Souls, not ghosts
Last Wednesday was one of those chaotically busy days. The previous day, I had just returned from a two-day trip to Japan for the launch into space of the microsatellite Diwata-2, and now I was preparing to head off for an international meeting of university officials in Taiwan.
I checked on my son, who is recovering from dengue, prepared breakfast for my daughters (and two dogs), and as I signed papers marked “urgent,” one of my daughters shouted out: “We have to light incense for Lolo and Lola.”
It’s one of those Chinese rituals that my mother—a devout Catholic, mind you, and convent school-bred all through high school— had introduced into our household many years ago, after my paternal grandmother passed away in 1990 in Davao. Note, she was doing this for her mother-in-law, but didn’t do that for her own parents, who passed away long, long ago. Each year, though, we would remember her parents, and other deceased relatives, by visiting their graves in the Chinese cemetery in Manila.
Those Nov. 1 cemetery visits were as important for the living as they were for the dead, as we made our rounds visiting dozens of relatives and friends all in one day.
As we chattered away in front of the graves, I wondered at times if the dead were listening to us or if they were having their own reunions, partaking of the offerings made in front of their graves: food, soft drinks, even liquor and cigarettes—the dead don’t get lung cancer or emphysema, after all.
Also in front of the graves were the many incense sticks offered by relatives and friends. “Paypay” was the term used to describe the ritual of moving the sticks up and down before bowing and putting the incense sticks into the incense burner.
Early in grade school, my Catholic religion teachers would warn the class that such practices were idolatrous. But, as the years went by, there was growing tolerance, in part because of Vatican II and the concept of enculturation, which recognized the importance of local cultures.
Then the exodus began—Chinese-Filipino families transferring the remains of their dead from that Chinese cemetery to various memorial parks and, in the case of my mother’s clan, to a church columbarium.
The occasions for using incense became rare, fading away in my parents’ home after my mother developed Alzheimer’s. My father took up the task irregularly but then became ill, too, and bedridden. The incense use stopped.
Both my parents passed away this year, and it was during the Catholic Masses for them that I remembered traditional Chinese practices for the dead. Fr. Ari Dy, who officiated at their memorial Masses, had told me we could have a brief ceremony during the Mass to pay our respects to the dead, reciting Catholic prayers and then, for those who wished to, bowing as he struck a small metal bowl three times.
More than 400 years ago, an Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, had advocated allowing Chinese rituals of ancestor veneration for Chinese Catholics, but the Vatican would not have it. Now, in more enlightened times, the Catholic Church allows this act of respect, emphasizing that it should be veneration and not worship.
I can appreciate the wisdom of Ricci. Among us Chinese and Filipinos, we emphasize respect for the elderly, so why should that respect cease after they die?
More than respect, too, the rituals can be a prelude to telling stories of the family and the roles of lolos and lolas.
Last Wednesday, I thought I’d teach my children another Chinese ritual. Instead of the paypay, I had the children raise the incense up to their foreheads, then to their hearts. I explained it using a UP Diliman mantra about using both the brain and the heart (“utak at puso”). In relation to the dead, that means remembering, and loving.
Such rituals are important during the mourning period. As the grief fades, so, too, will the rituals. But I want my children to keep remembering their Lolo and Lola, and maybe occasionally using the incense, its scents particularly powerful for evoking memories.
We tend to scare ourselves with stories of the dead returning as ghosts. No wonder the dead are banished away except on Nov. 1. With that date becoming another occasion for a vacation rather than visits to the cemeteries, the ghosts will fade away even more rapidly.
We need to come up with ways to remember our dead, long after they’re gone, in the spirit of Nov. 2, All Souls’ Day. The dead are still with us—souls to be remembered and cherished as they were when they were alive.
