Day of the Dead November 2

The Commemoration of the Dead was instituted to obtain from God that he deliver or relieve the souls in purgatory.

The Office of the Dead has its origins in the vigil of the dead that the first Christians held following the example of the Jews. In the first centuries of Christianity, prayers, and later masses, were said for the deceased..

The first texts that speak of a specific office for the dead date from the IX^e century. Amalaire, deacon and then abbot of Metz, mentions it in Of ecclesiastic officials written around 820. In 998, Odilon, Abbot of Cluny, established, on November 2, a day dedicated to the commemoration of all the faithful departed. Pope Leo IX (pope from 1049 to 1054) approved this decision. The commemoration of the faithful departed then spread throughout Christendom. XIII^e century, it entered the Roman liturgy and became a universal feast in the Church.

While it commemorates the deceased, this celebration is also, in a sense, a celebration of the living. The Catholic Church professes faith in the immortality of the soul. Prayer for those who have left us is thus marked by the seal of hope. "Those who have passed to the other side are as, and more, alive than we are.".

Among the Chalcedonian Orthodox, there are several commemorations of the faithful departed, almost always on Saturday, the day of the permanence of the body of Jesus in the tomb. Among the Armenians, it is, among others, Easter Monday.

In several Catholic countries, the Day of the Dead and its prayers are associated with the preparation of foods specific to this commemoration, such as death bread or calaveras in Mexico for the Day of the Dead, the Martorana fruit in Sicily or the bread of the dead in Lombardy.