Día de los Muertos (All Souls' Day)

All Souls Day is a Christian holiday commemorating all faithful Christians who are now dead. In the Mexican tradition, the holiday celebrated as Día de los Muertos, which is a time of remembrance for dead ancestors and a celebration of the continuity of life.

Why is it important?

All Souls' Day, also known as the "Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed" and the "Day of the Dead" or "Día de los Muertos", is a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, which is observed by Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations annually on 2 November.

All Souls' Day is often celebrated in Western Christianity; Saturday of Souls is a related tradition more frequently observed in Eastern Christianity.

Adherents of All Souls' Day traditions often remember deceased friends and relatives in various ways on the day. Through prayer, intercessions, alms and visits to cemeteries, people commemorate the poor souls in purgatory and gain them indulgences.

History and significance

The last day of Allhallowtide

The annual celebration is the last day of Allhallowtide, after All Saints' Day (1 November) and Halloween (October 31).

All Souls Day has a long history. As early as the ninth century it was a custom for monasteries to set aside a day to pray for their dead, and an abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Cluny was the first to establish November 2 as the day for commemoration of the departed during the 10th century. Prior to the standardization of Catholic observance on 2 November, many Catholic congregations celebrated All Souls Day on various dates during the Easter season as it is still observed in some Eastern Orthodox Churches and associated Eastern Catholic and Eastern Lutheran churches.

The extension to the whole Church

With the carnage of World War I in mind, Pope Benedict XV extended All Souls Day to the whole Catholic Church in 1915. On All Souls people of faith remember those believers who have gone before them and ask God to welcome them as they enter their final journey to be with God forever.

source: uscatholic.org

A "Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed"

Commemoratio omnium fidelium defunctorum

In the Catholic Church, "the faithful" refers essentially to baptized Catholics; "all souls" commemorates the church penitent of souls in purgatory, whereas "all saints" commemorates the church triumphant of saints in heaven. In the liturgical books of the Latin Church it is called the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.

Is Día de los Muertos really the same?

While Día de los Muertos also remembers the dead, it celebrates their living memory as well. Gatherings at gravesides become family reunion picnics—with the dead invited. Food, drink, music, flowers, and fireworks are part of the celebration. It is a kind of party during which the dead are remembered and rejoiced over. In the home, altars decorated with flowers, photos of the deceased, and a variety of food offerings for the dead extend hospitality to the deceased and recall their presence.

All Souls Day

The theological basis for the feast is that the souls which, on departing from the body, are not perfectly cleansed from venial sins are debarred from the Beatific vision, and that the faithful on earth can help them by prayers, alms, deeds, and especially by the sacrifice of the Holy Mass.

Día De Los Muertos

has a much less solemn tone and is portrayed as a holiday of joyful celebration rather than mourning. It welcomes the return of the departed for a yearly family visit. It has roots in Mexico's pre-Spanish civilization and its beliefs and practices relating to death,

Celebrating the living memory of the dead

The multi-day holiday of Dia de los Muertos involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and to remember friends and family members who have died.

Gatherings at gravesides become family reunion picnics—with the dead invited. Food, drink, music, flowers, and fireworks are part of the celebration.

Día de los Muertos Traditions

Traditions connected with the holiday include honoring the deceased using calaveras (representation of a human skull) and aztec marigold flowers known as cempaz├║chitl, building home altars called ofrendas with the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these items as gifts for the deceased.

The celebration is not solely focused on the dead, as it is also common to give gifts to friends such as candy sugar skulls, to share traditional pan de muerto with family and friends, and to write light-hearted and often irreverent verses in the form of mock epitaphs dedicated to living friends and acquaintances, a literary form known as calaveras literarias.

The celebration is also a time for toy skeletons, papel picado—tissue paper cutouts of skulls and bones—and other ornaments. In the candy and toys, participants find sweetness and play in the bitterness and somberness of death.

Ofrendas

These are private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers and the words of the living directed to them. These altars are often placed at home or in public spaces such as schools and libraries, but it is also common for people to go to cemeteries to place these altars next to the tombs of the departed.

Toys are brought for dead children (los angelitos, or 'the little angels'), and bottles of tequila, mezcal or pulque (an agave alcoholic beverage) or jars of atole (a corn-based hot beverage) for adults. Families will also offer trinkets or the deceased's favorite candies on the grave.

Calaveras

A common symbol of the holiday is the skull (in Spanish calavera), which celebrants represent in masks, called calacas (colloquial term for skeleton), and foods such as chocolate or sugar skulls, which are inscribed with the name of the recipient on the forehead.

Sugar skulls can be given as gifts to both the living and the dead.

Other holiday foods include pan de muerto, a sweet egg bread made in various shapes from plain rounds to skulls, often decorated with white frosting to look like twisted bones.

Calaveras Literarias

A distinctive literary form exists within this holiday where people write short poems in traditional rhyming verse, called calaveras literarias (lit. "literary skulls"), which are mocking, light-hearted epitaphs mostly dedicated to friends, classmates, co-workers, or family members (living or dead) but also to public or historical figures, describing interesting habits and attitudes, as well as comedic or absurd anecdotes that use death-related imagery which includes but is not limited to cemeteries, skulls, or the grim reaper, all of this in situations where the dedicatee has an encounter with death itself.

In modern Mexico, they are a staple of the holiday in many institutions. For example, in public schools students are encouraged to write them as part of the language class.

A Día de los Muertos-inspired movie

Disney Pixar's "Coco" draws its cultural inspiration from several Mexican variations of this tradition, which also happen to be those most commonly found in the United States.

The story follows a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his deceased musician great-great-grandfather to return him to his family among the living and to reverse his family's ban on music.

Viewers have found Coco to be a powerfully communicated story about the importance of family, community, a sense of belonging, tradition and remembrance.

All Souls' Day Traditions

Many All Souls' Day traditions are associated with popular notions about purgatory. Bell tolling is meant to comfort those being cleansed. Lighting candles serves to kindle a light for the poor souls languishing in the darkness. Soul cakes are given to children coming to sing or pray for the dead (cf. trick-or-treating), giving rise to the traditions of "going souling" and the baking of special types of bread or cakes.

All Souls' Day is celebrated in many European countries with vigils, candles, the decoration of graves, and special prayers as well as many regional customs.

A peek at Italy customs

In Sicily and other southern Italy regions, Festa dei Morti or U juornu rii morti is halfway between a Christian and a Pagan tradition.  Families visit and clean grave sites, home altars are decorated with family photos and votive candles, and children are gifted a special basket or cannistru of chocolates, pomegranate, and other gifts from their ancestors