EVERY YEAR, as November comes, Filipinos prepare for a national pilgrimage—not to a distant shrine, but to our cemeteries and memorial parks. It is one of the most quietly moving sights in our culture. Families carrying flowers, candles, packed meals; children running around mausoleums; elders retelling old stories; priests saying Mass among tombs and trees; vendors selling candles and sampaguita garlands at the gates.
Some people from outside our faith find it strange. They ask, “Why celebrate among the dead? Isn’t that morbid?” And I smile, because to us Filipinos, it is not death we are celebrating—it is love. And love, as St. Paul says, never ends.
We call it Undas, derived from honrar—to honor. For two days, our nation pauses in reverence and gratitude. It is as though every cemetery becomes a parish, and every tomb a family altar. People pitch tents, light candles, clean tombstones, pray the rosary, share meals, laugh, and sometimes wipe quiet tears.
Far from being gloomy, our cemeteries become places of family reunion. They are not silent fields of loss, but lively gardens of memory. Some even say, “Para tayong nagpiknik sa sementeryo.” And they are right. Because love cannot be silent. It remembers, it prays, it gathers, it tells stories.
I find great beauty in this uniquely Filipino way of remembering. We do not treat death as separation, but as continuity—as belonging. It’s as though our people instinctively understand that line in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the communion of saints.”
What do we mean by this?
That those who have walked before us in faith are not gone. They are united with us in Christ. We are one family, the living and the departed, bound together by God’s love. And so every November, we affirm what our hearts already know: we do not walk alone.
I once joked with a priest friend born on November 1. He said he used to dislike his birthday because it fell on All Saints’ Day. “Buti na lang,” he laughed, “hindi ako pinangalanang Undas!” Over time he realized how blessed he was—his patron saints are all the saints.
He had asked me before why the Church has two stages in declaring saints: beatification and canonization. The answer is simple and profound. Beatification means to be declared Blessed. Canonization means to be declared a blessing.
Holiness begins by realizing we are blessed. We have been loved. And when one knows he is blessed, he desires to be a blessing. The Beatitudes we hear every year remind us that the blessed life is not glamorous. It is a life of humility, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, courage in suffering, and love that endures.
This is why we gather at cemeteries—not to cling to sorrow, but to thank God for those who have been blessings to us. They lived blessed lives and then became blessings.
Filipinos do not fear the memory of death; we sanctify it. We hallow time and space with prayers and candles. We baptize grief with gratitude. We teach our children to clean graves, to whisper the names of grandparents they never met, to light candles “para sa mga kaluluwa,” not out of superstition, but out of love.
And in that tender practice, we are catechizing them:
Love is stronger than death.
Memory is sacrament.
Family is forever.
Some say, “But we cannot see them anymore.” True. But faith tells us what love already suspects: those who love do not disappear. They are like seeds planted in God. And as Jesus said, unless a grain of wheat falls and dies, it remains just a grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Grief is not a sign of weakness; it is proof that we have loved. And only those who have loved can truly hope.
This year as you visit the cemetery—say a prayer, light a candle, laugh at old family stories, whisper to your beloved departed, “Salamat sa pag-ibig.” Feel the communion that binds heaven and earth.
Because we do not go to the cemetery to talk to ghosts.
We go to be in communion—with God, with our beloved dead, with each other.
And when we leave—smelling of candle smoke, carrying melted wax on our fingers, our hearts strangely warmed—we know something sacred has happened.
We have remembered, and in remembering, we have loved again.
And in loving again, we have touched eternity.
We are the communion of saints—the blessed striving to become blessings.
