TO most Filipinos who observe the traditional undas holidays today and tomorrow by visiting the graves and tombs of their family departed, it doesn’t matter that today is All Saints Day,

or the Feast Day or Solemnity of All Saints, and tomorrow is All Souls Day, which is formally called, in the Roman Missal, “The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.”
Who cares?, the more irreverent would probably say aloud.

The more polite will just nod and smile but in their mind they are also saying “Who cares?” Many Catholics cling to the Roman Catholic identification without doing what is due them. They even get angry when asked why they don’t drop out and still go to church when they despise the Church’s doctrines and oppose its rules and laws, support moves to change the Church’s positions on essential matters like contraception, abortion and euthanasia. These changes would turn the Roman Catholic Church into something other than the Church that the Lord Jesus Christ founded, so that the Creed would have to be recast. These Catholics don’t leave the Church whose Pope and his collegial bishops they do not respect and obey because they were baptized Roman Catholic and think they have the right to change the Church’s dogmas and core beliefs the same way a stockholder in San Miguel can vote to stop making beer and concentrate its business on real estate.

Catholics who care about the difference between All Saints and All Souls are also those who go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and receive Holy Communion ONLY when they are properly disposed to do so. They know that if a mortal sin weighs down their souls, they must immediately use the Sacrament of Confession to be restored to the state of grace.

They know that it is a grave sin to receive Holy Communion—to eat the real substance, not just a symbol, of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the appearance of a wafer—when one’s soul is in the state of mortal sin. For eating the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ when one’s soul is darkened by mortal sin is a sacrilegious and blasphemous act.

It is not just Church laws and the warnings of St. Paul and other saints and spiritual writers that should stop a man in the state of mortal sin from sacrilegiously receiving the Consecrated Host which is the true body of Christ. One’s personal integrity should also deter him. Alas, the same mentality that says “Who cares” about the difference between All Saints and All Souls also says “Who cares?” about the difference between being in the state of grace and being in the state of sin.

Communion of saints
Both the feast of All Saints and The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed or All Souls, remind Christians—not only Roman but also Eastern rite Catholics, Orthodox Catholic and many who belong to the different Protestant sects—of the Communion of Saints.

This is our true spiritual and supernatural linkage with those who are in heaven now seeing God Himself (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) face to face.

The Church’s celebration today honors not only the saints enrolled in the canon (that’s why we call them canonized saints)—like Our Blessed Mother Mary and St. Joseph and the latest, our St. Pedro Calungsod—but specially those who are now in heaven, have become saints, without being known to the public, after being purified in Purgatory. Today is a day of rejoicing for these saints whose names we do not know, some of whom could be our own parents and grandparents and children.

We who are still on earth—who make up the Church Militant—are truly linked to them, the people of the Church Triumphant in heaven. We can count on their prayers and help from heaven.

The Church Suffering
And we are also linked, through the Communion of Saints, with our friends and relatives who died recognizing God and hoping in His mercy but are still in need of purification. While yesterday the Church rejoiced over the triumph of those who are now with God in heaven, today we pray for all who are still suffering the painful but happy fires of Purgatory. Through the Communion of Saints we help hasten the purification and entry to heaven of our brothers and sisters in the Faith who are still in Purgatory. We can help them by offering up our acts of self-denial, our private prayers and rosaries and our prayers at Mass.

What if up to now, decades after their death we have been praying for relatives and friends who, unknown to us, have been released from suffering and have been with Our Lord and Our Lady in heaven for many years. Our prayers and mortifications for them who are now triumphant are not wasted. They benefit other souls still waiting to join the company of the saints.