Rizal on All Saints’ Day and dances with mortality
Today is All Saints’ Day, a feast in the Christian calendar to celebrate the triumph of saints and martyrs.
Its tradition dates back to fourth century AD. It was then commemorated by Christian churches on different dates until Pope Gregory III instituted Nov. 1 as the official celebration day.
Nowadays, however, Filipinos flock to cemeteries to combine the commemoration with memories of departed relatives. In the Christian calendar, the faithful departed are remembered the following day, All Souls’ Day.
Candles, flowers, prayers mingle to remind us of the transience of life.
Yaitsu (1807) was poetic: “I see flowers from the cottage where I lie.” Seneca was philosophical: “The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.” Euripedes was foreboding: “No one can confidentially say that he will still be living tomorrow.”
All Saints’ Day is as popular today as it was during the time of Rizal. The hero limned the day through the eyes of Crisostomo Ibarra.
Newly returned from his seven-year studies abroad, Ibarra went to the cemetery of San Diego to pay respects to his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, dead not more than a year before.
But the gravedigger confessed that, upon orders of the parish priest, he had dug the grave to bury the remains among the Chinese dead. Because he had to carry the orders while sick and during a pouring rain, he threw the body into a river rather than go the longer distance to the Chinese graveyard.
From prayers to forebodings Ibarra left seething with anger only to see the priest coming. Ibarra pinned down the priest, forcing the Franciscan to go down on his knees. Angrily, Ibarra asked why. The priest, Padre Salvi, said it was Padre Damaso, the previous parish priest, who gave the orders.
All Saints’ Day in San Diego turned the prayers and memories of Ibarra into forebodings. Padre Salvi would now be an enemy. And Padre Damaso, who knew both Ibarra and his father, had already shown he was not a friend.
The priest had earlier humiliated Ibarra at a dinner prepared by Kapitan Tiago for the young man. All Saints’ Day became a harbinger of bad omens.
Edge of mortality
For Rizal, such omens were constant motifs like dances at the edge of mortality. Dreams often visited him to intimate a future about to unfold. What intrigued were the insights that had something to do with libertarian causes.
Rizal dreamed of death many times, including his own.
In Madrid, on Dec. 30, 1882, he dreamed that, imitating an actor dying on a stage, he was losing his breath and the strength of his limbs. The dream was so vivid he sensed his vision fading as he was engulfed in darkness.
Fourteen years later, the dark repose of death claimed him in Bagumbayan’s morning light.
Rizal returned to Manila in 1887. During the trip home, he dreamed that his father, Francisco Mercado, pale and thin, came to greet him. Before Rizal could embrace him, the old man pointed to something on the ground.
Timely omen
Looking down, Rizal saw the head of a black stag and a huge serpent advancing toward him. He woke up profuse with sweat.
The head of the black stag was a warning of death and the snake was a message of vengeful power that threatened his life and his family. It was a timely omen.
The publication of “Noli Me Tangere” incensed the friars and the social satire’s object of derision plotted the ruin of Rizal and his family.
Dreams of suffering
During Rizal’s first Christmas in Europe, Paciano wrote to him, recalling that once Rizal told him about a dream where he foresaw a great event for the family. Rizal was uncertain whether the event would be happy or sad.
Paciano said he dreamed a similar dream twice. The dreams spelled out suffering for the family.
There would indeed be great hardships for the family. They would be ejected from their Kalamba farm and their home; Rizal, Paciano and their brothers-in-law would be persecuted and exiled; Rizal would suffer deprivation in Europe for lack of funds; their mother would be threatened with imprisonment; Paciano would be arrested and tortured; Rizal himself would be charged with rebellion and shot to death.
Losing Leonor
During his sojourn in Europe (1888-1892), another dream visited Rizal—he was returning to the Philippines but his beloved Leonor Rivera, “my only illusion,” had forsaken him.
This dream had its real-life sequel in 1890. He lost his gold pocket watch which held the picture of Leonor. Rizal mused: “Perhaps this loss of her picture is a forerunner of something more terrible to come.”
In December that year, the dreaded event came. After being faithful for 11 years, Leonor wrote Rizal to tell him she was getting married to the Englishman Henry Kipping and to beg his forgiveness.
Tears in hero’s eyes
Rizal was disconsolate. He thought he would go mad. His friend Galicano Apacible saw for the first time tears in the hero’s eyes.
In June 1892, Rizal traveled to Bulacan, Pampanga and Tarlac.
In Tarlac, he stayed with Luis Navarro, a fellow Mason. At night, he dreamed he was being poisoned. Later, he would be advised to be careful about what and where he ate as his enemies would stoop at nothing to silence him forever.
Rizal did not succumb to despair. His spirit was unbroken.
Preparing to die
He wrote Marcelo del Pilar and spoke of getting ready for any eventuality.
“In my childhood, I had a strange belief that I would not reach 30 years of age,” he said.
“I have dreamed about my dead friends and relatives. I even dreamed I descended … to the bottom of the earth and met a multitude of people seated, dressed in white, with white faces, silent and surrounded by white lights.
“There I saw my two brothers, one of them already dead … Although I don’t believe in these things and although my body is very strong … nevertheless I am preparing to die.
“I am putting in order all that I must leave behind. I am getting ready for any eventuality: Laong Laan is my name…”
Preparing for destiny
When Rizal returned to the Philippines in 1892, he had already made preparations to meet his destiny.
He wrote two letters with instructions they be opened after his death. He spoke of his wish to show by example how to die for duty and principles.
For Rizal’s deepest wish was to redeem his country from bondage.
When the final hour came early dawn of Dec. 30, 1896, he had long been ready. He had met the executioners’ bullets many times in his dreams.
Rizal had a sense of prophetic destiny for his people and country.
‘Law of destiny’
In his essay, “The Philippines A Century Hence,” Rizal forewarned that if reforms were not instituted in the islands, “the Philippines one day will declare herself independent.”
“Neither Spanish patriotism nor the appeal of all the little tyrants in the colonies, nor the love of Spain of all Filipinos, nor the doubtful dismemberment of the islands and internal strife can go against the law of destiny,” he said.
He predicted that, with England, France, China and the others preoccupied elsewhere, “the great American republic with interests in the Pacific … may one day think of acquiring possessions beyond the seas …”
‘Blood and sacrifice’
Rizal declared: “Very probably the Philippines will defend with indescribable ardor the liberty she had bought at the cost of so much blood and sacrifice.”
Within 10 years of his death, what he said had come true.
The Bible is replete with stories of dreams that bring messages from beyond the “silver cord.”
The problem is that many do not find the time to reflect, “look inside,” as Carl Jung said, and articulate their dreams.
On All Saints’ Day, it may be good to recall the poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye: “Do not stand at my grave and cry: I am not there; I did not die.”
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