ALL OF THE SAINTS AND THE SOULS

November 1, 2015

If it had been another President, tomorrow would still be a holiday too, since today is officially Catholicism’s All Saints’ Day and tomorrow is All Souls’ Day.  As it is, we have a sitting duck who chooses to ignore the tenets of his own religion in favour of courting votes from other more vocal and less antagonizing (to him) religious groups, hence, he is choosing to gloss over the fact that his own religion espouses saint-hood and holy living, before honouring the dead (where there will be more chances to smile for the camera and earn more campaign pogi points).

I have nothing against the observance of these holidays since our country is predominantly Catholic.  As a born-again Christian though, I believe much has been emphasized on the pagan trimmings of these holidays rather than what the Holy Bible says and what the CBCP actually promotes.  I agree that these days should be understood as to their purposes more than having them as excuses for costume parties and drunken revelries.

If we go back to history, the name Halloween is actually a shortened form of the phrase ‘the evening before All Hallows’ (All Holy or All Saints).  When the Roman Empire combined the newly dressed Christian religion with their old gods, they brought this holiday with them, in which all forces of darkness gather to battle the forces of light that will come the next day.  Hence, ‘Halloween’ is themed with darkness and evil while ‘All Saints’ should be themed with angels and light.  ‘All Souls’ is actually a holiday where Catholics can confidently pray over their dead because of the victory of the forces of light the day before.  But as it is, all these days have been spent more on honouring the dead and partying for the dark forces (which have been made dangerously cute by letting small children don their costumes and knocking on all doors for trick-or-treat), and virtually none (except as a side note during Masses) to honour the Saints or those Christians who are already dead and are hailed as heroes and examples of godly living.

The Holy Bible says evil is real.  We should be careful what we let our children do and what kinds of cultures we expose them to.  If they think that these holidays are only focused on the dead and the underworld, they would fail to see that there is a day that reminds them to live lives worthy of the religion and the faith to which they are named.  Let us be careful not to let our children get the impression that they can run wild and glorify gore and violence as fun.  It is never a good thing to see somebody with all their entrails hanging out of their midsection, a long knife protruding from their bellies, their faces and bodies covered with blood/red paint, walking with their arms outstretched towards you, and thinking it is just a zombie so it is just for fun.  In real life, that person would most decidedly be dead, a victim of a crime, and there would also most decidedly be a criminal who was responsible for it. 

Instead of letting our children enjoy the show that the dead comes back to being an un-dead (which they never do) and it is okay to dress up as the devil and his demon-minions, shouldn’t we imbibe upon them more of the faith that we say we hold on to?  Where is our observance and faithfulness to our so-called ‘All Saints Day’?  Why is it that there was never a battle shown between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, with the side of light winning?  We should remember that just as good and evil are real, so are our souls, and so are the lives lived by the Saints we claim to emulate.  Why of all these four cardinal elements of the Christian faith, we spend so much money, effort and attention to glorifying that which is most decidedly destructive to our psyche and national consciousness?