How Filipinos Celebrate All Saints’ Day
All Saints’ Day is a Christian festival in honor of all known and unknown Christian saints. Celebrated every November 1st, the festival celebrates the life, faith and death of martyrs and saints, especially those who have no designated feast day in the Roman Catholic calendar. It is an important liturgical celebration, next to Christmas and Holy Week. Devotees pray for the intercession of saints and ask guidance in their everyday struggle.
In the Philippines, the holiday is celebrated with much gusto. More than a holy obligation, All Saints’ Day, Todos Los Santos or Undas in the Philippines is a day to remember the dearly departed through prayers, vigils, flowers, food and merriment. Like the Day of the Dead Festival in Mexico, Todos Los Santos is hardly a solemn event. Families come together to flock the cemeteries and memorial parks where they celebrate life, share stories and memories, and pray for the souls for the loved ones who had passed.
A few days before the actual celebration of All Saints’ Day, someone from the family comes to clean up and prepare the grave of their dearly departed. They weed out stray plants, clean the area and repaint the tombstone. Filipinos decorate the graves of their dearly departed with flowers and candles on All Saints’ Day. Graves of children are sometimes decorated with toys and other memorabilia. Pista minatay or atang (Food offering) The night before the visit to the cemetery, the family prepares the favorite foods of their dearly departed. They offer a portion of the food or atang at the house altar and at the tombstone, while the rest of the food is shared with the rest of the family to recreate the time when the dearly departed were living and sharing meal together. This important practice is similar with the Hungry Ghost Festival of China and other Asian countries.
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, enjoyed and celebrated All Saints Day. In a journal entry from November 1, 1767, Wesley calls it “a festival I truly love.” On the same day in 1788, he writes, “I always find this a comfortable day.” The following year he calls it “a day that I peculiarly love.”
This may sound odd. United Methodists don’t believe in saints. Right? Well, yes… and no.
Wesley cautioned against holding saints in too high regard. The Articles of Religion that he sent to the Methodists in America in 1784, include a statement against “invocation of saints” (Article XIV—Of Purgatory, Book of Discipline ¶104). Wesley did not see biblical evidence for the practice and discouraged Methodists from participating. However, he also advised against disregarding the saints altogether.
In an All Saints Day journal entry dated Monday, November 1, 1756, Wesley writes, “How superstitious are they who scruple giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints!” If your 18th century English is as rusty as mine, it might help to know that the word scruple means, “to be unwilling to do something because you think it is improper, morally wrong, etc.” (Merriam-Webster.com).
All Saints Day is an opportunity to give thanks for all those who have gone before us in the faith. It is a time to celebrate our history, what United Methodists call the tradition of the church.
From the early days of Christianity, there is a sense that the Church consists of not only all living believers, but also all who have gone before us. For example, in Hebrews 12 the author encourages Christians to remember that a “great cloud of witnesses” surrounds us encouraging us, cheering us on.
Charles Wesley, John’s brother, picks up on this theme in his hymn that appears in our United Methodist Hymnal as “Come, Let Us Join our Friends Above,” #709. In the first verse, he offers a wonderful image of the Church through the ages: Let saints on earth unite to sing, with those to glory gone,
for all the servants of our King in earth and heaven, are one.
On All Saints Day we remember all those—famous or obscure—who are part of the “communion of saints” we confess whenever we recite The Apostles’ Creed. We tell the stories of the saints “to glory gone.” Alongside the likes of Paul from the New Testament, Augustine, Martin Luther, and John and Charles Wesley, we tell stories of the grandmother who took us to church every Sunday. We remember the pastor who prayed with us in the hospital, and the neighbor who changed the oil in the family car. We give thanks for the youth leader who told us Jesus loved us, the kindergarten Sunday school teacher who showered us with that love, and the woman in the church who bought us groceries when we were out of work. Retelling these stories grounds us in our history. These memories teach us how God has provided for us through the generosity and sacrifice of those who have come before us. The stories of the saints encourage us to be all God has created us to be.
Pastor Evangeline