This weekend, most Filipinos celebrate Undas, a triduum or three-day observance from October 31 to November 2 comprising All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween), All Hallows’ or All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day; from the Spanish honras funebres meaning “funeral honors” or “funeral rites.” During these days, families gather in prolonged memorial rites, as it were, not only to visit, clean and decorate graves but also to honor and cherish remembrances of loved ones past and make more memories with loved ones present. This is a special time for family reunions where memories, old and new, are shared and shaped by stories, meals and ideally, prayers.
Popular culture has woefully weakened much of the prayerful significance of these days linked as they are with the frivolities of “Halloween.” In truth however, far from ghosts and ghouls associated with the ghastly, “Halloween” is merely short for All Hallows’ Eve or Eve of the Feast of all the Saints, i.e., the hallowed ones or hallows. “Hallow” is yet another word in Old English for “holy” which is why we say “hallowed be they name” in the Lord’s prayer. There is nothing horrific in Halloween. This holiday is a holy day.
That these feasts are celebrated proximately is not incidental. On November 1, we remember all saints — both known and unknown; and on November 2, we remember all souls — both mourned and unmourned. Why remember? Because not all saints are known to us and not all souls are remembered by us. We forget that we forget. We lose our sense of who we are. We forget whose we are.
But the Lord remembers. The Lord knows. The Lord sees. Always.
In today’s Gospel two traveling throngs converge by the gates of the town Nain in the provincial district of Galilee. One crowd, coming in from Capernaum had Jesus “accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people”; the other, a cortege with a “considerable number of townspeople” leaving the town to accompany a mother as she buries her son.
Imagine these two big groups of people, completely unknown to each other converging by the town gates: one group coming in, and the other, going out. In the midst of the din, a connection happens between two people — Jesus and the woman. The narrative is stark and the woman’s condition, dire: “a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”
She lost her husband and now she loses her only son. Both helpless and hapless, there is no one who will look out for her and no one else to look after her. She faces whatever is left of her life alone. Already “lost” in the great crowd, no one sees her. And then, Jesus finds her.
She does not ask for Jesus’ help. But Jesus sees her. He sees her pain, her loss, her need. He sees what her life would be like, already a widow, now without her only son. Not asking for anything, Jesus then restores her son to life and then gives him to his mother. And in restoring the son to life, he restores the mother to who she is. Jesus hands over to the widow of Nain her very self.
We are not told who she is. Nor her son. We do not have their names. But both are known to Him who saw them and raised them both to life.
All are known, each one, by name. Seen. Remembered. Loved. Always.
Some points to ponder or think about in the coming days:
1. In this parable, the widow of Nain is a “nobody” — unseen, unheard and unknown — and yet, Jesus “sees” her. Notice the many “invisible” ones who make up the fabric of your everyday dealings and interactions. While you may not be called to “know” each one, you are at least invited to notice and recognize them. Who might these “invisible” ones in your life be? Often, they are “nobodies” to you. For now.
2. Notice that today’s parable does not turn on the presence or absence of “faith.” Jesus sees, is moved to compassion and acts. When did you last find yourself moved to act unreservedly, out of compassion or love without counting the cost, needing neither rest, reason, nor reward?
3. Like a “movie in your mind” allow your interiority to reveal the faces of those you know and love who have passed away. This weekend, take the time to simply remember each one as they come freely in your consciousness. You may not even remember all of them, but pay attention to those people whose memories come back to you. Pause for each one and allow yourself to simply be present to each one, as they are to you. What feelings are evoked, awakened or stirred in you?