Preparing to meet the dead

By Herbert Vego

ALL roads lead to the cemetery on Saturday, November 1 — the traditional All Saints Day. It’s when we pay homage to the departed.

Historians say it is a take-off from the Lemuria pagan festival, which the Roman 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 All Saints Day. 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 his death? What were his last words?  Have we exhausted all efforts to keep him alive?

We all agree that death comes unexpectedly like a thief in the night. 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).

Unfortunately, according to the Jewish book David the King, David did not enjoy his bonus years; he died at age 70.

As it was in the days of David, by the time we reach 70 today, most of us would have complained of deteriorating health.

We are reminded, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heavens: 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.”

However, there are many other views on post-death existence.

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 that the soul immediately leaves the body at death and ascends to either heaven or hell.

But the Old Testament 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).

“But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” the apostle Paul digressed in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 15:55-57), “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Was Paul saying that faithful Christians would be resurrected to spend eternity with God?

OK, let’s wait and see.

-oOo-

WHY MORE POWER?

In our previous column, we congratulated MORE Power and its President/CEO, Roel Castro, for bagging the Grand Winner award at the Asia CEO Awards  in Manila. Our readers asked us why.

According to Janet Petilla, Vice President for Project Delivery at Innodata Knowledge Services, the event’s organizer, it’s because of the distribution utility’s robust commitment to corporate social responsibility.

“Corporate social responsibility,” she said “is the gold standard for being recognized as a premier company in the Philippines. Companies dedicated to CSR are recognized for their integrity. Their success proves that caring for the community and the nation is inseparable from corporate excellence.”

Indeed, MORE Power has always participated in Iloilo City’s livelihood projects.  For example, it has partnered with the City Agriculturist Office by providing seeds and tools, and hosting Harvest Festivals where produce is sold to support local farmers.