IT is a Christian, though mainly Catholic tradition, to devote the whole month of November to remembering and praying for the dead. The formal words for it are “to pray for the Holy Souls

in Purgatory.” The advance recognition of the persons in purgatory as “holy” (meaning possessed of the attribute of holiness that only God Himself truly has) is a mark of the joy attached to the suffering that the souls go through while they are being purged of any stain of sinfulness.  These souls, upon the completion of their purification, gets divinized. They go to heaven to live forever in the company of God and His saints.

This tradition developed through the centuries because November 2 is All Souls Day in the liturgical calendar.

So in the last week of October, churches distribute to every parishioner an envelope with a blank sheet inside it.  On this the parishioner writes down the names of the dead she or he wishes to be included on the list of dead people for which every Mass in November is offered.

Praying for the dead, especially for those we have known, is demanded by Christian charity of every believer. Our own prayers and sacrifices for their benefit help relieve their suffering.

We should say prayers for the Holy Souls in Purgatory frequently throughout this November and ask God in the name of the Lord Jesus and through the intercession of His and our Mother Mary to grant them eternal rest.

A short prayer for the dead is the following, which is said during funeral Masses and Masses for the benefit of particular persons: “Eternal rest grant unto ______(here mention name or names of the departed), O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them/or him or her. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”

Pray for our fallen heroes
Apart from our personally loved departed, we should also pray for those who have died in the service of our Republic.

The late Sec. Jesse Robredo immediately comes to mind.

We should also think of and pray for soldiers who have died in encounters with Communist and Muslim rebels, like the eleven murdered at Al-Barka in Basilan in July 2007, the 19 murdered in October last year and the hundreds who have died in other encounters with the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and with combined ASG and MILF combatants over the years. And the soldier who died last week in Iloilo when his unit had an encounter with a New People’s Army detachment.

We should pray for them. They died as heroes.

And we should remember what happened in these events so we have an educated understanding of the rebellion and lawlessness in Mindanao and other parts of our country.

Two al-Barka massacres
In 2007 the Catholic missionary Italian priest, Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, PIME, was kidnapped by a Moro Islamic Liberation Front band.  It is not clear if this supposed to be rogue group of MILF men were working with the al-Qaeda linked Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). A contingent of Marines went on a search-and-rescue mission in Basilan in July 2007. They were unsuccessful. On the way back to their base when they were ambushed. Fourteen Marines were killed at al-Barka, Basilan. They were passing through MILF-controlled territory, where, because there has been a ceasefire to allow the government-MILF peace process to proceed, a ceasefire was supposed to be in force. Until today it is not known if the killers were a combination of  ASG and supposed-to-be-rogue MILF soldiers.

Some of the 14 Marines had been tortured. Their bodies were mutililated.  Eleven were beheaded.

The President ordered the AFP and PNP to capture the murderers. But the mission was a failure.  MILF-controlled al-Barka was a ghost town when the government military arrived. The killers of our Marines had escaped.

Four and a half years later, on October 18, 2011, al-Barka hit the front pages once more. Nineteen Special Forces men were massacred by most likely a combination of Abu Sayyaf and MILF combatants.  Was this another rogue MILF band?

Instead of ordering an offensive to capture the murderers, our leaders decided to blame the officers for putting their men in harm’s way. Four Philippine Army officers are now being tried by a court martial.  But the ASG-MILF leaders and men who massacred our soldiers in 2007 and 2011 have not been caught.