Religious Symbols and Shrines

 We stopped at a couple of small old Spanish churches in the villages we visited, and we saw a number of small shrines to saints in various shops. A few examples here:

The child is wearing clothing of the kind sold in this shop.

So painful for trying on clothes! Maybe that's why this one was in a lower glassed-in cabinet. (photo thanks to CZ)

This one looks a bit precarious (photo thanks to CZ).

We stopped at a church along the way -

These places have been here for a while.

Poor Saint Sebastian!

Rose and I climbed up the bell tower --

-- and got a lovely view.

The interior was gorgeous too.

In another village, the pictures told an interesting story.

Part of a Heaven-Earth-Hell story, with Adam and Eve up high, Limbo for the unbaptised infants just below, and --

the fearsome future for those destined for the Inferno, shown below, just at eye level for all good churchgoers. Some horriffic imagery here in this painting, I've shown just a small detail of the sinners' fate!

And next, across from the Inferno message, we have a scene of St. Christopher carrying the Christ Child across a river:

The cover-up

But this image, painted on panel, was discovered not to be the original effort. The original painting was painted directly on the wall and concealed beneath this second effort by the same artist, and was only discovered in 1970 when the church was refurbished. It can be presumed that the original showed the saint and the Christ child with features too Asian for the Spanish priest's preference, and was therefore redone with a more western appearance for the two figures, according to our local guide.

The original work, rejected by the padre.

In the same church, but of later addition, were seven beautiful stained glass windows, identifying the seven sacraments of the church in the Tagalog language, showing a change of heart toward the local parishioners, hopefully.