ALL SOULS DAY
Yesterday, as I travelled from Porto to Régua, I met a very old widow, still full of life, in spite of her 82 years. Carrying a bunch of flowers, she was heading to her home village to pay her respects to the dead, mainly her father whom she mentioned several times.
In the evening, I went with Fr. Horácio to Vila Marim, one of his parishes, where I took the picture of the cemetery. In the background, you can see Vila Real, a city of the living, and in the foreground the city of the dead, that is the cemetery, ready for the celebration of All Souls’ day.
People pay great attention to the dead and spend lots of money remembering them, with expensive mausolea, tombstones, flowers and candles. One remains with the impression that the dead are more important than the living. It is much more than a simple remembrance… it looks like a cult of the dead.
The use of flowers became a business, and they embellish and soothe the pain and the feeling of loss, not of the dead but of the living. And there are the candles, plenty of candles. We may ask if they are a symbol of the warmth of love, of hope and of life or if they are simply being burnt to the dead as a kind of worship?
THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION
In the cemetery of my home town, like in many other Portuguese cemeteries, there are no symbols of the resurrection. There are plenty of crosses and of the Crucified Jesus, indicating pain and suffering; and there are many images of Our Lady and of angels, that they may protect and carry our dead to the Father’s house. Sometimes, we can find an image of the Good Shepherd, but there are no images of the Risen Christ or even symbols of the resurrection.
People change with the times, and not always for the better. In the church where I was baptised, there are two images of the Risen Christ, being a carving on the door of the tabernacle and a painting over a tomb. And the dead where buried inside the church, for the living to remember that we are part of the same family and that we worship the Lord together. In the end, living and dead are one in Christ, and in Christ they will find life and salvation.
If we forget the resurrection, our remembrance of the dead easily becomes worship of the dead. Instead of moving forward, illumined by hope, we look backward remembering the past, unable to make of the present a time worthy of the future.
VICTORY OVER DEATH
In his letter to the Corinthians, speaking about death and resurrection, Paul wrote:
“When this perishable body
puts on imperishability,
and this mortal body
puts on immortality,
then the saying that is written
will be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Co 15:54-57)
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