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