road trip to lucban

as i've previously mentioned in my earlier posts, our family had our annual bisita iglesia yesterday. we passed through several towns in rizal and ended in the famous town of lucban, quezon.

of the many churches in rizal, everyone oohed and ahhed at the beautiful and picturesque church of morong. the church was built on a small hill overlooking the quiet town of morong. the interiors were lovely as well. it had a long aisle leading to a very simple altar, unusually unadorned with any of the saints that we know of. if i had the capability to finance an out-of-town wedding, i'd have it on my short list of venues for the ceremony.

being on the road trip was a sacrifice in itself, with the heat and humidity. the sun was as bright as could be for most of our trip. but as we passed through the mountains of caliraya, cavinti and luisiana, we felt a whole lot better. we were greeted by the very cool and refreshing breeze that only the mountains and forest could offer. it was a breather from the pollution in manila. the sights were undoubtedly breathtaking as we made our way to quezon.

lucban is not a new place for us as we have visited the town to witness the pahiyas festival in earlier years. (read more about lucban here.) my mother chose to make it our last station for the bisita iglesia to see the recently most talked about via doloroso grotto of healing and way of purification by fr. joseph "joey" faller.

even from a distance, we already knew that we were nearing the Kamay ni Hesus Healing Church and grotto, as there were vehicles parked on the shoulder of the highway for miles and people were walking along the road. traffic was no surprise. even from the highway we could already see the large image of Jesus and the people milling around to get to it.

when we finally found a place to park, my mother, brother and i took the long walk to the site. we initially thought that we could actually go up to the grotto but to our disappointment, we found a really long line of devotees waiting to enter the gates to the shrine and take the so-called stairway to heaven. from afar, we noticed that there were two routes to get to where Jesus was. one was the straight and therefore shorter one, but definitely tiring because you had to climb up 292 steps to get to the top. the other route was a longer one but less tiring since they constructed it into a winding road, with breaks in between as you had to stop and pray at each station of the cross.

there was an on-going mass when we dropped by. but since the place was crowded, we didn't bother anymore to seek our way in. we were way too tired then from our long trip. we got there at 5:30 already. it was enough for us to have seen it with our very own eyes. we just settled to pray at the foot of the shrine so that we could complete our yearly devotion. and what's going to lucban without eating their specialty pancit habhab? well, that was just one of the highlights of our trip.

last pit stop was at my stepdad's ancestral home in pagsanjan, laguna. after eating dinner and washing the dishes, i was a goner as soon as my head touched the pillow.

PS: i just found out that there are now pilgrimage tours to the kamay ni hesus healing church. check it out here.