had the chance to go on a religious pilgrimage abroad.) Here is my list below:

The Grotto in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan – I was really just a small kid when I first visited this site and this place was very different from how it looks like today.

Even the rules enforced by the grotto administrators were different then: No jeans for women. I remember this very well because my Mom came in jeans and she was not allowed in the grotto area. To be able to pray to the image of Our Lady of Lourdes, my Mom had to borrow the skirt of my aunt (actually her sister), who fortunately came on this trip properly attired. My poor aunt had to sit at the back of the car only in a pair of half slips sweating profusely and worried that other people may pass by (the car windows were not tinted) and see her wearing just that.

The grotto then seemed so remote and isolated — unlike now when there are so many subdivisions that have sprouted all around.

Antipolo Catherdral — Although local tradition dictates that devotees trek to Antipolo in May, my family never went there on that month to avoid the huge crowd that gathered there especially for the Sunday morning Masses. We went there instead in July (I’m telling you we in the family are such strange creatures) because that is the birth month of my Dad.

Sometimes, we also went to Antipolo to have a new car blessed since Catholics pray to the Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje for safe trips. Unfortunately, our family never went on side trips to that then sleepy town. No, we never visited Hinulugang Taktak (which I haven’t seen to this day) because even then (and this I swear was a long time ago) it had already been left to deteriorate.

But I remember the food–the most memorable of which was the rice suman that had to be dipped in white sugar (brown sugar was deemed to be of low quality then) because it would have tasted too bland to be eaten just like that. Oh, there was free tasting that time. But you had to bite into a piece of suman that had already been inside the mouth of a previous prospective customer. Thanks but no thanks.

My favorite, however, was the brown calamay that had sandy texture and I came back for it last year — only to be disappointed that it was no longer the same.

One childhood frustration I had during our trips to Antipolo was that we never got seats in church every time we heard Mass there. Yes, even in the supposedly lean month of July–the time when my family made the annual pilgrimage–the church would always be full.

Paco Park–I must really be that old because I remember going there as a kid when it was called Paco Cemetery (but it was soon changed to Paco Park). I remember the tomb of Dr. Jose Rizal surrounded by a fishpond–with goldfish (or were those carps?) in it. The surroundings then were still poorly-maintained–unlike now when the place is fully-manicured. The interior of the circular chapel dedicated to St. Pancratius hardly changed–at least that’s how I remembered it.

Eventually, it became a fashionable venue for weddings and I recall tagging along with my parents to these social functions. The last time I was there was to stand as best man in my former classmate’s wedding.

San Sebastian Church–It should be on every tourist’s destination list — Catholic or not — because of its significance in architectural history. Done in the gothic style, it’s an all-steel church in prefab and shipped piece by piece from Belgium in the 19th century.

Its significance to our family is that it was here where we would always hear our New Year’s Day Mass. I do not know how that happened because we lived a bit far from the Quiapo area. But I do remember entertaining myself by looking at those series of stained glass all over the church. Maybe that was why my family went there–to keep myself from getting bored and becoming a nuisance during Mass. (To be concluded)