Day for All Saints

Halloween is meant to be a holy occasion. The mere presence of the word hallow (as in “hallowed be Thy Name” in the Lord's Prayer) signifies holiness. But despite of this, people of this generation twisted Halloween and made it a gory and unholy event.

The Devil, he who hates anything holy, is behind all of this twisting of the traditionally holy feasts. He, through commercialism, destroyed Christmas and Valentines Day. The former became a full blown event of relentless buying and feasting and the removal of the Child born in Bethlehem as the reason for the season. The latter became an opportunity to trivialize sex by turning it into source of pleasure.

The Devil is crafty. He didn't attacked All Saint's Day directly. He used the greed of men and the lack of faith of many to create a twisted version of Halloween or All Hallows Eve. The result are Halloween parties where monsters and evil spirits are celebrated. God and all of His angels and His saints were ignored in their feast. It is as if a gatecrasher entered the party and then drove away the host.

The tide of the time is upon us and it will take a long time before it subsides. While we are in this age of twisted values, I guess it is well that we pray to the saints and ask for their intercession. Call upon them everyday and they will bring your worries to God.

As for me, here are the saints who I regularly ask for intercession:

Oh holy servants of God please pray for me; for my Beloved, for our families; for all of our love ones; for our friends; for our neighbors; for our country; for our Pope; for all the bishops, priests, and deacons; for all the religious and consecrated; for all Christians being persecuted; for the whole Church; and for those who oppose the Lord and those who do not know Him.

End of the Month Roundup - October 2013

EMPTY – this is the best description that I can give to the month of October with regards to blogging. It seems like everything is winding up and I neglected a few things, including my blogs.

My Beloved and I are slowly speeding up our preparations for our wedding day. Actually, we are getting more and more anxious as the days pass by because there are still a lot of things to accomplish. We have this feeling that disaster is coming our way. Oh please Lord, we hope not.

Thankfully, the fun in preparing for our wedding is still there. One thing that we enjoyed this month is our pre-nuptial shoot in my alma mater, UP Diliman. Our photographer is good and we got some excellent photos that will surely grace our wedding album.

October is the month where I enjoyed another travel to the island of Mindanao. Me and an office mate visited Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City and the neighboring towns for some office works. The good thing is that this trip is not strictly work-related because I got the chance to roam CDO and see some beautiful spots in the area like this one:

Clear sea and blue sky at Balingoan, Misamis Oriental.

The sad thing is that many of my kababayans, especially those living in Bohol and Cebu, suffered because of the big earthquake that occurred in Bohol Island. Many structures, including the old churches (the cultural and spiritual jewels of Bohol) were destroyed. I believe that Boholanos are slowly returning their lives to normal. They still need our prayers and help, however, so I do hope that we continue in providing their spiritual and temporal needs.

PhilPost celebrated the 1st National Letter Writing Day on the 2nd week of October. I joined the celebration by showing off some stamps in my “collection”.

My adventures with Foong are not yet done. I already talked about Yaowarat Road in Bangkok Chinatown but I failed to follow up on the restaurants where we had eaten our merienda and dinner. I do hope to post about it this November.

During lulls in our wedding preparations and office works, I tried to return to my bookish self that I lost when I graduated from college. After finishing G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and some of his Father Brown stories, I started reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

A friend gave a book as her gift for my Confirmation. The book is The Essentials of Catholic Spirituality by Fr. Joseph F. Classen. I will read this after I'm done with Sherlock Holmes.

I once again joined Filipinos for Life's blogging event. The topic for the month of October is Girl Power: Upholding the Dignity of Women, Shunning Feminism. My post is about my observations of men not offering their bus seats to women. I tried to connect such behavior to the destructive type of feminism that is prevalent in our society.

In Ahab Reviews and Tips, I recounted the time when I bought my fiancee's engagement ring.

We are now in the Halloween Season and I see many people wearing scary costumes for their Halloween parties. I even heard about kids doing “trick or treat” in upscale subdivisions. I still wonder how Halloween, which actually means Hallow’s Eve or the eve to All Holy (Saint) Day, became an occasion to celebrate monsters and evil spirits. Oh well, at least some people tries to combat this gory event with a more holy mode of Halloween celebration.

Happy All Saints’ Day and Halloween to everyone. May all of us strive to be holy like our Father who is HOLY.