Tuesday, November 02, 2004

'Bifurcated' All Souls' Day

'Bifurcated' All Souls' Day

Updated 11:23pm (Mla time) Nov 01, 2004
By Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the November 2, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


We give back to You who first gave them to us: our faithful dead, whose beauty and truth are even now in our hearts. -- Rufus Ellis

BORACAY, Aklan -- "All Souls Day is -- what's the word now? -- bifurcated," the wife said at a Halloween dinner.

"Words like 'bifurcated' send the opinion editor up the wall," I replied. "What do you mean?"

"Half a world away, our granddaughter tricks-or-treats today," she explained. "Here, our grandchildren bring flowers for family graves -- including ours sooner rather than later." Oh, that.

"A contraction of 'All Hallows Eve'" (All Saints’ Day), Halloween marked the Celtic new year. In 1848, Irish immigrants brought those spooky costumes to the United States where it continues today as a fun-filled kids' feast.

From its start, the Church prayed for the dead. By the year 998, Benedictine abbot Oddilo of Cluny picked Nov. 2 for remembrance. The practice spread to other countries. The living can help the departed, the doctrine went, by asceticism's trio of prayer, sacrifice and alms. They'd help atone for past transgressions, and pave their entry into the Beatific Vision.

Both celebrations reflect reverence for the dead. "Lift us up, that we may see further, as one by one, You gather scattered families, from the distractions, strife and weariness of time, to the peace of eternity," the ancient prayer goes. "Death is only a horizon, and a horizon is the limit of our sight. We thank you for the labor and joys of these mortal years. We thank you for the deep sense of mystery that lies beyond our mortal dust." The desire to "see further" also echoes in newsrooms. "Here come ‘de-cajon’ [stock] stories," an editor wearily snapped. She meant those humdrum stories that swamp news desks whenever All Souls' Day comes around: traffic jams to squatters living in crammed cemeteries. "Is that all there's to this?"

No. But the familiar blur realities beyond the customary: whether votive candles or cemeteries turned into two-day cities, zapped by karaokes. But the central reality remains, as Dr. Lino Pantoja Jr. writes, in "Itaga Mo Sa Bato," life beyond a handful of ashes. "We Filipinos use the idiom ‘itaga mo sa bato’ to assert our utmost confidence," this pastor writes. "Such were Job's exact words: 'Oh, that my words were engraved in rock forever.' They're words of his primitive theology of the Resurrection: 'I know that my Redeemer lives. And in the end, He will stand forth upon the earth. And after my skin shall have been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God!'"

These words were written 2,500 years before Easter's empty tomb. "It is a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead," declares the Book of Macabees, from that period. And over 1,500 years later, Handel worked it into his soaring oratorio.

The liturgy spotlights this reality today. "Vita mutatur, non tollitur," priests murmur in the Eucharist's preface. For unto your faithful, O Lord, life is changed, not taken away.

The theme resonates wherever religious or laymen read the Liturgy of the Hours. Few now hear the ancient Gregorian chant, "Dies Irae" [Day of Wrath]: "Tuba mirum spargen sonum / Per sepulchra regionum / Coget omnes ante thronum." My now-hazy freshman Latin translates that to: "Trumpets blare through sepulchers, calling all to appear before the judgment throne."

Above all, there's universal aching for assurance of what lies beyond the grave. "If only I could see him, for just a second, and know he's all right, I'd be able to cope," Seamus tells the priest blessing his son's crumpled body, killed in an accident.

"I remembered Seamus' comment" at a Mass for a student accident victim, writes Jesuit theologian Catalino Arevalo. "We'd all love to know that those who've gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, are at peace."

The son's classmates chose the Transfiguration for gospel reading. "The one about Jesus going up to the mountain and changing into dazzling white," they suggested.

"It struck me, for the first time, that Jesus allowed his friends to see, 'for just a second,' what was beyond. Their reaction was strange: they did not want to leave the spot. It's 'wonderful for us to be here.' But Jesus reminded them they had to go down the mountain," Father Arevalo adds. "What if we could get some vision, 'for only just a second,' or if we could 'for only just a second' see people who've gone before us, in faith, specially those suddenly or tragically taken, in that place of light that is God's promise?

"What if we, too, had some authentic extended experience of 'what our eyes have not seen, nor our ears heard,' what God prepared for those who are faithful? It is truly the better thing that an authentic extended experience is not given us -- because we would not want to leave the spot. Better still because there is still so much of the humdrum, the frustrating, the difficult for us to endure, if possible with courage, to build some small beginnings of the Kingdom which Jesus wanted to make our work in this world."

Whether in the dim catacombs off Rome's Appian way, or in our garishly lighted cemeteries, All Souls speaks to us in Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's poignant verse: "Death is not the extinguishing of life. It is putting out the lamp, because dawn has come."

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