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!

A few months back, my 87-year-old mom asked me on the phone when I would come to visit her. I felt the tone of her voice that she longed to be visited and so I said I will plan to do just that. I guess it’s hard to refuse a mother who longs to see her children after a long while. After living in the US for some 30 years or so, she has decided to go back home and live in the province a couple of years ago.

I was finally able to visit my mom and I spent several days with her. She was happy to see me in person and the first thing she asked was how long I would be staying there with her. When I said that it’s only for a few days she replied that it should have been two weeks hahaha! Oh well…

In one of our conversations, she complained that she was not happy with her beautician because of the wrong color for her hair. She always used black. Interesting conversation haha! My mom is a great lady. She raised 9 children — yes, I’m the eldest of 9 kids! — and she’s still healthy at her age.

One night, while we were chatting, I took some photos of her without her realizing it. I even took videos but she was unaware of it haha! Here are some of my snapshots.

If you have parents — I’m sure you do! — love them. In their old age, take care of them well.

Yesterday, October 22, 2019 was our 40th wedding anniversary. Would you believe it? My wife and I have been happily married for forty years now! Isn’t that amazing? I thank the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for allowing us to enjoy life and love for all these past 40 years.

Once in a while for all those 40 years of married life, my wife and I would go out for dinner along with our kids to celebrate our wedding anniversaries and that’s it. But this time last night, it was somewhat different. We invited some friends and family to join us in the celebration. Just a simple dinner with friends and family at Barcino, a Spanish restaurant.

Joy, happiness, love, these are things we want to have. Just like in Walt Disney’s fairy tales where the story ends with “…and they lived happily ever after!” we also want that dream to come true in our lives. But the reality is, there are many broken, unhappy marriages all around us. Such is our fallen human condition.

Where does love come from anyway? Well, it comes from God who is love. Our Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a community of love. God’s purpose in creating man is so that we can participate and share in that life and love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have been enjoying for all eternity.

In marriage as well as in the family, we experience and feel that love. Why do fathers enjoy their little boys? Why do mothers enjoy their babies? Why do they love their kids? Did it just happen out of nowhere? Of course not. It comes from God who is love. He gives us his love through Jesus Christ in the Spirit so that we may enjoy life and love together in a loving community of persons at this present time and for all eternity as well. Isn’t that great?

I thank my God for this wonderful blessing. Thank you Lord for allowing us to enjoy life and love now on this side of life and onwards to eternity in the afterlife.

After a long while, I’m reading back again a book that was given to me by a Trinitarian theologian some 6 years ago. It’s fascinating to me that I’m learning a lot from great theologians both living and dead. It is exciting for me that I’m getting to know more and more about our Triune God and about our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s inspiring to know that God loves me, all of humanity and all of creation. It’s thrilling to know that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have already included me into their life and love and I can gladly join them for all eternity. It’s amazing for me to know that I can enjoy a loving relationship with the Triune God right now in this present life and onwards into the future, for all eternity! Isn’t that great? Who am I that the Triune God should be mindful of me? All I can say is, thank you Lord! Praise the Lord God Almighty!

I’m reading back again the book, Incarnation, a compilation of Thomas F. Torrance’s class lectures to his students from 1952 to 1978. I was not even born yet in 1952! Anyway, Robert T. Walker, nephew of Thomas F. Torrance compiled and edited these lectures and formed it into a book. And I’m learning a lot from it.

Here’s an excerpt that got my attention. In the Editor’s Introduction (pp.xxix-xxx), Robert T. Walker said that:

“Torrance’s theology is deeply biblical and like the bible his thought is unitary, combining head and heart. In the bible there is no separation between them and no such thing as knowledge simply with the mind or simply with the heart. The human person is a unity and the whole of the human person is involved in faith or knowledge, at once with the head and with the heart.

“For Torrance, theology is personal knowledge of God in which mind and heart together are equally involved. God is personal, or ‘personalizing person’ as Torrance used to say, the one who makes us personal and can only be known personally. One cannot therefore study theology without personal knowledge of God in faith. It can never be simply an academic exercise. Theology involves faith and worship and can only properly be done on one’s knees.”

It’s good to know that I’m not just doing some academic exercise but truly having a relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit as I get to know them more and more through our Lord Jesus Christ, the personalizing person.