Tomb sweeping - a beautiful spiritual culture on Tet holiday

(Baonghean.vn) - Every year on the afternoon of the 30th of Tet, all descendants of the Tran Dinh family gather together to visit the family cemetery.

In the past, when the graves of our ancestors were still earthen graves, each time we went to build a grave, we brought hoes, baskets, basins, etc. and a bunch of incense. While visiting and checking the graves, we also took soil and grass to reinforce the sunken graves and the top of the graves, and cleared weeds. After concentrating forces to reinforce and decorate the graves of our ancestors, the descendants of each branch dispersed to their own branch's grave area to do the work of building the graves. After finishing the work of reinforcing the graves, the elders came one by one to ask their descendants to burn incense and pray to invite their ancestors, late parents, and grandparents to come home for Tet.

For the past 10 years, life has been improved, thanks to the blessings of ancestors and superiors, descendants have had enough to eat and save, basically invested in solid construction, including tombs. Therefore, every afternoon of the 30th of Tet, we still gather to build tombs, but the tools we bring are different, which are lime water, or paint, brooms, clean towels to clean the entire tomb. Descendants take turns burning incense and praying to their ancestors, grandparents..., respectfully inviting ancestors, ancestors, grandparents, superiors to come and celebrate Tet with their descendants. Just like the folk song:

"People have ancestors.
As a tree has roots, as a river has a source"

After completing the "Tomb Sweeping" procedure at the cemetery, we gathered at the family church (the Great Temple) to clean and prepare offerings to burn incense. According to the concept of the elders, when going to the grave to burn incense to invite ancestors, late relatives, grandparents to come home to celebrate Tet, the ancestors will come back together, so everyone is very excited, self-conscious, and highly responsible. At the same time as going to the grave and inviting the ancestors to come home to celebrate Tet, at home, the families in the family have prepared a tray of rice, sticky rice and chicken to worship the ancestors, waiting for the people who went to visit the grave to return, then they will burn incense and invite the ancestors to stay and celebrate Tet with their children and grandchildren. The ancestors will celebrate Tet with their children and grandchildren until the end of the third day when there is a ceremony to bring them back to the eternal world.



Invite the ancestors to come home to celebrate Tet with their children and grandchildren.

The custom of visiting graves on the 30th of Tet is not the same in every locality or family, but depends on internal conventions. Some localities and families set the date for visiting graves on the 23rd of December (the day to worship the Kitchen God), but some localities choose the 15th of January or the 10th of March - the death anniversary of the National Ancestor...

However, each time of "Tomb Sweeping" has its own spiritual meaning. Tomb Sweeping on the 30th of Tet is the time when the old year ends with many troubles in life, brothers and sisters reunite to turn to their ancestors, try to persuade their grandparents to reflect on the virtues of their parents, to show their respect and vow to study hard, work, and contribute, not to disappoint the expectations of their ancestors. It can be said that the custom of tomb sweeping on the 30th of Tet is a beautiful spiritual culture that needs to be preserved and promoted.

Huu Nghia