Signposts On The Way

This week we celebrate the feasts of All Saints and All Souls.  In the Latino community the time leading up to Dia de los Muertos (All Souls Day) on November 2, is an anticipated time of celebration when all the souls of our dearly departed family and community are remembered and invited to feast with the living knowing that the bonds of family and human community are transcendent.
 
Dia de los Muertos is founded on the popular, cultural belief that humans experience three deaths, the first death is the failure of the body. The second is the burial of the body.  The third death is a “definitive death” which occurs when no one is left to remember us.  Hence, we gather around the homemade altarcitos and niches (sacred places) to remember our departed loved ones through prayers, storytelling, danzas, and food.  These yearly rituals help to lessen the pain of separation from those who go before us. Rooted in our faith, we also profess our belief that in Jesus Christ death is not the end, but simply a different state of being in eternal life. 
 
This week let us take pause in silence and stillness to recollect the members of our human family who lost their lives prematurely.  In such a short time we have lost hundreds of thousands of people to the Covid pandemic, in natural disasters, mass shootings, in the current Ukraine/Russian war, and most recently in the terrorist attack aimed at Israel, killing thousands of Israelis and Palestinians.  While we cannot know them personally, each one of these people was someone’s relative, friend, co-worker.  Let us take notice of them as brothers and sisters whose lives mattered.  May they never be forgotten!  Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.