Beyond clean hands

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: royciagala@gmail.com

THE dinner invitation in Luke 11:37-41 quickly turns into a spiritual checkup. A Pharisee is shocked because Jesus skips the ritual washing before eating. The issue, however, is not hygiene. It is hypocrisy. Jesus immediately exposes a perennial temptation: "You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness."

It is one of the strongest warnings Christ gives against legalism and formalism—the tendency to reduce religion to rules, rituals, appearances, and external correctness while neglecting the conversion of the heart.

Rules have their place. Rituals matter. Discipline is indispensable. The Church herself treasures them because they help form and express faith. But they become dangerous when they are mistaken for holiness itself. They are means, not the end. The end is union with God through charity.

That was the problem confronting many religious leaders in Christ's time. They had become meticulous about external observance but careless about the interior life. They could detect the smallest ceremonial violation while overlooking pride, envy, greed, and lack of mercy. They measured sanctity by visible compliance instead of invisible love.

The danger has not disappeared. It simply wears modern clothes. In the Philippine setting, where religious practice remains vibrant, this Gospel deserves serious reflection. Churches are full during fiestas, Holy Week, Simbang Gabi, and major feast days. Processions draw thousands. Devotional images are beautifully adorned. Religious organizations flourish. These are genuine blessings that testify to a people's enduring faith.

But they also invite an uncomfortable question: Do our external expressions always correspond to an interior conversion?

One can faithfully complete novenas yet refuse reconciliation within the family. One can wear religious medals while engaging in corruption. One can generously sponsor church activities but exploit employees, evade taxes, spread gossip, or harbor deep resentments. One can even become an expert in Catholic practices while remaining a stranger to Christian charity.

Legalism also breeds another spiritual disease: a judgmental attitude. When religion becomes primarily about external performance, people naturally begin comparing themselves with others. We classify who is "good," who is "bad," who is "orthodox," who is "lukewarm," often based on appearances alone. We become quick to point out another person's failures while remaining blind to our own interior poverty.

The Lord dismantles this mentality. God's gaze penetrates beyond behavior into motives, intentions, and circumstances that only he fully knows. What appears exemplary externally may hide pride. What appears imperfect may conceal heroic fidelity known only to God.

This is why Christ prescribes an unexpected remedy: "Give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you." He shifts attention from ritual precision to generous self-giving. Charity purifies because it attacks selfishness at its root. A heart that truly loves God cannot remain indifferent to the needs of others. Genuine worship naturally overflows into justice, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and humble service.

The Gospel therefore calls every believer to examine not only what he does but also why he does it. Are our religious practices bringing us closer to Christ? Are they making us kinder, humbler, more patient, more truthful, and less self-centered? Or have they become badges of superiority that feed our ego?

Clean hands are good. A clean heart is indispensable. Christ did not come merely to improve religious etiquette. He came to transform the human heart from within. Once that happens, the outside will eventually take care of itself.

 

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A bald eagle brought traffic to a complete stop after drivers realized it was standing guard over an injured raccoon

Cars traveling along the mountain road suddenly began slowing down when they spotted the eagle standing directly in the roadway with its wings spread. Whenever a vehicle started getting too close, the bird refused to move, forcing drivers to stop and wait.

At first, people assumed the eagle had landed there because of food. But after watching for a few moments, drivers noticed a small animal underneath its wings.

It was a raccoon.

The raccoon was lying almost completely still on the pavement while the eagle stood over it, spreading its wings whenever something approached. Strangely, the eagle didn't appear interested in attacking the raccoon at all.

Then people realized something was wrong.

The raccoon appeared to have been struck by a vehicle and was too injured to get itself off the road. Instead of flying away, the eagle remained beside it, seemingly keeping passing cars from getting any closer.

Even when people stepped out of their vehicles, the eagle held its ground. It kept its attention on the surrounding road, almost as if anything approaching the injured animal was a threat.

Eventually, wildlife rescuers arrived and carefully approached the pair. The eagle finally moved far enough away for them to reach the raccoon and carry it safely off the roadway.

Nobody watching could know exactly why the eagle stayed or what it understood about the injured raccoon.

But for several minutes, one of the most powerful birds in the sky stood in the middle of a mountain road and refused to leave a completely different animal behind

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The Philippines

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Batanes sits at the very top of the Philippines where the Pacific Ocean meets the South China Sea. This is the smallest and least populated province in the country, a cluster of ten islands where only three are inhabited, and the wind never really stops blowing. The Ivatan people who have lived here for thousands of years built their stone houses specifically to survive typhoons that would flatten anything made of wood, and those houses are still standing centuries later while modern construction crumbles.

Life in Batanes moves at a pace that the rest of the Philippines has mostly forgotten. There are no traffic jams because there are barely any cars. Crime is essentially nonexistent, and the local honesty store system, where you take what you need and leave your payment in a box, still works because everyone knows everyone and trust is not optional on an island this small. The rolling green hills look more like Ireland or New Zealand than anything you expect to find in a tropical country, and the cliffs drop straight into water so blue it almost does not look real.

What makes Batanes truly extraordinary is how the Ivatans have preserved their culture against impossible odds. Their language, Ivatan, is spoken by fewer than 40,000 people on earth. Their traditional vakul rain capes, woven from palm leaves, are still worn during storms. Their stone-walled villages have been proposed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In a country of 7,600 islands, Batanes proves that the smallest and most remote places often hold the deepest stories.

If you could spend one week anywhere in the Philippines with zero agenda, would Batanes make your list?

#Batanes #Ivatan #ThePhilippines #PhilippineIslands #CoolDestinations

What are some Filipino traditions?

 

Ronna Lou

 

Filipina Writer and Matchmaking Consultant at Philippine-Women.Com

What are some Filipino traditions?

As a Filipino, I grew up during a period when a lot of the traditions of our elders are slowly starting to get left behind. Here are some of the notable traditions I personally grew up with, and some that we were acquainted with in school:

• Po and Opo
• The words “po” and “opo” are examples of Filipino words that don’t have direct English translations. These words are used when talking with the elderly, or with someone of higher rank (student talking to a teacher, employee talking to employer, etc.) to express respect. Opo, I believe, is actually a contraction of Oo po, Oo meaning “yes”, and po added to express politeness. The tradition of using these words is still alive until today.
• Bayanihan
• The word Bayanihan, as we were taught in school, came from the word “bayan” which is the Filipino word for a collective group of people living in a particular place such as a town or province. Long ago, when our ancestors lived in huts (kubo, in Filipino) and wanted to relocate, the townsmen would gather and literally lift the hut for the owners. This notion of bayanihan is now taken into modern times as the spirit of togetherness, or of helping each other out whether you know them or not.
• Panliligaw at Panghaharana (Courtship and Serenading)
• In the olden times, being a couple in the Philippines was a big deal. The man would have to prove himself worthy of the woman’s affection before any sort of intimate relationship (so much as holding each other’s hands) is permitted by the parents. This is done by offering services to the woman’s family, such as gathering firewood, fetching buckets of water, or running errands. This goes on for months, if not years. Nowadays, even though the process of courtship has been relatively simplified, it still is a custom for a man to court a woman he is trying to woo for several months before they engage in a mutual relationship.
• Panghaharana or serenading is actually related to the old Filipino tradition of courtship. During the days of my grandparents, courtship involves serenading the woman in front of their house at night.

(I do not own the image)

It is said that the woman is supposed to look out the window only after several nights of being serenaded by the man. It also seems that the man who is trying to woo the woman usually brings along some of his friends to play the guitar or any other accompanying instruments while he sings. Kundiman, or traditional Filipino songs that are characterized by poetic and sweet lyricism, were used during panghaharana.

• Pagmamano
• In English, the word pagmamano is usually translated as “blessing.” I don’t know how accurate of a translation it is, though, but I grew up being taught of it. It is the act of taking one of an elderly’s hand, face down, and leading it onto one’s forehead. Again, this is a gesture of respect and is done by people usually to express respect for the elderly when leaving or entering a household. It is also a common gesture for religious people to perform the gesture when meeting religious leaders such as nuns or priests.

(Again, I do not own the photo).

• Fiestas (Feasts)
• Fiestas in the Philippines actually rooted from the Catholic religion. These events are conducted for every town, province, or patron saint, during their “feast days”. You’ll know that a place is celebrating its feast when you see banderitas hanging about the streets. These feasts often include a lot of food that are contributed by the different households of the place and shared among everyone, as well as games of various kinds.

(Photo not mine.)

• Extended Families
• Filipinos are very tightly-knit with their families. So much so that it is acceptable (and fairly common, might I add) for wedded couples to live with their parents, or even including their grandparents, uncles and aunts, and great grandparents. I personally grew up in this setting so you could take it from me. “Moving out” isn’t really and immediate action after finishing high school (or college, because a lot of Filipinos finish college after High School). Personally, I stay with my mom even though I’m a full grown man, not that it’s customary but because it makes economical sense (for me, at least, since I get a lot of free stuff from my mom).

These are just some of the most common and notable traditions I know from the Filipino people. There are a LOT more, I believe, since Filipinos indeed have a rich set of cultures and traditions. It’s sad, though, that modern times didn’t allow for a lot of them to survive.