Q: Why do people visit seven churches on Holy Thursday?
A: The custom goes back to the early Church when Christians would visit the seven great basilicas in Rome for adoration of the blessed sacrament after the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday. The sacramentary, the official altar book of the Church, says that after this Mass, "The faithful should be encouraged to continue adoration before the blessed sacrament for a suitable period of time during the night, according to local circumstances, but there should be no solemn adoration after midnight."
Visita Iglesia is a practice in cities, where there are many churches, in countries as diverse as Malta, Poland, Ireland and The Philippines. Filipinos have brought it to places in North America that never had it before.
- Source: The Catholic Herald
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