Remembering the dead on All Souls Day

My prayer list 

by Susan Palmes-Dennis

I HAVE a list of the dead so to speak. More specifically, I have the list of young and old people who are relatives, friends and acquaintances who went ahead to the Great Beyond.

I keep them in my prayers for the souls. I do this every day in keeping with my Catholic beliefs.  As we celebrate the All Saint’s Day and All Souls Day next week I have something to share to the believers. 

Are souls of the faithful departed manifest themselves to the living so they can be remembered? Maybe, maybe not. My list of the dead is getting longer that the original ¼ paper where the names are written is running out of space.

Whenever there is an addition it is either written atop, below or at the sides. Often without the use of my eyeglasses I could not read what name I wrote. 

I bring out the list as I pray daily either after the rosary or before I end the day.  The list is in my hand writing though and I could have printed it or have it reproduced by the printer. 

The list started with the name of my mother Lily Ejem Espellarga Naelga, brother Ramon Monching  and the father of my children Nestor; followed by grandparents on both sides, the uncles and aunts cousins.  

The advent of Facebook changed everything. When the obituary is now on Facebook I am not surprised to see read comments that would indicate that a friend’s journey to this life has ended.

I noticed also that day by day a name is added as I grow older too. Of course realized that friends,classmates and acquitances are added. That’s when I started praying for them in accordance with the tenets of my Catholic faith. 

That praying for them is helping their spirits enter the kingdom of the Lord the soonest. 
There are times that I don’t pray kneeling because I am either walking or jogging when I do that. As I pray the rosary, I also pray for the dead at the same time. 

Since the list is not with me I have to recall names. It is during this process that I already say the Our Father and as I was about to end a face of a friend that could have been not mentioned would appear in my mind. 

Then I would go back again at the beginning but another picture or image of a dead would pop up, then I would start again. The list isn’t complete that when I read the others are not there. Just out of the corners of my eyes are images of for instance of Imee Austria, a friend of mine.

But the problem is that when I am already at the middle of a solemn prayer images of the face of another friend Diana Javellana or the late Vice Mayor Vince Dagus Sanchez would pop up.

Then I would start again with the prayer and the same process would happen. I told my friend Beth Perez Kremer of this experience and though she is younger than me, she had this idea that the face of the dead you saw wants to be included in the prayer.

I think Beth is right about it. But still I ask do these images in my mind serve as a reminder that the dead want to be remembered?   

Fr.Joe Scott ,CSP, a campus minister and a Paulist priest wrote that the earliest Scriptural reference to prayers for the dead comes in the second book of Maccabees. 

He said the books of Maccabees were among the latest written books found in the Old Testament. It recounted the struggle of the Jewish people for freedom against the Seleucid Empire about 100-200 years before the birth of Christ. 

Fr. Scott said the second book of Maccabees tells how Judas Maccabee, the Jewish leader, led his troops into battle in 163 B.C. When the battle ended he directed that the bodies of those Jews who had died be buried. 

As the soldiers prepared their slain comrades for burial, they discovered that each wore an amulet taken as booty from a pagan Temple. 

This violated the law of Deuteronomy and so Judas and his soldiers prayed that God would forgive the sin these men had committed (II Maccabees 12:39-45).

I have to clean the list and write again the complete list of the dead for me to pray especially on All Souls Day. I think they the souls talk to us in whatever means of communication.

(Susan Palmes-Dennis is a veteran journalist from Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental, Northern Mindanao in the Philippines  is now employed  teacher assistant in one of the school systems in the Carolinas.

Read her blogs on susanpalmesstraightfrom the Carolinas.com and at http://www.blogher.com/myprofile/spdennis54. These and other articles also appear at http://www.sunstar.com.ph/author/2582/susan-palmes-dennis.
You can also connect with her through her Pinterest account at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/41025046580074350/) and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Straight-from-the-Carolinas-/494156950678063)