All Saints Day
November 1 - In the Philippines, especially people living in the cities, usually celebrated All Saints Day in the cemeteries, visiting love ones’ graves.We bring flowers and clean the mausoleums and niches. There would be plenty of food and family reunions among the tombs.
But I think, All Saints Day, or Todos Los Santos, should be celebrated in honor of all the saints. I don’t remember having to attend a ceremony or festivity of this kind. Maybe at school where we had plays, role-playing, and story telling of the lives of the saints. I don’t even know how many saints there were, and there are now. Who decides that a person is a saint, or not? Maybe I have to Google it to find answers.
Saints were special people. We could learn a lot from their stories and how they lived their lives. They led lives of martyrdom and most of them fought for their faith til their deaths. They are not just mere believers, but extraordinary people who lived by their exceptional virtues and reconciled their lives to God.
Here in North America, “All Saint’s Day” isn’t really celebrated at all. In fact when I read the title, I thought you were talking about a movie that’s filming up here in Toronto for some reason (funny how we perceive things to fit into our own little reality).
I’m pretty sure there are like THOUSANDS of saints — they used to give out sainthood for anything. I mean, some of the stories of saints are genuinely touching, but then you get these women that were granted sainthood because they refused to get married and joined a convent. Everyone knows it should be the moms who get that title!
haha that is so right! like St. Maria Goretti.. I haven’t heard of a Mommy who become a saint.. But, is Jesus Christ’s Blessed Virgin mother Mary a saint?
November 1st - All Saints Day., and tomorrow, Nov 2nd’s the All Souls Day
[…] like three holidays in a row. After Halloween and All Saints Day, Filipinos celebrated All Souls Day. It’s the time of the year, when we go to the cemeteries […]