All Saints & All Souls

Living in South America is to live with two great dominant realities - the reality of a rich indigenous culture with its customs, beliefs and practices and the reality of 500 years of Spanish and European influence. Perhaps no other feast shows the coming together of these two realities more than the celebration All Souls’ day. Indigenous religion remembered its dead to the extent of actually bringing out the bodies of relatives to celebrate with them the beginning of Summer (around the month of November). Feasting and dancing marked this day when the blessing of the dead was sought for the year ahead. Marks of the approval of the dead were good rains and a good harvest. All this coincided with the celebration of All Souls’ day and so it is that the celebration is now such a mix of customs. Not being comfortable with the practice of bringing out the dead from their graves, the Spanish conquistadors began the practice of bringing human images made of bread to the graveside for the celebration of All Souls’ day - a convenient way of recognising the communion and fellowship of all God’s people, living and dead, without the presence of a loved one’s bones!



The practice of celebrating the day with a meal and festive atmosphere has certainly endured and Cochabamba cemetery is packed on All Souls’ day with families all spreading out a table of food and drink - especially remembering the favourite dish of a loved one!









As we pray in November for all those who have died, there is a real sense here of faith in the Resurrection, a real sense that death is not an end but a new beginning and so there is a great sense of celebration. In a way life here reminds us that we begin November with the celebration of All Saints - a joyful statement of faith that God’s will is to bring all together in the Kingdom of light, happiness and peace. And those who are with God in that Kingdom are one with us in prayer and faith. It is in the spirit of this feast that we pray for the dead in November in the belief that those we pray for are on a journey of great hope and joy.

The history of evangelization has always taken into account the work of the Holy Spirit already active in any culture and it has always been a sensitive issue of how we build on that work and what we bring to a culture that is new. What aspects of any culture call for conversion and change and what aspects are the building stones of faith. In all we do to evangelise and bring Christ to our world we always do well to remember that He is there before us!