Editorial

Connectivity of two events: All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day

Comes the two-day holidays as we enter the month of November in commemorating All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day --- November 1 and 2. By this time, the cemeteries have been refurbished for visitation of families and relatives on tombs where lie the remains of our loved ones. For a while, the two-day events are a respite from the rigidities of work such as office functions. Anyhow, these are holidays worth celebrating but not departing from their religious and social significance, especially for the Christians.

On Timeline… All Saints’ Day is remembering the saints, whose list of names actually is not registered in our mental dictionary except for a few of them, one our patron saint. This occasion is “to allow the testimony of their faith spur us on.” The saints set the example of how one could live with his/her faith and submit to a calling, “counting oneself to the love and service of neighbors.” It reminds of “connectedness” as Christians. Devotees count on saints as intercessors with the Divinity. The canonization of saints is associated with miracles and prayers as exemplary of faith in God. This day in history is one religious obligation in prayer.

All Souls’ Day is praying for the Holy Souls and the offering of indulgences that the departed ones be in the presence of God as we also join them in the life thereafter. In social life, this is the day when families and relatives get together in remembering their loved ones. It is a sort of a reunion when families and relatives see each other and exchange embedded cordialities in one setting. For some, it is going back to the origin of abode where the loved ones are laid to the final rest. It is said that sibs, separated by independence and family lives, see and embrace each other when funerals occur… it is paying respect to the dead and reviving endearment. All Souls’ Day should not be scary but a moment of dialogue with surviving sibs and relatives as “how life is going” and how we can meaningfully cherish our lives, noting that “we only live once.” Again, there is connectivity in commemorating the dead.

So, these two related events have social significance --- the saints and the departed as the “significant others,” depending on how they have given meaning to one’s life and how their examples have been integrated into one’s temporal being and association with people, the nearest of them our neighbors. One can be saintly in concern and love of neighbors and the soul is sanctified with the integral values of righteousness and religious devotion. 

The saints are models in submission to a calling, which is  associated with love, while remembering the departed is seeking indulgence for the peace of the soul as the living also seek peace in their midst. So folks, how do you intertwine these two events which deal with connectivities. This is a moment of reflection… and how much time do we devote to this exercise?

Anyhow, it is time for the celebration with our love ones with prayer and renewal of ties.