Remembering the Forgotten

A nun gave me a card with this prayer during the Holy Week a few years back. Soon after, I started saying the prayer daily. I would like to think that, in doing so, I am able to help ease, aid, or maybe even hasten the passage of souls into heaven -- especially those for whom prayers are no longer said.

In May last year, my husband revealed that he had had a sighting -- a ghost sighting, that is -- of a woman and a child in the centuries-old apartment where we had been staying in Krakow. They looked, he said, as though they were asking for help.

That got me thinking... Maybe I should make special mention of them whenever I say the prayer for forgotten souls. So I did.

Months later, I just had this strong sense that it was okay to stop praying for them, that somehow they had moved on to a better place and were finally enjoying the peace that had evaded them for so long. I have no way of verifying that, of course. But by faith, I believe it to be true.

Today I share the prayer with you in the hope that you will take time to say it -- for the many lost, restless and forgotten souls who continue to yearn for everlasting repose. The prayer won't take a minute, but I am certain its fruits will reverberate into eternity.

Graveyard Moments, Too

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"Graveyard Moments"

I have friends and relatives who no longer go to the cemetery on All Saints' Day. They have their reasons, and I respect their decision. But I think the tradition we follow on this feast -- visiting graves, offering flowers, lighting candles, saying prayers -- is both beautiful and meaningful.

It's true that the tombs only contain decaying or already decayed bodies -- sometimes not even that. It's true that the souls have long gone to heaven or purgatory -- hopefully, not elsewhere. And it's also true that the living can remember the dead even without going to the cemetery. Still, I find it meaningful to visit the burial grounds of our loved ones at least once a year -- to read and reread their names, to recall the dates of their birth and death, to remember how they lived and died.

It makes sense that we remember our loved ones who have died even without visiting their graves. But what about those family members whom we never got a chance to meet -- those whom we never knew in person but who are part of our personal history?

Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle (now the Archbishop of Manila) once narrated that most of his relatives are now abroad and how sad it was that, when the "young ones" in his family visit the cemetery, they no longer know or remember the dead they are visiting. 

I for one never got to know my paternal grandfather and maternal grandparents. On both sides I have relatives I never had the chance to meet. Visiting their tombs, offering them flowers, lighting candles for them, saying a prayer for their souls ... These are all I can do to thank them for helping to make me who I am today.

In a sense, All Saints' Day is like a big family reunion, a unique occasion for passing on family history. When we "tomb hop," we not only remember those who have died but also reach out to the living. We recall our common roots and reconnect with those like us who were left behind. We keep our shared memories alive. And right there, among the tombs of the dead, we celebrate life.

Graveyard Moments

About a year ago today, I read Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. It's a strange but enchanting story about a boy who was raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his family was murdered. It's a rather sad tale, really. A story about being alone, longing to fit in and searching for something (or someone). It's also about loving and losing, letting go and moving on.

It must have been an aftereffect of reading The Graveyard Book that, for some reason, I found myself wanting to linger a bit longer at the cemetery on All Saints' Day. I wondered how old our town cemetery was and what kind of secrets its tombs held.

Somehow, the ghost characters in the book reminded me that the corpses buried in those tombs were once "real" people who laughed and cried, sang and danced, breathed and lived. Yet no matter how much they were loved or hated, no matter how much their death was mourned over, their memory fades as the years pass. In time, their graves and tomb markers are all that will remain, reminding the living that -- for a short while -- so and so once walked on this earth.

In about a week, on All Saints' Day, I will be going back to that cemetery. The old headstones with now-familiar names are bound to be there still. But for sure, there will be fresh ones on which new names are engraved. I hope I remember to mention those names in a whispered prayer as I pass by. And I hope you do, too -- in memory of our fellow travelers, who just happened to have gone on ahead of us.

Go to Graveyard Moments, Too

It's Not about Me

Sometimes the very things that I resent or detest are the ones that can or actually do make me grow. Those acts that are difficult to do because they require me to move out of my comfort zone -- to go where I would rather not go, to do what I would give anything to not do, to give what I would rather keep for myself. Those deeds that require me to extend myself outward in service and open my heart wider to accommodate others.

The fact is, the world does not revolve around me. Never did. Never will. And the moment I let myself be fooled into thinking it does, the path of service becomes overgrown with self-absorption and impossible to walk on.

No to Deadlines!

Today I learned we shouldn't assign deadlines to people. Persons -- hearts, souls -- are not reports or projects that we can demand "completion" of at a certain time or date. Each one needs time to grow, to change, to blossom and bear fruit, but the amount of time it takes for these things to happen differs for every person.

Just because certain people do not meet our "deadlines" and expectations doesn't mean they're bad or hopeless. It just means God is taking a bit more time working in their lives.

It's important to be open to the new, surprising, funny, weird, scary, tried-and-tested, normal, unusual, and exciting ways that God may call us, use us or reach out to us. To be open to how He does the same to other people. To be open to how long or short it may take to accomplish His will in each of our lives. To be open to how He may use people to catch our attention or send us a message -- however unlikely or undeserving the messengers may seem to us. Most of all, to be open to God being God.

Lost in Translation

I believe that most of us mean well most of the time. But somehow, our good intentions often get lost in translation. That is why it is so important to believe in the good -- the best -- in each person because it is from there that everything will flow.

When we believe a person means harm, everything he or she does becomes suspect. But when we believe a person means well, we can make allowances for miscommunication or lack of communication.