The dead on All Saints Day

By Herbert Vego

SORRY to our departed loved ones.  We will not be around to visit them on All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2) because the government has decided to keep our cemeteries “off limits” from today to November 2, allegedly “to prevent Covid-19 infection.”

I don’t see why these days are more Covid-harmful than other days. But if you failed to visit the cemetery yesterday or earlier, better luck on Wednesday (Nov. 3) or thereafter.

With due respect to contrary beliefs, the Bible does not say anything about the dead waiting to be visited in their graves, although that is how the living pay respect to them.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Roman Catholic Church first celebrated All Saints Day as a traditional day of praying for the dead on May 13, 609 during the reign of Pope Boniface IV.  It stems from the doctrine that the souls of the faithful dead need to be prayed for to attain full sanctification and moral perfection before entering heaven.

Ironically, other Christian sects disagree on what happens to human beings after death.

In the Bible, King David propounds that men who reach past age 70 are in their “bonus” years: “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away (Psalm 90:10, New International Version).

Scientists agree: By the time we reach 70, we will have yielded to distinct physical deformities like wrinkled skin and graying or balding hair.

Here’s a more popular Bible quotation: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven: A time to be born and a time to die…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).

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

The late poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who believed in the afterlife, 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.”

There are as many views on post-death existence as there are religious organizations.

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

The Bible, however, denies consciousness at the time of 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).

Indeed, nobody has gone up and returned to tell us what paradise is like.

I remember how my late father coped with lung cancer at age 72 in 1992. Though we, his children, had not told him he had a terminal disease, he blurted one morning, “I think I will soon die.”

He waited and, a few days later, died.

Tatay had been a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which stresses that Jesus is coming again to resurrect the dead who had done good into eternity.

Soon after his burial, we opened his briefcase which contained his documents, including a clipping of this anonymous quotation: “Come view the ground where I do lie. As you are now so once was I. As I am now so you will be. Prepare for death and follow me.”

A simpler Ilonggo version engraved at the entrance of a cemetery says, “Kami karon, kamo dason.”

-oOo-

MORE POWER TO IDOL JONATHAN

JONATHAN CABRERA, the owner, general manager and lead broadcaster of Radyo Todo-Aklan could be next vice-governor of Aklan.  Though he is running as an independent candidate, our sources said he is the front runner against two traditional politicians.

This is not surprising because, as a broadcaster for 24 years since 1997, he has served as the “crying shoulder” of the less fortunate who call his radio station for immediate assistance.

“I could not do more in my private capacity than I could afford,” he was telling us. “Since I had experienced being hard-up, too, however, I know their problems which could only be solved with government intervention.”

Cabrera is no stranger in public service.  He had served as a member of the Sangguniang Bayan of Malay, Aklan for one term.

He ran for the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Aklan in 2019 but fell short of winning by only a thousand-plus votes.

JonCab is also well-known in Iloilo City as consultant/spokesman of MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power).

He looks up to MORE Power president and chief operating officer Roel Castro for inspiration.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more,” he quoted Castro, “you are a leader.”