Honoring our Ancestors

Our special annual and monthly ancestral services and ceremonies are time-honored traditions. In cultures around the world, these customs have spanned hundreds of years, reflecting historical ancestral traditions which celebrate special occasions to remember departed souls.

In our fellowship, we pay homage to ancestors through anniversary observances, prayers, and food offerings during special occasions. Additionally, shrines and special altars are dedicated in some homes.

Memorial Day is a US holiday commemorating those who died in military service and is traditionally observed in May. In Johrei Fellowship, we also visit the final resting places of those who made the ultimate sacrifice and offer prayers of gratitude, peace and resolution. We also visit and clean the grave sites of family, friends and loved ones and offer prayers and fresh flowers in their memory.

Other traditions might include playing a favorite piece of music that the deceased loved or even reading a passage from a book of poems. While such ceremonies may vary, the intention is to remember and honor loved ones and feel close to them. When we acknowledge this connection extending through the generations, we also acknowledge our history. By coming together in prayer and celebration, we are helping our ancestors grow further in the spirit world.

Every person has a unique relationship with their loved ones while sharing their existence in the physical world. Sometimes, such relationships may be loving and fulfilling. For others, they may be more complex—both positive and challenging. Some relationships may remain unresolved or tinged with regret, whether by choice or circumstance. Holding special services for the departed provide opportunities to heal and mend for both the living and those who have passed to the world of spirit.

Every person belongs to a specific family identified by name, race, ethnicity, or nationality. What unique characteristic distinguishes one person from another, one family line from the next? Each individual is connected to his or her ancestors by an unseen connection, a "spiritual cord." It is like a specific spiritual DNA strand. This cord represents a unique life force energy that could be traced back to the beginning of this unique familial lineage and source of our physical existence. By observing such special services for our ancestors, we honor and repair this special strand by bathing this relationship with love, forgiveness, and Light.

Our founder, Meishu-sama, wrote: "It is time we realized that all human beings do not simply exist by themselves, that we are closely linked to and are an extension of our ancestors. It means that an infinite number of ancestors are joined together to make one of us – that their countless number of spiritual cords are connected to our single spiritual cord…for this reason, the remnants of the clouds (negative karma* or thoughts, words or deeds) that our ancestors carry trickle down our way constantly as they are being purified."

- September 15, 1935

* The sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as influencing one's future existence. It can also be described as destiny or fate, followed by effect from cause.

In our ancestral services, food offerings are placed on a special altar, and special prayers are recited to establish a connection between the physical and spiritual realms. The food and beverage offerings represent symbols of sustenance and love for departed souls. Through this special connection during this service, we express gratitude and love to heal and honor the past, acknowledge the present, and pray for a positive future.

There are three ways to remove family karma:

1. Praying for ancestors. 

2. Enshrining ancestors is inscribing their names on special ancestral tablets or registries. These tablets symbolize the spirits of ancestors and are venerated by descendants.

3. Giving service to others - volunteering and helping others. 

In the words of our founder, Meishu-sama:

Making our parents and ancestors

Happy in the spiritual world

By our good deeds

Is the best and greatest

Of filial acts.

If we can compare a family to a tree, the present generations are represented by the new branches and leaves, while the trunk and the roots represent older generations. For those who may not follow any particular spiritual, religious, or cultural tradition of honoring ancestors, may these words speak to their hearts. 

How does a tree remember? The seed responds to the soil, water, the warmth of the sun. It remembers to push its tiny roots out, finding its way outward and upward from ages of memories. How does a tree remember to push its branches this way and not that way? The seed of memory is inherited from its ancestors. It remembers its past. 

We are just as much a part of the past as we are of the present. Living in the thumbnail of the present is like floating on a tiny raft on a vast ocean. It does not connect us. Our ancestors are as much responsible for our present. And so, this applies to all living beings and things.

(Author unknown)

Johrei Fellowship.

May 2025