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Sunday, October 30, 2005
Perez: Pray for the souls of departed loved ones
By Joy G. Perez
Sensitivity
VALUE our loved ones. Pray for their souls. Offers prayers for them these All Saints Day and All Souls Day, November 1 and November 2, respectively. Remember them on these special days.
In our country, we have a tradition to visit the cemetery where our beloved departed were buried. At least, once a year, they are visited in their resting place. This is a unique tradition.
Graveyard sites are now given special attention. Leaning the graveyards is a common activity. It includes painting the tombs and marking the names of the dead if these have been erased.
Offering prayers is our way of showing our love and concern for the departed. We need to find time with them through silence and perhaps, meditation. We even communicate with them in a special way. We talk with them through our mind. Sometimes, we just talk, a kind of one-way communication, but personally we feel that they listen to us.
Offer specific prayer of intention for your very close departed loved one, and offer a common prayer for all souls. Yes, they really need our prayers.
On either dates, November 1 or 2, living family members find time to visit the cemetery and gather at the tomb site of their dearly departed loved ones. They bring flowers, either fresh or artificially-made with personal touch.
Of course, fresh flowers are more abundant. This is the time of the year when you can compare the cemetery to a garden with different flowers blooming. Some are plain white, some come in different colors. Some are rare flowers that really attract passers-by. Orchids and other expensive flowers are brought to the tombs. There are also common flowers which are ordinarily seen everyday. During these days, it is a sad fact that the prices of flowers are expensive nowadays.
Many bring candles. These are lighted or lit up close to tombs of their dearly beloved departed. Many Catholics say the rosary and offer holy mass for the dead. It's a requiem mass.
Some who go to the cemetery even sing religious songs, read passages in the bible, bring some food items and spend time in the graveyard sites recalling stories, mostly the good sides of their dearly departed.
Fr. Joseph Galdon, a Jesuit priest and author of The Mustard Seed (Reflections for Daily Living), said that death is a devastating human experience. He said, "Death takes away those we love, sometimes apparently for no reason at all. One of the great sadness of life is that it must end. That is why we cry at funerals because someone we love has been taken away from us. We are sad, too, when we read or hear of the meaningless death of someone we don't even know. We are sad when we think of our own death and realize that someday we must leave what we have-loved ones, friends, the happiness of life."
Death always makes us sad. But Jesus says that death is not really the end of everything. It is the beginning of greater things to come.
It is sad that death is the ultimate human deprivation. But, Fr. Galdon says, death is not deprivation, it is a gift of the greater life in heaven. He said that the paradox of death is that -- it is not death. It is Life.
(October 30, 2005 issue)
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