'Death has not the last word': El Día de los Muertos is a celebration of life

(OSV News) -- A vibrant holiday chiefly celebrated throughout Mexico and parts of the Southwestern U.S., "El Día de los Muertos" (The Day of the Dead), is a time of profound joy, not sorrow. It commemorates the lives of loved ones no longer here, weaving together Catholic beliefs and practices with ancient Indigenous views on the afterlife.

"When we had the New World and the Old World meet in a situation of coming and discovering new places, we brought forth our faith and our tradition. But also, we discovered that, through many other ancestors around native places, they already had a vision of a life and an afterlife," Father Ramon Reyes, associate pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Hawthorne, California, told OSV News.

"You have this mixture between two different understandings. ... So you have different cultures throughout Latin America -- from the Aztecs in Mexico all the way to Guatemala to even Bolivia and some of the South American countries, too -- that will be gathering during November to honor their loved ones," Father Reyes said.

The result? A colorful time celebrated Nov. 1 and 2 -- the solemnity of All Saints and the commemoration of the faithful departed, also known as All Souls -- and replete with symbols, traditions, and customs in which faith and community abound while honoring, remembering and celebrating the lives lived by the faithful departed.

Ernesto Vega, who serves as coordinator of adult faith formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, puts it this way: "El Día de los Muertos is indeed a celebration of life, and a celebration to remind ourselves that death has not the last word. And, for us Catholics, the life offered through our Lord Jesus Christ, sealed through his Resurrection."

"That's the promise that all of us Catholics have: that death would not defeat us, that death would not have the last word, rather the life in Christ," he told OSV News.

From the assembly of "altares" (altars) in the home or "domestic church" to traditional dances and the crafting of colorful, sugar skulls. From special liturgies to visits to cemeteries. Each of these traditions adds to the celebratory mood of the holiday, while their profound meaning aims to immerse the faithful into the divine, allowing them to connect with God and their loved ones.

Among the most popular traditions of El Día de los Muertos are the altares. Displayed in the homes of the faithful or built in cemeteries -- some of which designate special areas for this purpose, they have become a fixture of the holiday. Ideally, the altar structure would have three tiers, representing a "concept of elevation to the higher sphere, so of the Heavens, of going into paradise," Vega said.

"In the third level, you put the crucifix in the center, as a representation of Christ, and Our Blessed Mother -- a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe or the Blessed Virgin Mary," he said, adding, "They are in the highest level of realization; they are the ones who live in Heaven and (are) calling us up."

Other significant elements featured on the altars are photographs of the departed; flowers, chiefly marigold flowers; offerings like food or drinks the deceased enjoyed while alive; bread, which represents Christ in the Eucharist; images of saintly figures; papel picado (pierced paper), which means the fragility of life; and water.

And then, there are also the skulls, or "calaveras."

But according to Florencia Teran, a retired elementary school teacher with more than 30 years of teaching in Catholic schools in the Los Angeles area under her belt, these are not meant to stir terror. Quite the opposite.

"If you notice ... 'las calacas,' they are laughing, they are smiling. Yes, they are skeletons, but they have a flower in their skull, they have a guitar, they have a basket of flowers, they're colorful. It's not ghoulish, it's not spooky, it's not the goth-type of stuff," Teran told OSV News.

"My biggest thing from day one is I don't want the children to be afraid of death. That's what it is. It's the essence of not being afraid of death, celebrating life after death. That is very Catholic," she stated.

As families get creative and festive in their "domestic churches," rising with altares rising from the bottom up for their departed loved ones, Catholic churches are busy with the celebrations of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day taking place on Nov. 1 and 2, respectively. On All Souls' Day, special Masses are offered for deceased family and friends or for the souls in purgatory. During this day, the Book of the Dead also lays on top of a table near the altar, and inside the book is a list of names of the deceased for whom will be prayed the month of November.

"Other churches would bring symbols of candles to gather on the altar to remember a loved one. A candle for us is the light of the way of the soul, so (there are) many other simple offerings that we bring forth that you see in altars, too," Father Reyes said.

However, Father Reyes is no stranger to the various perceptions surrounding El Día de los Muertos, some of which do not portray the holiday in a positive light, and he attributes this to a confusion over the meaning of the word "invocation" as the cause.

"When you hear 'dead,' you think of evil spirits or of different things you shouldn't be touching, you shouldn't be saying. But, when we bring 'una invocación' to pray, to gather ... the church would say it's around the purpose, it's around the prayer of the loved ones to help them toward their journey towards heaven," he said. "That's why the church will always have an understanding of (the) meaning of symbols."

For Vega, on the other hand, the answer could be that members of the Catholic community do not pay attention to "the expression of faith through different cultures." But the Catholic Church encourages evangelization through culture, encourages its faithful to express their faith through it, Vega added, and if there is an epitome of this, then it is certainly El Día de los Muertos.