Numbering Our Days

Psalm 90:`12Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. NIV
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. NRSV
I don’t know about you but I was confused about the thing we are observing today.
When I was growing up all I know is kalag-kalag or pista minatay, and that’s supposed to be on the 2nd of November, but that it’s bisperas or the mass is performed on the eve of kalagkalag.
Later, I don’t know who, perhaps it was our catechism teacher or our own teacher in public school, said, “No you got it wrong, we are not celebrating the dead, but honoring all the saints.” Todos los santos. A feast to honor all the saints, and that is today the 1st day of November.
So now comes the Americans and their magazines and newspapers and TV shows talking about Halloween and that it falls on the 31st of October. So now which is which—30 or 1 or 2?
For most Filipinos this practical question is simple, when do we visit the graves of our loved ones? I think most are agreed that it is on the evening of November the 1st, whatever you call it.
So let’s go to why we are celebrating on these three days, for it is clear somehow they are all associated with death, dead martyrs, dead saints, dead Christians. The simplistic answer is to lump all of these as pagan, like Christmas is pagan, and Easter is pagan. This is the kind of mistake made by people who think they know more about the Bible than their neighbors. It is one thing to know the Bible, it is another thing to read the Bible with some understanding about the longings of the human heart.
This day is about patching up the missing gaps, the empty spaces of our lives, spaces that could have been filled with stories. But when loved ones die, they take away their stories with them. So those stories will have to be filled up by those who are left behind. We, all, human beings need to find those connections. Without them we are like lonely flotsam and jetsam tossed to and fro by the ocean waves.
This is the reason behind all of this confusion, this failure to understand the longing for connectivity in our lives.
1. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church tried to put Christian meaning into pagan practices. So Todos los Santos was originally Fiesta para los Martires, a festival to honor the martyrs of the Church. But that would leave out Saint Mary, for she did not suffer a martyr’s death, and all others who lived saintly lives but did not die violently. So a festival was made in commemoration of them, and it took the place of the pagan festival for the dead. So it became a Fiesta para Todos los Santos, “A Feast for all the Saints.”
2. But instead of honoring the saints what did the Christians do? They went to the graves of their loved ones anyway. Instead of honoring Sta Felicita and Sta Barbara and San Bernardino, and San Martrin de Porres, they went to the graves of nanay and tatay and undo, and inday, lolo and lola.
So the church again thought all of this was sheer paganism. To solve it they said, “Hala, if you cannot be prevented from your celebrating dead loved ones, go ahead, but pray for their souls in purgatory. “ So that’s why we have All Soul’s Day. The idea is to make this a day for intercession for the dead who were not good enough for sainthood, whose souls languished in purgatory.
It was a good move for it made money. Not any one can just pray for the release of a soul from purgatory. You need to have a priest. And you know that priestly intercession is not free. Well for those with money it was fine. But it seems to me as far as the general public was concerned, they would rather give their money to the rice trader, cook some puto and suman, and sikwate and eat it at the grave, and that was enough.
3. And what about Halloween? That came from two words, hallow is the same is holy, or saintly, which is for all saints day. But the mass for all the saints is said the evening before, and evening is often shortened into even and even into een. So we got Halloween. And it became just a thoroughly pagan celebration involving witches and ghouls and masks, etc.
It has been said, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We only succeed into creating a monstrosity. People who are so afraid of paganism, who don’t celebrate Christmas and Easter, and even Sunday, don’t understand that not everything pagan is evil. We have to distinguish between what is human and what is demonic.
To be homesick is human. To long for departed loved ones is human. To visit their graves is human. My grandmother, mother, brother and aunt—they were all buried in the ground. Eventually the cemetery their remains decayed and other bodies were put in their place. But my father was placed in a niche. A year ago I visited it, alone, a week after All Saints Day. Something in me wanted to speak to him and I did. Then I reached out my hand in a parting farewell, to trace his name in the headstone. It reminds of a poem quoted during the funeral of Princess Diana.
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
time is eternity.
Henry Van Dyke

I was scanning old family photos to be posted into an online family photo album. As I looked at the photos of my mother and father, my brother and sister, my aunt a powerful wave of longing came over me. If only I could let them see this city, go with me to Boracay.
There are huge gaps in my father and mother’s life that I know nothing about. I would like to know how this illiterate boy learned to speak very good Spanish. Who taught him to cook, for he was exceptionally good in making fine Spanish sausage, ham, smoked fish, etc. Who taught him fine cabinet making, making intricate inlay work on jewelry boxes, etc.
Then in Boracay a former student showed up. He told me he is now working with a microlending corporation and financing small businesses. Then he gave me the name of his boss, “Not the Chinese but the original owners of this family name. “ I know that family I said. For my father worked with them. Making boats, fishing, speed boats, yachts. Wood boats, steel boats, and fiberglass. Then I told him about the shop where my father worked. The hum of machinery, the squeal of wood being sliced, the flash of welding steel to steel, the smell of steel being ground smooth, the vat where they were cooking ham, the boatyard, the ice plant, the piggery.
And most wonderful of all, the frame of a small canvas skinned airplane hanging from the trusses of the shop. An engine eventually was fitted to the frame and my father was its first passenger in the test flight. I knew told him many more little bits of information that only someone who family well would know.
The following day I received a text message from my student. What is your father’s nickname? After giving the nickname of my father, a text answer came back, “My boss wishes to meet you.” I couldn’t believe it. I look forward to my meeting with this man for it will fill up the gaps in the story of my own life.
We belong to a web of humanity. We have to find the connections, otherwise we are like spiders lost from their web. We are like jetsam and flotsam bobbing In the vast ocean alone. For the same reason we create Facebooks, celebrate birthdays, hold family and class reunions, so we celebrate today. For the same reason the Bible gave us genealogies, so we celebrate today. Connections. For God did not make us as individuals but as a family that started with Adam and Eve.
There is one more reason why we celebrate this day.
Today people all over the Philippines are flocking to the cemeteries. The memorial parks and the cemeteries will be bright and there will be music and dancing.
Yesterday American children carved pumpkins and put candles inside them. The Frankenstein masks are sold even here in the Philippines. But only for today. Today we can make fun of death. Because tomorrow, next week when the tombs are desolate, we don’t want to visit again.
We are cowards and we know it. Death haunts us. Terrorizes us. Walking in a dark place. Riding an airplane. A narrow mountain road. A trip to an island when the sea is rough. News of another typhoon. Waiting for the result of our annual physical examination. A headache, a rise in blood pressure. We panic.
Kalagkalag is really a coping mechanism. We make fun of that which we fear. We are cowards and Satan knows it and takes advantage of our fear and binds us with that fear. I can almost see death grinning and saying, “Salig mo ron kay daghan mo. Suwayi balik sunod semana, ikaw ra, wa kay kauban.”
If you want to take way the dread, the horror of death, there is a better way. Find someone who died and came back to tell the story.
The Jesus of glory now says, “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Rev 1:18).
The Christian hope is not based upon the promise of immortality. It is based upon a fact of history. Jesus too faced the terror of death, pleading to his Father, “Let this cup pass from me.” He suffered, he died and was buried. He followed humankind’s destiny which is the grave. But on the 3rd day he defied that destiny. Jesus rose again triumphantly.
It is in the triumph of Christ that Paul could exult, “O death, where is thy sting? Oh death where is thy victory?”