"Love Transcends Death": How Singapore's Chinese Catholics Remember their Dead

As Catholics across the globe prepare to observe All Souls’ Day on November 2, faithful in Singapore offer a unique testament to how Christian hope intersects with centuries-old cultural tradition.

At some Catholic funeral wakes in Singapore, visitors are given red strings and invited to join prayers for the soul of the dead. As they leave, they may be offered flower water to wash with, alongside holy water to sprinkle on the casket.

Such wakes show how Chinese and Catholic customs around death sit side by side, said Bryan Goh, a historian at the National University of Singapore who studies the history of Christianity in insular Southeast Asia.

Catholics, he said, "find no problem offering joss-sticks at Taoist/Buddhist funeral wakes, focusing on the prayers they say in their heart rather than the form of the action."

"Love transcends death"

Fr. John Chen, a priest of the Archdiocese of Singapore, said the Catholic faith and Chinese culture share one attitude towards the dead. "Love for our departed loved ones does not end with death. Indeed, love transcends death," he said.

Becoming Catholic means "discerning which cultural practices express values compatible with the Gospel and which may need to be reinterpreted or modified in the light of Christian faith," he said.

Fr. Luke Zhang, CDD, of the Church of the Holy Trinity, a priest of the Congregation of the Disciples of the Lord, founded in China in 1928 by Celso Costantini, later a cardinal, said some Catholics keep ancestral tablets at home because they live with relatives who are not Catholic. He would encourage them to bow before the tablets, offer flowers and fruit, light candles and pray for the dead with Catholic prayers.

"Through these practices, we express our respect for and remembrance of the deceased, pray for them, and entrust them to God's merciful hands," he said. Burning joss paper or spirit money, however, is "strictly prohibited."

"Simply go along"

Matthew Tserng Jia Uei, 61, who leads the Mandarin-language Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, grew up in a Taoist family and was baptized in 1984. His relatives never insisted that he bow before the family altar. "They only asked me to do my duty as one of the younger generation and simply go along as a gesture," he said.

Polly Ng Eng Lan, 65, who accompanies catechumens in the Mandarin-language RCIA at Novena Church, said Catholics are generally taught not to take part in rites of worship, "only to offer incense to the deceased and pray."

Michael Robert Tan, 57, baptized in April 2024, keeps no altar or photographs at home. "Nothing, only in my memories," he said.

Serene Xu, 63, baptized in 1991, still visits the temple where her family's ashes are kept each Qingming and on death anniversaries, "to pay my respects and remember them."

"I firmly believe that faith and family traditions can coexist harmoniously when there is mutual respect, understanding and acceptance," she said.

Prayer "on the couch"

"There has never been a single Chinese way of practicing ancestral worship," said Michel Chambon of the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics.

"Increasingly, people seem to prefer praying privately, in the intimacy of their own hearts, whether on the couch or in bed, rather than gathering before a formal altar," he said.

Fr. Zhang said young Catholics may have "their own ways of remembering them, such as a simple prayer in the heart."

For Xu, one hope remains. "Deep in my heart, I continue to hold on to the hope that one day, we will be reunited in our Heavenly Father's house," she said.