More on All Saints Day

By Herbert Vego

 

IN this corner the other day, we discussed Malacañang’s “abortion” of the traditional November 1 commemoration of All Saints Day in the cemeteries to avoid congestion that could aggravate the COVID-19 pandemic, replacing it with any day before October 28, and any day after November 4.

The dead must be deploring government intervention on their traditional November 1 meet-up with the living. If they have not been visited yet, they would have to hope for better luck on November 5 or thereafter.

We the living know very little why we pay homage to our departed brothers and sisters on All Saints Day. While its origin cannot be traced with certainty, history says it is a take-off from the Lemuria pagan festival, which the Catholic Church first celebrated  as a Christian holiday on May 13, 609 during the reign of Pope Boniface IV.

Christendom observes November 1 as the traditional day of praying for the dead, although it’s actually November 2 that is known as All Souls Day in the Catholic liturgy.

The Roman Catholic celebration is associated with the doctrine that the souls of the faithful dead need to be prayed for to attain full sanctification and moral perfection before entering Heaven. Other Christian sects don’t share that view.

Ironically, it’s we the living who actually rub elbows with each other at the cemetery on the dead’s “feast”. There we meet long-time-no-see friends and relatives; and reminisce about the good old days with the departed. We ask questions: What caused their death? Have we exhausted all efforts to keep them alive?

We all agree that death comes like a thief in the night — unexpected. No man is too young to die – or too old to survive.

In the Bible, King David – who lived from 907 BC to 837 BC — propounds that men who stay alive after age 70 are in their “bonus” years: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).

According to the Jewish book David the King, David himself died at age 70.

No wonder by the time we reach 70 today, most of us complain of deteriorating health.

We are reminded, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).

We have no quarrel with that. What we argue over is what happens after death. Do we, like other forms of animals, return to dust forever or move on to a higher plane of life?

Most of us believe in the afterlife. In one of his poems, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art to dust returneth was not spoken of the soul.”

Unfortunately, we disagree as regards the “afterlife.” There are as many views on post-death existence as there are religions and sects.

Bible-based Christianity offers no crystal-clear description of the post-earth future. There are cases when what is not written seems more acceptable than what is written. For instance, while most Christian theologians preach that Jesus will come again to resurrect the dead, their followers believe the contrary — that the soul immediately leaves the body at death and ascends to either heaven or hell. Roman Catholics visualize an appointment with Saint Peter, who holds the key to our assigned rooms in heaven or hell.

Alas, it contravenes the Old Testament verse that denies consciousness in death: “For the living know that they shall die but the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5).

“His breath goeth forth, he returneth to earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalms 146:4).

Nobody who has gone up there has come down to tell us what paradise is like. We merely assume that the good go there because that’s what our priests and pastors tell us.

The question posed by 1 Corinthians 15:55 remains unanswered:  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

 

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SAFETY AND BEAUTIFICATION GO TOGETHER

Kudos to Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas for grouping together technicians and linemen from different service utilities behind his safety-and-beautification program.

This we found out for ourselves when we saw them dismantling old posts and cables, and replacing them with new ones.

Calling themselves “PUGI” (Public Utility Group of Iloilo}, they consist of two teams – one for installation of facilities, the other for replacement of wires.

They are the “fast and furious” foot soldiers from MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power), assisted by counterparts from Sky Cable, Globe Telecom and Smart-PLDT. Where they have been, the dangling, unsightly spaghetti wires have gone away, replaced by new ones straightly  aligned from pole to pole.

They finished the job along the public plazas within a five-day timetable.

We learned from MORE President Roel Z. Castro that the company had procured three brand-new, well-equipped trucks to take technicians and linemen to job sites, thus fast-tracking rehabilitation of decrepit lines and installation of new connections.

The MORE technicians and linemen, we heard from PR man Jonathan Cabrera, had undergone thorough safety training.

Masuwerte ang kanilang wives, knowing they would leave and return home in vertical, not horizontal, position