In late October the American landscape gets shrouded with orange pumpkins, yellow marigolds, black witches, white ghosts, and an eerie, cold, windy, darkness that forecasts a change of seasons.  The church and society enter the ominous Dias de los Muertos (Days of the Dead).  On the first day, All Halo’s Eve, we acknowledge that every human person will die from this earthly realm.  Therefore, many people, especially children, dress in regalia that points to our demise; werewolf or warlock, devil or demon, skeleton or satan, vampire or viper, goblin or ghoul—they all symbolize that reality.  This scary display is rooted in various traditions, starting with Celtic Samhain lore and Aztec rituals that awaken us to the fact that earthly life ends in earthly death with eventual destruction of the human body.  Cultic ceremony from medieval Spanish castles to modern Louisiana parishes welcomes souls back during this ripe time for invisible spirits to become visible and mischievously interact with humans.  Beneath the custom of disguised children moving house to house for treats, the grim truth of our fatal human condition gets told.

Yet it is merely a prelude to the day it ushers in, The Festival of All Saints.  This second day emphasizes a more hopeful aspect of faith: the basic teaching that there is life beyond the trials and tragedies of this existence.  Not all children dress up as death on Day One; many don costumes of their favorite superhero, some that are real, like stars of professional sports to stars of the stage and big screen, and others that are mythical, from princesses to caped crusaders.  Day Two, then, focuses on superheroes of faith: saints who lived holy lives and now reap an eternal reward.   The transformation from some of the All-Halo’s Eve costumes that reflect the horrible ways in which saints and martyrs left the earth (burned at the stake, killed by swords or beasts, tortured by evil spirits…) to costumes with halos or wings or crowns of glory is a magnificent one.  Day Two looks beyond earthly death to heavenly life.  Rather than a procession through neighborhoods or country sides, there are processions to churches.

In some cultures, especially Latino, the three Days of the Dead are accompanied with home-made altars that contain offerings (ofrendas) to unite the living with the dead.  They often have three levels to commemorate heaven, purgatory, and hell, emphasizing our belief that when the body dies the soul goes to one of these places.  The altars may contain pictures and other commemorations of deceased Loved Ones who, we pray, are also enrobed with saintly garb in the next world.  They may also contain symbols of death, like a skull, symbols of sweetness (candy, fruit, chocolate, sugar cubes…) that point to the sweet life of heaven, perhaps a thin veil or scarf that illustrates the closeness of our world to others that await us, or a candle to light the way, or water which indicates that it is a long journey.  These altars remind us that we have a choice about which direction we go on the other side of life.

To me, each of the three days is more important than the one before it.  The final one of Dias de los Muertos is the Commemoration of All Souls.  It is a time for us to pray not just for the sanctity of every life on earth but for every soul in the afterlife, especially the poor souls in purgatory.  Many of us believe that between heaven and earth there is a place of purgation and purification where our souls, like gold that’s tested in fire, are made purer so they can receive the grace of heaven.  Loved fully by God, who wants nothing more than to bring them to paradise, they lack perfection and strive for higher status; these fellow sojourners benefit from our prayers as they repent and respond to God’s call to be united with Him in glory.

Some people warn that Halloween is evil or that the Days of the Dead are superstitious.  It is possible.  But I think these days, much like Jesus’ passion and three days in the tomb, get to the heart of our faith which is centered on the paschal mystery: life, death, and resurrection.  Though it might be off-putting for some that we dress up in morbid attire or decorate altars that fashion death, destruction, and despair, it is a good reminder that life is short, that death is certain, and that there is a world beyond.  The rituals of these days might also inspire us to become heroes for others in this life and superheroes in the life to come.