ALL Saints' Day is observed on November 1. It is a day commemorating martyrs and saints. All Souls' Day is celebrated on November 2 as a day of prayer commemorating those Christians believed to be in purgatory. These two events have cultural and religious significance in our lives as Filipinos.
The friars during the time of Rizal told our ancestors to believe in God as if there is no tomorrow, to follow the teachings of the Church, to embrace the examples of the saints so that when we die and with God's special gift we can be saints... or at least be like saints.
Our ancestors swallowed hook, line and sinker the indoctrination of the friars. Instead of studying our history, folklore, legends, and traditions, they read novenas and aspired to be like San Bartolome, San Ignacio, Santo Domingo and they even made their own saints like Santa Rita de Regla, San Jose Sierra, Santa Monica Comadrona, Santo Nino Mecanico and more. Thanks to Vatican II because our Church has come to realize that our religion should be focused on the teachings of Christ and not on the imagination of the friars who developed bulging stomach and inconsistent religious ceremonies.
Do we have souls? The friars made our ancestors understand that man has a soul. It is the immortal part of man, as distinguished from his body. Man has to be totally good. If a good man dies, the soul goes to heaven. If a bad man dies, the soul goes to hell. If a not-so-good and not-so-bad man dies, the soul goes to purgatory for the purging before going to heaven.
This may sound funny because nothing is mentioned about purgatory in the Holy Bible. The friars created purgatory to threaten our ancestors. Now, we know for a fact that the soul could be the moral and emotional nature of man, as distinguished from his mind. It could be the vital principle which moves and animates all life.
For the absorption of the culture of the ancestors and the dogmatic inspiration of the Church, we learn to toe the line and go to mass to listen to the spiritual hypothetical of the priest and for our mental and emotional satisfaction, we join in the reading of the novenas containing the litany of the saints, and some of them have been deleted by Vatican II.
Culturally, "Fiesta Minatay" has become a family reunion wherein there is the checking of the attendance of clan members ... and also to know their political and wealth status. The elders cook "tinolang manok," suman, arroz a-la-Valenciana, but-ong and kalamay-hati. Enjoy the festivals!