Peoples and religions have different ways of venerating their dead and dealing with death’s imposing mystery. Candles, flowers and prayers are preferred by western cultures. A tombstone helps to preserve the memory of the deceased in the cemetery. Eastern and native American peoples prefer to honor their departed with food – the best foodstuffs the deceased enjoyed while alive are prepared for them on All Souls’ Day or on other occasions (like the Chinese Lunar Year in Korea). In Africa, prayers and sacrifices are usually offered to the ancestors during some important celebrations or when the family is experiencing troubles.
In the West, funerals are done as quickly as possible and rather silently, without fanfare. In other cultures, the deceased are kept and venerated for longer periods of time. Wakes, in general, take several days, especially to give eventual scattered family members time to gather. Food is provided for all the mourners and funerals are quite festive. In many African cultures, a meal concludes the burial rites. An animal – if possible a cow – has to be killed so that its blood could convey the death message to ancestors.
In some of these cultures, people have a more prolonged contact with the dead, also because, due to the lack of conditions, more people die and death seems almost omnipresent. In spite of that, are they less afraid of the last stage of life? American indigenous are said to accept it naturally as the end of the earthly journey. In Africa, fatalism causes people resignation, but they seem to be still afraid of it. Some of the ancestors worship is intended precisely to please or to placate them.
Veneration of the dead is based on the belief that the deceased, generally relatives, have a continued existence and possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. But, while in some cultures and religions, ancestors can get upset with their descendants and their influence can be negative, in Catholicism the saints can only be helpful to the living as intercessors to God. Besides, they are not limited to one’s kin and they are innumerable – “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Revelation 7:9).
Therefore, the Christian message – cleansed from its eventual western cultural wrappings – is really good news of liberation and hope for all, even for those people who believe in some form of afterlife. First, it can eradicate the fear stemming from the belief that the spirits of those who have passed away recently still linger around and even harass their living relatives. Then, it speaks of life in plenitude with God the Father. Through His paschal mystery, Jesus Christ has opened to us the way to the house of the Father, the Kingdom of life and peace. He who follows Jesus in this life is received where He has preceded us. And, now, we can already experience the so-called “communion of saints,” the fellowship or spiritual solidarity that exists among all God’s People – on earth, in heaven and in purgatory.
Our annual pilgrimage to the graveyards makes us remember that our beloved deceased, who lived worthy and fruitful lives, “are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them” (Wisdom 3:1). In the tombs, only their mortal remains rest, while awaiting the final resurrection. Jesus “opened for us the gates of heaven,” says the liturgy, and made it our inheritance: “Where He has gone, we hope to follow.” Heaven – God’s immense ocean of life and happiness – is our destiny.
