You are invited to this special Día de los Muertos/ The Day of the Dead Celebration on October 26 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.
You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441 Meeting ID: 965 881 6441
You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.
Día de los Muertos
The Day of the Dead Celebration
Sunday, October 26, 2025, 10 am
You are invited to this special Día de los Muertos / The Day of the Dead Celebration based on the traditional Mexican holiday. Today’s special Día de los Muertos altar is set up by Norma Luciano to honor those who have gone before us. You are invited to bring photos of your loved ones and/or someone you like to honor to be placed on the altar. They will be up through the All Saints Sunday, Nov. 2nd. Let us remember our family, friends and church who were important to our lives.
Children’s Time
“What Is Día de los Muertos & Why Do We Celebrate Halloween?”
by Pastor John
Special Music: Allerseelen (All Soul’s) by Richard Strauss
Dr. Emily Sinclair, Soprano
Dr. Emily Sinclair, soprano, has performed in opera and concert across the United States, including in the Bay Area. Emily received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy, and holds additional degrees from Northwestern University, Manhattan School of Music and Yale University. In Santa Cruz, she conducts Fiat Musica and the Temple Beth El choir, and teaches voice and vocal repertoire at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Message “An Uninvited Visitor Wants to Have a Little Word with You”
When you think about death, is it with reflection, curiosity, and ease? Or is it with trepidation and fear? Do you even contemplate this most significant passage of your life?
Nearly every culture has celebrated this time in their own unique ways! We will be honoring and celebrating Día de los Muertos / The Day of the Dead. Mexican culture celebrates the Day of the Dead by gathering around the gravesite to honor and remember the dead. They acquaint themselves with the reality of death as part of the fabric of life.
Facing death is our last important life initiation in earthly life. Although our culture associates death with fear, tragedy, and loss, and sees it as something to dread, we can choose to view it differently. We can explore our relationship with death as something that might even feel like some kind of wonder.
What if death were approached as a joyful transition of soul’s journey of how birth, life, and death are all parts of our soul’s experience of being human.
We invite you to pass the veils between the worlds. In this meeting place of “between” the world, the living and the dead meet to celebrate the mysterious and magical place of the Kingdom of God. The Christian belief in the “Communion of Saints” is an acknowledgment of the reality of the living communing with the ancestors.
