Halloween or our beloved dead?

By Fr. Leo Pabayo

THE feasts of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day on Nov. 1 and 2 have come to be known to us, Filipinos, as one continuous feast of Todos Los Santos. That is one of the unique features of our celebration of these feasts. In a sense, it is more correct, for in the words of St. Paul, all believers in Christ who are in the state of grace are saints. However, St. Paul makes a distinction between the saints who are already in heaven and those who are still here on earth.

The other unique feature of our celebration of these feasts is that we pitch tent at the graves of our loved ones and spend some time there in a kind of a picnic, talking with one another, listening to music and eating. The bishops, however, remind us to spend some time praying and that this should be at the center of our activities in the cemetery on these days.

In the US, these days are more popularly known as Halloween days. These are days of fun and excitement for the children. It is a time for party and an opportunity to get some gifts through their “trick or treat” game. With the growing number of Catholic Americans in the US, All Saints’ and All Souls’ days may be celebrated there also in the Catholic way.

Our Filipino culture has something of the Halloween understanding of Halloween. It is a time for ghost stories or stories about the “multo.” In Bisayan it is a time for, “kalag-kalag.” “Kalag,” in Bisaya, means soul or spirit. The word “kalag-kalag” evokes spooky thoughts about the presence of the souls of the dead among us. It is time for some to share scary stories about the dead. In these days and many days before one will notice an increase of ghost movies and other horror movies on TV. Some moviemakers actually make movies for the purpose of showing them around this time. Let us pray that there will be more movies about the blissful state in heaven of good people who have died.

The word “Halloween” originally came from the word “Hallow” which means “holy” which we say when for  example we pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.”

In recent times, however, there is growing a kind of celebrating Halloween among children by portraying the lives of various saints they have been taught in the Catholic schools and parishes. This seems to have originated from the Couples for Christ and the Handmaids of the Lord.

The Church has established the feasts of “All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day” so that the Christian community will be reminded that those who departed from this world after living a good life are alive but are living a new life in Heaven or in “Purgatory.” The feasts remind us that we continue to be connected with them in the spirit and that they and we continue to relate with one another or influence one another because we are bonded with one another in a Communion of Saints. In the light of this, we can also call these two days of celebration as “The Feast of the Communion of Saints.” This title brings out an important dimension in the celebration of these feasts which is spiritually fruitful for us to ponder.

The Communion of Saints is an article in the Creed. It means that all of us baptized or believers in Christ are one people of God or belonging to the family of God. As stated, we are inextricably linked with one another and influence one another spiritually in our present life in this world as well as in the next life. We help one another as we undergo purification from our sins in the present life by praying for one another and relating with one another in the spirit of true love. We include in our prayers those who are still undergoing purification in Purgatory. We also believe that those who are already in heaven can intercede for us while we are in the present world as well as for those who are in Purgatory.

Purgatory is the state of the soul of those of us who have died but continue to undergo purification from our sins in the next life so that they may be ready to enter heaven.  

In a sense we can also say that we experience some kind of Purgatory while we are still in our present life as we undergo trials in life that cleanses us of our sins. This may continue in the Purgatory of the next life to prepare us for heaven.  As Christians believe that our prayers in our present life in this world as well as the prayers of those in heaven hasten our journey to heaven.

All those who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior and have finally won a permanent residence in heaven are saints. We celebrate their being in heaven on the Feast of All Saints on Nov. 1. Some of them are “saints” with the small letter “s” or “s” in the lower case. Those that we call Saints with a capital “S” are holy men and women who have lived their Christian lives in outstanding or extraordinary ways and have been canonized. “Cannonized” means that their exemplary life have been carefully studied by the Pope, Bishops, priests and the other teachers of the Catholic Church and thus have met the norms or cannons of being Christians in extraordinary ways.  Their names are in the calendar of saints or in the Book of Saints.

Catholic theologians have labeled all the saints in heaven, known or unknown, cannonized or are now members of “The Church Triumphant” because they have already triumphed in their struggle against evil and have come to their reward in the glory of heaven.

What this heaven is has been the subject of many interesting speculations. One way speaking about it is that it is the perfection of every good thing that men and women have learned from God as revealed in the Bible and in His Church, at the core of which the love of God and neighbor. We are taught this in the first Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI where he teaches us that God is Love.

The Catholic Catechism refers to the members of the family of God who are still here on earth, us, as the Church Militant because a Christian views this state of life as basically a spiritual warfare. An intensely militaristic description of the life of Christians in the Church Militant is found in St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, 10-15, 17: “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against… the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace… Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

(Fr. Leo Pabayo is a member of the Society of Jesus.)