St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Tuesday, November 2, 2021 All Souls Day Dia de los Muertos What to do with your pumpkins now? Two distinct ways to remember the dead sometimes simultaneously Every culture has someway of incorporating the dead, and memories of the dead, into the lives of the living. Remember that our Halloween/All Hallow’s Eve coincides with the old Celtic fall festival which may have included bonfires, food left out for souls of the beloved dead, costumes or scary headdresses to scare away any unwanted spirits, and lights placed inside carved out turnips or other vegetables. Dia de los Muertos is another pre-Christian fall festival to remember the ancestors, but also to invite their souls to come among the living. They are celebrated, not mourned. Ofrendas, or altars, are still set up in Mexico and other South American countries and are often richly decorated with marigolds, food, drink and other objects placed to welcome the departed back to their homes. All Souls is a Christian day of remembering all of our dead. It includes prayers, visits to graveyards, lighting of memorial candles, story-telling. In many countries now, where Christianity has become common, Dia de los Muertos is combined with All Souls Day – as in the picture below where the ofrenda includes crosses. People still feel that their ancestors are close – part of that great cloud of witnesses we read about in Hebrews – and they pray for their everlasting peace with Christ.  Dia de los Muertos This is from a celebration in a California cemetery last weekend – where children and adults dressed in colorful costumes and created extravagant ofrendas for non-Mexican visitors to see. Tickets were needed and attendance limited. It was essentially a gorgeous cultural festival for non-Mexicans. There was even a contest with prizes for the best decorated ofrenda. This commercializing of what was traditionally a solemn, if joyous, family day has created some understandable stress within the Mexican-American communities. We should understand that. Christmas has become so commercialized that the amazing story of the Incarnation is almost forgotten, and the day is celebrated as enthusiastically by non-believers as by Christians, with sentimental displays and often at extravagant expense.   All Souls Day A prayer for All Souls Day – by Episcopal Bishop, Deon Johnson (of the other Missouri diocese) O God, with whom still live the souls of the righteous, and in whose grace we numbered their days; We give back into your hands the unfinished work, the unspoken words, the unseen joys of our beloved dead. We release into your care the lingering scents, the fleeting touch, the infectious laughs, the essence of their being. Remind us that the unbroken cords of love transcend the horizon of death and that nothing can separate us form the power of love; in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen  Why do we pray for the dead? “We pray for them, because we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God’s presence those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love until they see him as he is.”  from the Catechism – Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 862 Sometimes it’s hard for modern Christians to believe in the afterlife. But Jesus promised his disciples eternal life many times, as in last Sunday’s gospel when he showed them that death has no final power, by raising Lazarus. He also demonstrated it in raising the son of the widow of Nain and bringing Jairus’ daughter back to life. But you can also think of it this way: God loved us – ALL of us – into being and loves us every day of our lives. So why would God end that relationship? Even if we thought we wanted to? It makes no sense. If God is really is Love, then God’s Love is also greater than our resistance, our fears, even our rejection – Love wins. Always.  Those pumpkins? Don’t just throw them away! Wildlife love them. You can taken them out to the country – or bring them to the church and take them way out to the back of our property where the hay bales are, or out towards the tree line. Just drop them on the ground so that they break open We have lots of critters, including deer, out there who will enjoy them. |
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