SAN ANTONIO – All Saints Day is a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church on Nov. 1.
Then, on Nov. 2, the Catholic Church celebrates All Souls Day, which falls on the same day Dia de los Muertos is celebrated in Mexico and throughout the U.S.
Both honor our passed loved ones. Dr. Arturo Chavez, the associate vice president of mission at the University of the Incarnate Word, explains that there are many connections between the two, whether Mexicans or Mexican Americans are practicing Catholics or not.
“Catholicism is in our culture,” Chavez said. “It’s in our DNA, if you will, and Dia de los Muertos is one of those traditions that easily merged between two cultures.”
Chavez said the Indigenous people of Mexico celebrated the dead with offerings and ofrendas, taking care of their loved ones’ bones.
He said this would happen when the monarch butterflies would return to Mexico from their migration from the North. They viewed it as a symbol of their loved ones’ souls returning.
That happened to coincide with when Spanish Catholics celebrated All Souls Day.
“Our indigenous ancestors were very religious, and they didn’t need the Catholic Spaniards to tell them that there was life after death,” Chavez said. “They already believed that.”
At one point, the Catholic Church didn’t accept those rituals and saw them as superstitious, but Chavez said that this changed after the Second Vatican Council over sixty years ago.
“That really encouraged pastors to respect the culture and the language of a people, and that culture is something sacred in that it is a vehicle for people, all people, to come to understand their faith and to come to God,” Chavez said. “In recent years, many parishes have integrated to where they set up these ofrendas in the church, and they use it as a teachable moment. And there (are) some people that, you know, have never experienced that, and it’s not their culture, and they love it.”
Dia de los Muertos reminds the souls of our loved ones that we remember you and honor you, similar to All Souls Day, when Catholics observe the commemoration of all the faithful departed.
“A real central belief for us as Catholics is that we are in communion with each other and also with those who have crossed over to their new life who have died,” Chavez said. “And so that’s when we talk about communion, and when we share the Eucharist, we are communing with those loved ones because they are part of our church. We honor them, and we not so much pray for them but to say we’re praying with you because we know that you are with us and that you know us personally.”