Devotees | #Monomad Challenge

Last week my wife and I visited the famous castle church located in the southern portion of Cebu, commonly known by the locals as the Simala shrine. We both decided to go there as we were devotees of the Virgin Mary, at the same time to light a candle and give thanks for all the blessings we received. And since we visited during the weekend we kinda had the expectation that the shrine will be crowded, and as we arrived in Simala, true enough it was really crowded even in the parking lot we are having a hard time finding space, so we stayed in the parking area waiting for cars to leave so we could take over of the parking space. Luckily it didn't take us long to wait, after a minute or so we did find one at last.

As we head to the Shrine's entrance, even from afar we have seen already the long queue of people falling in line. The line even went beyond the entrance as it is a common scenery during weekends, people were falling in line so they could take a closer glimpse of the statue of the Miraculous Virgin Mary and offer prayers at the same time. Here are some snaps during our visit.

Since that day was scorching hot we decided not to fall in line, instead, we head directly to "Dagkutanan" (candle lighting area) where we light a candle at the same time offer prayers, so with the other devotees.

Beside the "Dagkutanan" is a souvenir shop where they sell a variety of religious souvenirs and one of them is a bracelet that is formed into a mini rosary, which we bought one as well. Take a look at the photo below.

After we had our candle lighting we decided to take our lunch outside since there is a local eatery nearby and head home afterward. And as we are heading out we noticed that the line of people queuing is getting even longer. Good thing is that people queuing were provided with tents at least they can hide from the scorching heat of the sun. Take a look at these snap