Traditionally, Filipinos visit their dead loved ones every year on All Saints Day, November 1. It’s an official public holiday in the country. Families would usually gather at the cemetery or memorial park to clean and beautify the graves or gravestones of their dead loved ones. The whole family would spend the whole day bringing food and drinks and have fun while there beside the grave of their dead loved ones. Some kind of family reunion happens there during the holidays. Aside from flowers and candles, other people would also leave food for their dead loved ones. I would suppose this particular practice about food for the dead comes from the Chinese tradition, if I’m not mistaken.

Of course, we’ve heard of outrageous practices done as well on this day like bringing huge loud speakers and people singing the whole day loudly with their karaokes, partying and drinking without regard for others. That’s the bad side of this Filipino cultural practice. But I guess cemeteries and memorial parks have stricter rules nowadays knowing this problem.

I think that this is a good Filipino cultural tradition to remember our dead loved ones once a year and clean the graves, repaint the tomb or restore the gravestones. It’s a good tradition for families to have a reunion and remember their dead loved ones. I have just learned that “All Saints Day” is actually a Christian tradition of remembering the dead Christians (known and unknown, famous and not famous saints) who died in the Lord as they served the Lord all their lives.

Project: Gravestone cleaning and restoration

My father-in-law died exactly on November 1 but we decided not to go there and join the crowd on “All Saints Day” at the memorial park. We decided to go there today instead. My mother-in-law’s grave is just beside her husband’s grave. My wife have one thing in mind. She wants to clean the gravestones of her parents and restore it to its original good condition. We visited today and found out that we needed to buy a few things to do just that. So we bought some elastomeric paint, steel brush, sand paper and masking tape. We hope to be back tomorrow and in the coming days to complete this project.

We realized it may take several visits before we can complete this gravestone restoration. That is what my wife would want to accomplish at this time.

Hope for the Dead in Christ

Visiting our dead loved ones remind us as well that there is hope for the dead as well as for us who are still living. All is not lost. We will see them all again! Christ has risen! He has conquered death! When the Lord Jesus comes back, the dead in Christ shall rise first. And then those who are in the Lord who are alive will also rise up to be with the Lord forever. That is our hope. That is our future — for both the living and the dead.

Visiting our dead loved ones once a year remind us of the Lord’s promise. All is not lost. There is hope for the dead. We have a glorious future in Christ!