I recently watched “Coco” – A 2017 animated movie by Disney/Pixar, chosen at random by my other half. Wow! The plot twist was just amazing and the message even more so! However, this post is not a movie review…
A while after the picture ended, I was still thinking about it, and some of my thoughts were really deep. I realized there are several similarities between parts of the Day of the Dead tradition in Mexico which are showcased in the film and the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This was confirmed to me after researching the story behind the film, and reading this article about the origins of the story, as given by one of the directors, Adrian Molina. The quote from this article that spoke to my heart was this: “What’s so beautiful about it is that it’s this tradition of connection, remembrance, family, and joy.” This pretty much sums up what members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believe about the importance of family ties and “the afterlife”.
❝Even today, FamilySearch is becoming what the Lord needs for part of His Restoration—and not just for avoiding duplication of ordinances.
❝The Lord let us make improvements to help people gain feelings of familiarity and even love for their ancestors and complete their temple ordinances. Now, as the Lord surely knew would happen, young people are becoming computer mentors to their parents and ward members. All have found great joy in this service.
❝The spirit of Elijah is changing the hearts of young and old, children and parents, grandchildren and grandparents. Temples will soon again be happily scheduling baptismal opportunities and other sacred ordinances. The desire to serve our ancestors and the bonding of parents and children are growing.
❝The Lord saw it all coming. He planned for it, step by step, as He has done with other changes in His Church. He has raised up and prepared faithful people who choose to do hard things well. He has always been lovingly patient in helping us learn ‘line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.’❞ 9
These are the similarities I recognized between the Mexican Day of the Dead tradition and the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ:
The After Life
– In the movie, part of the tradition of Day of the Dead was a place somewhere that spirits “live” after they died on earth. The spirits seemed to continue there exactly as when they were on earth, for example, one famous singer/musician kept doing his extravagant shows in the afterlife. Others who were destitute in life seemed to stay that way, especially when they weren’t being remembered on earth, and eventually these forgotten ones even disappeared from the afterlife world.
This correlates closely with the Gospel principle of the spirit world, where all spirits go after separating from their mortal bodies (physical death). We are taught that in this spirit world the feelings we had and whatever degree of learning we attained on earth will continue with us. We also believe that those who are forgotten by family on earth will not have full joy nor be able to progress eternally, as this can only happen when ordinances are performed in their behalf inside a temple on earth. We do vicarious ordinance work, including baptism for the dead, as spoken of in the New Testament of the Holy Bible (we use the King James version) in our temples for those who have passed on to the next world without having done the ordinances themselves.
Joy of family ties
– In Mexican traditions, families have joy through supporting one another, being together and working together, as shown in the film by the Rivera shoemaking business. In the movie, Miguel says to his (deceased) great-great-grandmother, Imelda: “That’s what family is supposed to do. Support you!”
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we are taught that part of eternal joy is families being together and progressing FOREVER. Sealing of families is done in holy temples all over the world, with the number of these temples growing each year. A man and a woman can be sealed together in the “New and Everlasting Covenant”, or married “for time and all eternity”, not just “until death do us part”. Children already born before this sealing are brought to the altar after the mother and father are sealed together, and are sealed to their parents as an eternal family. Any children born after this sealing is performed are automatically included in the sealed family.
Husbands and wives who have passed on without having done their own ordinance work during their mortal life, whether by choice, or by it not being available, can be sealed together by the living “standing in” for them in vicarious ordinances in the temples. Then their children are sealed to the family too, just as in the living ordinance. We believe that these spirits have their free agency to either accept or reject these vicarious ordinances, but we also believe it is our duty to perform them.
Dedication to remembering ancestors at altars
– The Mexican tradition has families keeping an altar with photos of their dearly departed, loved ones, and remembering their stories. In the temples, there are altars where people kneel to pray and participate in the afore-mentioned ordinances of sealing a man and woman together as eternal spouses and partners, and sealing children to their parents, so we can be with them, forever, once we all get to the spirit world!
From the Gospel, we learn to remember our deceased family members by seeking out their birth, marriage, and death dates and places, and any stories connected with their lives. Decades ago, before the technology we have today, we commonly recorded this data in an album that were called a “Book of Remembrance”. My parents kept one, the featured image for this post is the front cover, and here are some photos of what’s inside.
Today, we keep these records in a gigantic, searchable database online at familysearch.org. I like to use the RootsMagic app to keep my records offline, as there is also a way to connect my own records to familysearch.org AND Ancestry.com. Hard copies and digital copies of all the records included on the Family Search website are kept in a humongous mountain vault in Utah. This includes records of the ordinances done in the temple, which are recorded. Most of the records in this database can be searched online by anyone, for free. Some record collections are restricted to be seen only in certain places due to agreements with the donors of the records.
Path between the worlds
– There is a beautiful bridge covered in flower petals, between the afterlife place and the earth in “Coco”, where, after her own physical death, Coco (Miguel’s great-grandmother) walks with her family (the deceased) to visit the living family at the end of the film, while Miguel sings “…our love for each other will live on forever…”
In the New Testament of the King James Bible, we learn of a veil in the temple being rent or torn when Jesus died, which is representative of the veil between the earth and the world where spirits live. The tearing from top to bottom was an act of God, not man, showing divine intervention. It symbolized that the barrier between God and humanity had been removed by Jesus’ sacrifice, allowing believers direct access to God through Him. This event also points to the new covenant, where people could approach God directly without the need for the old sacrificial system and its strict separation.
Sentinels between the earth and the afterlife
– There were guards on the bridge between the afterlife and the live world in the movie, and they would check to see if the entity trying to enter was truly a deceased spirit, and if they were leaving, it was checked if he/she was being remembered on earth by a photo on someone’s altar; if so, they could go visit, if not, they could not leave the “spirit world”.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we believe that there are sentinels guarding the veil, the separation between this world and the spirit world, and to enter one must have the knowledge gained in the temples. We also believe that some spirits are allowed to return to earth through the veil temporarily, to assist us in finding genealogical connections.
We members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also believe that “our love for each other will live on forever” and that we will be together forever as families.
Song from the Disney movie “Coco”
Proud Corazón
Say that I’m crazy
Or call me a fool
But last night it seemed
That I dreamed about you
When I opened my mouth
What came out was a song
And you knew every word
And we all sang along
To a melody played on the strings of our souls
And a rhythm that rattled us down to the bone
Our love for each other will live on forever
In every beat of my proud corazón
Our love for each other will live on forever
In every beat of my proud corazón
Ay mi familia, oiga mi gente
Canten a coro, let it be known
Our love for each other will live on forever
In every beat of my proud corazón
Ay mi familia, oiga mi gente
Canten a coro, let it be known
Our love for each other will live on forever
In every beat of my proud corazón
Lyrics transcribed by Disneyclips.com
Written by Germaine Franco and Adrian Molina
Performed by Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel
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