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Ancestor Memorial Ceremony
Confucian ancestor veneration — the foundation of filial piety and social harmony.
📅 April 5
✦ Why It Matters
Ancestor veneration is the cornerstone of Confucian practice. Through offerings and remembrance, one fulfills xiao (filial piety) — the highest Confucian virtue connecting the living to the dead in an unbroken chain of respect.
✦ How It Is Observed
Formal ceremony at ancestral shrines, offerings of food, wine, and incense to ancestral tablets, three bows, reading of prayers, family gathering, tomb sweeping.
✦ Sacred Text
“Nowadays filial piety means providing one's parents with food. But even dogs and horses are given food. If there is no feeling of respect and love, what is the difference?”
— Analects 2:7 ↗