Thoughts on All Souls Day

Today is All Souls Day. If we follow the Catholic liturgy, today is the day of praying for our dead. Why Filipinos visit the graves of their dead loved ones and pray for them on All Saints Day, which was yesterday, is something I still cannot explain.

In any case, the priest in our Sunday mass this morning took pains to talk about death in his homily and tried very hard to drive home his point about being prepared for death without sounding morbid or scary. His long homily, however, missed a big point – the connection between death and Christ’s resurrection

At this point in my life, after having stared at death face to face once with a massive heart attack and after having seen death so many times in the past as a priest and as a CPE chaplain, I have learned to live my own dying joyfully on a daily basis. Today, I am able to see the joyful side of dying because as a Christian I know that death has already “lost its sting” and that Christ has already conquered death through His resurrection.

This mindset about death is probably the reason why early this year, I decided to install a beautiful image of the resurrected Christ in our family mausoleum in our old hometown where my deceased parents and two older brothers are buried. Jokingly, I told my siblings, my nephews, and nieces that the image should remind them of me when I am gone since Thelma or my children will surely inter my ashes here in Manila where it is closer to them. Come to think of it, however, the image should remind them about the joyful side of dying and the hope of another life that only Jesus as the way to eternal life can give.

And speaking of the way to eternal life, I remember how an American priest in our seminary used to get upset, saying it is none of their business, whenever the seminarians greet him with “Father, where are you going?” or “Father, where have you been?” A Filipino priest finally reminded his American colleague that the questions are actually the Filipino way of recognizing him and that the questions are the equivalent of the Americans’ “How are you doing?”

Come to think of it today, the questions “Where have you been?” and “Where are you going?” can actually be reminders to ourselves where we came from and where we are going ultimately.