Food for thought for All Souls' Day

For our special presentation on our talkshow, Straight from the Sky, we give you a discussion on the doctrines and teachings of the Catholic Church on the topic about praying for the dead. After all, today is All Souls’ Day, while yesterday we commemorated All Saints’ Day. We’re doing this in order to educate our Catholic brethren on what the Catholic Church teaches (as distinguished from folklore or old rituals). We asked Fr. Dan delos Angeles to give us what the church teaches. He is from the Cebu Archdiocese whose pulpit is the media where he has a radio and television programs on ABS-CBN, GMA Channel 7 and Bantay Radio. So watch this very interesting show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm tonight.

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Today is All Souls’ Day, which follows yesterday’s All Saint’s Day.   I really don’t know (which means, I still have to do some research on this) why All Souls’ Day comes a day after All Saints’ Day or why didn’t the Catholic Church decide to make this a one-day commemoration. I can only second guess that it could be due to the fact that all the Saints have gotten their rewards in heaven, while we cannot say this for the rest of the all the souls that have perished this world.

What is important for us who are still in this world to remember is that, life is indeed very short. We have been visiting the graves of our grandparents when we were kids. The older we grow comes with it the realization of the inevitable, that someday we too will be in our graves, visited by our siblings. So as we visit the graves of our loved ones, we should take a moment to ponder, that we should all prepare for the inevitable, that we too would sooner or later join our dearly departed loved ones and ancestors in the cemeteries where our bodies would turn to dust, where we all came from and that no amount of cleaning our tombs could help our souls.

Talking about dust reminds me of the old poems of the great Omar Khayyam in his “The Rubaiyat” translated by the English poet Edward Fitzgerald, which we all got to read in our high school years:

XXIV “Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend

Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

XXV “Alike for those who for Today prepare

And those that after some To-morrow stare,

A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries

“Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor there.”

XXIV “Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d

Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust

Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn

Are scatter’d and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.”

LXIII “Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!

One thing at least is certain—This Life flies;

One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;

The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.”

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Because Typhoon “Santi” has been downgraded into a Tropical Storm, it did little damage to Metro Manila, which is good news for those who wanted to visit their loved ones in the cemeteries yesterday. But all the more we should always be prepared for natural disasters. The best preparation is to train people for this eventuality. So where do we get the warm bodies to be trained for Disaster Management? Certainly, we can tap the barangay tanods. However, most of them are already above middle age and are no longer physically fit. This leaves us with no other options but to tap the youth and where can we do this, but in their schools.

This was what I asked Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) last week after her Gala Dinner at the garden of the Sofitel Centara Resort in Hua Hin, Thailand. I mentioned to the President that the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) have already unanimously supported the return of the Reserve Officers Training Corps. (ROTC) which was removed from our school curriculum because of a single hazing incident. Today, acts of hazing still continues, more so that there are now more fraternities than ever before.

The return of compulsory ROTC in our schools will once more bring back discipline in our youth and their energies can be tapped for good use, either to be trained as future soldiers or policemen with the discipline needed for this task. They can be trained for search and rescue operations, which is an integral part of Disaster Management. We hope this will happen soon.

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