As I lit that candle, I said a short prayer asking God to grant the all
the souls rest in peace and be finally be with Him in paradise. It’s a practice
we Filipino Catholics when November strikes its first and second. We often go
to the cemetery and offer prayers to all the dead relatives. We light candles
and give the flowers. And as a Filipino tradition, we leave food to the grave
of our relatives.
Only Catholics believe in purgatory, and that is the reason why we pray
for the dead. We pray for their souls to journey safely to heaven and be with
God forever. And we are not selfish enough to pray only for the people we know.
We pray for all the souls, even those who are forgotten. And that is the reason
why All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are born. Now this is something I’m
really proud of being a Catholic.
This is also a moment when families get together…in front of their
relative’s grave. They offer prayers together, stay for a while, eat together,
laugh together and do pretty much like any family reunions do. In our case, we
were reminiscing what our dead relatives’ were and how they were when they were
still alive. Our younger relatives might not met them.
It’s a very momentous event. In our case, we stay up to 8pm and some
might even stay until 10pm or even later! That’s how we love our relatives. We
know they are dead but, we know they’re souls are still alive. We talk to them
at times and offer them food. That’s
different!
Overall, this is not a time when fake ghouls and costumes roam around but
a time when we pay respect to the people who have gone ahead of us.
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