Palma: Prayer, not partying saves the soul

CEBU Archbishop Jose Palma asks people to devote time for prayer as they observe All Saints’ Day today and All Souls’ Day tomorrow.

“I hope people will understand that this is not a time to hold picnics nor do something which would downplay the proper way to remember the dead,” the 63-year-old prelate said in an interview after he celebrated mass at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CDPRC) yesterday.

He added it is the living’s prayers and sacrifices that can hasten the departed ones’ joining God in heaven.

Palma who is the outgoing president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) urged the faithful to ponder upon the lives of the saints and aspire to be one.

“All Saints’ Day is a reminder that we have saints, including those who were canonized by the Church yet they are in heaven. They help us through their intercessions. They guide us with their teachings and give us examples to emulate. I hope all of us will aspire to become saints and enter heaven at the end of our lives,” he said.

Msgr. Esteban Binghay explained that there is unity between the living and the dead through prayer.

The Catholic Church often refers to this relationship as the “communion of saints” which the faithful profess when reciting the Apostle’s Creed.

Binghay said souls who reach heaven form what Catholic doctrine calls the “church triumphant.”

These souls belong to those who were proclaimed by the church as saints and martyrs.

Another group of souls, he said, are suffering in purgatory, which Catholics believe is a place or a condition of temporal punishment for those who die in a state of grace but still need to be purified.

Binghay said the third group in the communion of saints is called the “church militant,” which refers to people still living and are striving to do God’s will.

The living asks the intercession of saints, while the saints, together with the souls in purgatory, pray for the living.