Does anyone have any thoughts about honoring ones Christian ancestors at an ancestor altar? I'm new to ancestor reverence and as I've been contemplating how I might want to go about it, I've realized that some of my ancestors would have been horrified by the idea of paganism when they were living. Would it in fact be an honor to these relatives to remember them within a context that they would have found upsetting were they still alive?

And on an unrelated note, should community members tag their own entries if they fit into one of the tag categories for the community?

Hi all,
I'm curious about the practice of ancestor worship (or honouring or however you want to phrase it) within the recon path. From the little I've read on the subject there seems to be an idea that ancestor worship was practices by the pre-Christian Celtic peoples.
Would this be true or false? Does anyone here work ancestors into their practice or beliefs? If so how?

I'm tossing around an idea for a paper at a conference on the place of ancestors in religious worship.

There are many people who follow neo-pagan or heathen paths and place some level of emphasis on respect of ancestors. Are you one of them?

If so would you use the phrase "ancestor worship"?

How does acknowledgement of your ancestors fit in to your religious practices?

I have heard people talk about honouring the religion of their ancestors. How do you square this with the fact that the majority of us probably had ancestors that followed a Christian faith. Or do you take ancestors to refer to ancient peoples and not our grandparents or great-grandparents for example?

i am curious as to how the celts dealt with ancestor worship with someone who as adopted.

i do ancestor work at home. i am unable to have children. i'm curious about the celtic recon perspective on how the ancestors were view in relation to an adopted child.

I thought that as many others here knew her, I'd note this here.

This Samain I remember
Francine Nicholson who passed into the Underworld last An Fhéill Bhrìde. I was privileged to have known her, to have been able to discuss and argue with her, to have shared ritual with her. Her scholarship will be greatly missed by the CR community, her input has already been missed by many of us. I have heard her honored with what is perhaps the best thing CRs can say about each other "I didn't always agree with her, but she could back what she said." She never backed down from a fight and we had our own disagreements about things, but she did always have a good fight to give.
When we started Tuath nan Sgàthan she came to our meetings and rituals, although she never joined, having decided to avoid belonging to a group at that time (something I understand better now). At our first Samain ritual she acted as our Outside Champion, which seemed to be a fun role for her...for all that one of our members nearly lit her on fire by putting too much lighter fluid on the spear (another thing I guess I should have done myself...what I get for delegating). I understand that she expressed suspicion regarding mystical experiences, yet she sat me down and let me know that a particular God wanted and EXPECTED my attention and that I better give it to Him, NOW....and He isn't even a Gaelic God! And she was right. I found her to be well balanced between the academic and the experiential, although I think she was just more comfortable arguing the former. I may be wrong. We fell out of touch several years ago, only passing occasional emails after that. Both of us in ill health, her health now having caught up with her. When I last heard from her she was doing better than she had been, nearly blind, but feeling better. That was just over a year ago now. My hearing of her death was rather brutal, I did a lot of searching before I believed it...I contacted people she did online work with only to find out they didn't know either...more brutal tellings.
This New Year I shall remember her...I hope she visits, she hasn't yet but I think she'll wait until we do ritual. I hope she isn't disappointed when she finds that there are no flaming spears what with just two of us doing it. I don't know, maybe we should do a flaming spear...I think she'd like it.