Tradição compartilhada no limiar entre a vida e a morte

a Trezena de Santo Antônio e seu ritual festivo

Abstract

Death has followed limitations that often
breaks with the rituals that have, historically,
marked an event like that in our Brazilian
society. Starting from what was investigated
in a doctoral research, the present article
brings part of the thesis named "The
experience, the metropolis and the old
people", focusing on a discussion concerning
the existence of a religious tradition, shared
in one of the participant’s family trajectory.
The perpetuation of the “Trezena de Santo
Antônio” (praying for a saint for 13 days)
family tradition, in the participant’s family,
happens in response to a request made by
her sister, who was in the threshold of life
and death, and takes up directions that also
contemplate the festivity. As part of the rites
of the “Trezena” we find the preparation of
typical regional cookies, whose narrative
refers to the flavors that deceive death and
present the loved ones who are absent. Such
reflection is based on the dialogue with Walter
Benjamin’s work of taking the counseling
practice as one of the experience dimensions.