Since it was found off the shores of what was then San Pedro Tunasan in Laguna during the Spanish colonial period, the statue of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sepulchre has earned the adoration of Filipino Catholics from all over the country.
This Holy Week, as devotees are once again set to flock to the Diocesan Shrine of Jesus in the Holy Sepulchre in Barangay Landayan, San Pedro City, church administrators have decided to show visitors exactly how the devotion to “Lolo Uweng” has spread among Catholics.
Last March 30, the shrine opened in its Parish Hall the “Lolo Uweng Memorabilia Exhibit,” which aims to explain the rich history and miraculous legacy of Lolo Uweng.
With the theme “By His wounds we were healed,” the exhibit displays various images, garments, and other objects associated with the devotion to Lolo Uweng, along with a chronological timeline of how the Lolo Uweng Shrine was established.
According to local lore, fishermen found the image of a dead Jesus off the shores of Landayan, San Pedro, Laguna sometime during the 18th century.
“On the belief that the image is miraculous, they brought it up from the lake water, and placed it in a camarin inside a visita for veneration. This incident gave way to the devotion to Jesus in Holy Sepulchre, accompanied by miracle stories attributed to the image that were authenticated by local parishioners and devotees from neighboring provinces,” according to the Lolo Uweng Shrine website.
Old bell
Among the chief attractions at the exhibit is the Santo Sepulcro Bell, a bronze bell dating back to the Spanish colonial period that provides the first definitive date of the start of devotion of Catholics to Lolo Uweng.
While there is no exact date when the statue of the Dead Christ or when the visita housing it was built, the bell, with its date of 1836, reveals the most probable period of that discovery event, according to church officials.
“The bell is made from a thick bronze metal, and in its waist are appliqued the Spanish words AÑO 1836, proof that this bell was brought to Landayan in the year 1836. In its sound bow can be read these Spanish words: A Đ VOC. Đ D. G. M. ESTA PERTEN. AL SEPVLCRO DEL SITIO Đ LANDAIAN, which in the Filipino language means the bell is destined for the Sepulcro of Sitio Landayan,” according to a 2008 report by Joseph Garcia, a museologist then working for the National Museum of the Philippines.
The Lolo Uweng Memorabilia Exhibit is open to the public until April 27, when Catholics commemorate Divine Mercy Sunday.
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