All Souls’ Day

Catholics know that Nov. 2 is the correct day for remembering and honoring the dead. It is meant to be a sacred day of prayer. But for us, All Saints’ Day is when we all troop to the cemeteries to pay our respects to our deceased loved ones. It is a happy occasion as the day celebrates the saints. And we all know the gaiety and festivity that characterize Philippine gatherings in November. Truly, fiesta-like.

It is a special public holiday that warrants traffic routes to be reassigned and reorganized. In a sense, the city is at a standstill.

All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows, the Solemnity of All Saints and Hallowmas, is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honor of all the saints of the Church, whether they are known or unknown.

It is good to remember the little-known history behind these two days. All Saints’ Day traces its beginning to the Feast of All Holy Martyrs introduced by Pope Boniface IV when, on May 13, 615 AD, he dedicated the ancient Roman temple of Pantheon as a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyrs of the Church.

In 844 AD, Pope Gregory IV transferred the celebration to Nov. 1 because he felt that it would be easier to feed the many pilgrims who came to visit Rome after the harvest.

Finally, in 1484 AD, Pope Sixtus IV established it as a holy day of obligation for the entire Church. The primary purpose of All Saints’ Day is to honor the large number of martyrs and other saints who could not be accorded the honor of a special festival since the days of the year would not suffice for all these celebrations.

All Souls’ Day has an entirely different history. The need and duty of praying for the dead has always been acknowledged by the Church. But any offering for the repose of the souls was left to the discretion of the relatives and friends.

There was no Church-wide commemoration.

In 1048 AD, St. Odilo, the Abbot of Cluny, decreed that all monasteries of the congregation of Cluny were to annually keep Nov. 2 as a Day of All Departed Ones. The observance of the Benedictines of Cluny was soon adopted by other Benedictines. The tradition began with the tolling of the bell on Nov. 1, right after Vespers, and the Office of the Dead recited. The next day priests had to say mass for the repose of the souls in purgatory.

Nov. 2 became the official day for the commemoration of “all the faithful departed” in the 14th century.

Nov. 2 was originally chosen as the date in order that the memory of all the holy spirits, both of the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory, should be celebrated on two successive days. In this way, the Christian belief in the Communion of Saints will be better expressed.

This day of praying for the dead is tied to the Catholic belief that not everyone who dies in God’s grace is ready to go to heaven. To prepare them for the beatific vision (direct experience with God and His perfect nature), they must be purified of lesser faults or venial sins.

This stage of purification is Purgatory. Catholics believe that the prayers and mass offerings of the living will in some way benefit those who are dead but are still in Purgatory. All Souls’ Day, therefore, is a day for saying requiem masses and praying novenas for the souls of our beloved ones who may still be in Purgatory.

Undas, the local translation for this festival, is both a religious and cultural practice. The term is curious and truly distinctly Filipino. According to Philippine studies professor Schedar Jocson, the term came from the Filipinos’ habit of making words shorter. Undas really means Dia Delos Todos Santos, Day of All Saints. I still want to know how the term jumped from that Spanish phrase to our “Undas.”

In his book Culture and Community in the Philippine Fiesta and Other Celebrations, Florentino Hornedo wrote that celebrations and specialty fiestas endure in this country because “it is rooted in the communitarian and expressive instincts of human nature... is a durable venue for Filipino cultures and expressions... and is a symbol of Filipino sense of community.”

Hornedo sees Philippine fiestas as a cultural anchor helping the Filipinos define their national character: it is to this small community, that is annually recreated by the fiesta, that he goes home to renew his identity and sense of belonging to a home and familial village.

This appears to be the best explanation of why the Filipino goes home every Christmas and Holy Week and Undas. And why there is gaiety and merrymaking in the cemeteries. This uniquely Filipino way of celebrating worldwide Catholic feasts is living evidence that there is a distinct Filipino culture that serves to bond us all together as one people.

It is days like these when our Filipino traditions become manifest, revealing the values we hold dear.