All Souls’ Day (November 2)
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	This week we have in All Souls’ Day a commemoration that is linked to the Halloween customs. The big-spending sugar shock holiday is a long way removed from November second’s grateful remembrance of the souls who are hidden from our sight, but alive to Christ. Old pagan superstitions might find us holding our breath when going by the graveyard, whereas others might actually go to the cemetery to tend the family graves, to share good food, and remember dear ones. Nowhere does a culture embrace this day as fully as in Mexico. The “Day of the Dead” is a national holiday that unfolds over three full days.
	For three thousand years, the indigenous people of Mexico have been mocking death in an annual festival, and the invading Spaniards were shocked at the spectacle. To the Aztecs, life was a dream, and death was the entry into full life. Skulls were thus a symbol of joy and release from life’s sorrows. The missionaries found all this a bit creepy, but they moved the three-day feast from August to synchronize it with the Christian calendar. So today, graves are decorated, altars are built in the home to honor the family dead, children feast on candy skulls, and people dress up in elaborate skeleton outfits. The devout spend hours in the cemetery, and there is a lively sense of the communion of saints, the living and the dead.
—Rev. James Field