Therefore, there will be times when I should want to exhort my fellow Catholics about things that are particular to our Catholic Faith. And during those times, my fellow Filipino compatriots, in the great PREX (CSPGS, Q. C.) tradition, I shall say -
Catholic Ears, Please!
Today is All Saints' Day.
Yesterday evening was Halloween or All Hallows' Eve - the evening before All Saints' Day.
Now, there is a secular side to Halloween that is very hard to miss so I should not have to speak about it. Not taken to excess, that is all well and good. What I should like to speak to you about today is the Christian side to the story.
In the movie, The Sixth Sense, the young protagonist is quoted to have famously said, "I see dead people". But in reality, what he sees are dead bodies.
A deeper reflection on the nature of the human soul reveals by the light of faith that the soul is something quite different and distinct from what the movie industry would often portray it to be.
The potential of the human soul to become as beautiful as it is freely intended by the God of all heaven and earth is real. And this reality is best exemplified to and for us today by the lives of all our beloved Saints in heaven.
This is what I present to you today, my dear brothers and sisters, as the deeper intention that should be embraced amidst all the fanfare of All Hallows' Eve.
This we must not forget, my fellow Catholics, lest we empty out all that is vital and important in what we shall all find ourselves doing today as we set out to be with the hopes and the memories of our beloved departed ones today, All Saints' Day.
If you can truly visualize the human soul with all Christian charity, you will proceed to naturally learn to love and appreciate the human being. This soul - taken properly as itself by the light of faith - takes its prominence in Halloween over the body so that amidst all the fear and disorder of death there is still beauty: Beauty which is exemplified in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.
It shall most certainly help for us to expedite the final hopes of those who have gone before us if we have a better understanding of these things starting today.
May this year's celebration of All Saints' and All Souls' be blessed and meaningful to us all! Saint Lorenzo Ruiz and Blessed Pedro Calungsod, pray for us. And may the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. AMEN.
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Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.