A word of comfort

 

We may doubt anything: whether tomorrow will be cloudy or clear, whether we will be healthy or sick, whether we will be rich or poor, but one thing is certain: we will all sooner or later stand before God. Dying is "the way of all the earth." But knowing this, we still experience grief when we lose loved ones. And this, by human nature, is understandable. After all, even when we are simply parting from loved ones for a while, we grieve, mourn, and shed tears, and even more so when the final farewell of our earthly life awaits.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He came to the home of His deceased friend Lazarus, was overcome with sorrow and wept, so much did He love him. But believers have a great consolation that helps them cope with the death of loved ones: prayer for their departed. And this prayer, like a thread, connects us with the world of those who have already departed.

Everyone who loses a loved one asks themselves, "What more can I do for my loved one?" Indeed, when our loved ones fall ill, we rush to their aid, going to the hospital, buying groceries and medicine; if they are in some other distress, we also help as best we can. This compassion expresses our love and sympathy for them. But the deceased person needs our care no less, and perhaps even more.

A person doesn't disappear as a person with brain death or cardiac arrest. Besides the body (a temporary shell), they possess an eternal, immortal soul. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). And it is the soul that constitutes the essence of a person. And we love (if we truly love) a loved one not for the beauty of their body or physical strength, but for the qualities of their soul. Intelligence, kindness, character, love—all these are qualities of our loved one's soul, what constitutes their image.

The body is a person's clothing; it ages, gets sick, changes, and undergoes irreversible processes. Sometimes, looking at the remains lying in the coffin, we can't even recognize a familiar face—the deceased has changed so much. But the soul is ageless; it is immortal. It's not for nothing that they say, "He is young at heart," even though the person is well over 60. Since our loved one is immortal, they need our help and support even beyond this earthly life. So, what do they expect from us, and how can we help them?

Of course, nothing earthly interests the deceased. They have no need of expensive tombstones, lavish funeral ceremonies, and so on. They need only one thing: our fervent prayer for the repose of their souls and the forgiveness of their sins, voluntary and involuntary. The deceased can no longer pray for themselves. Saint Theophan the Recluse says that the deceased need prayers "like a poor person needs a piece of bread and a cup of water."

We must pray, repent of our sins, and partake of the Church's sacraments in our earthly life. This life is given to us as preparation for eternity. When a person dies, the outcome of their life is already summed up; they cannot change it for the better. The deceased can only count on the prayers of the Church and those who knew and loved them in life. And through the prayers of relatives and friends, the Lord can change the fate of the deceased. Countless examples from Church Tradition and the lives of saints testify to this.

The ancient life of Saint Gregory the Dialogist describes a remarkable incident. The saint had the courage to pray for the repose of the cruel persecutor of Christianity, Emperor Trajan. Trajan not only persecuted Christians (for he knew not what he was doing), but was also a just and merciful ruler, deeply concerned for his poor subjects. Saint Gregory learned that the emperor had defended a widow in distress and took upon himself the task of praying for him. God revealed to him that his prayer had been accepted. This example (and many others) is a great consolation and inspires us in our prayers for the departed.

Even if the deceased was far from the Church, they can find relief through the fervent, tearful prayers of their loved ones.
Another very important point: if the person who has left us did not live a churchly life, or we know that their life was far from God's commandments, loving relatives should be especially attentive to their own souls. We are all interconnected with our loved ones, like parts of a single organism: "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it" (1 Cor. 12:26). If one organ is inactive, other senses become heightened, and other organs take on the additional burden and functions of the deceased.

And if our loved one has failed to achieve something in their spiritual life, we must make up for it for them. By doing so, we will save our own souls and bring great benefit to theirs. There's a war song about a fallen pilot whose comrade says that he lives on earth "for himself and for that other guy." And our life for others, in memory of someone, can be expressed in our fervent prayer, in the acquisition of Christian virtues, in generous almsgiving for the deceased's memory.

It often happens that people who rarely attended church, living a carefree, worldly life, come to the Church after losing a loved one and become true Orthodox Christians. Their lives are completely transformed; through grief, they come to God. And, of course, they spend their entire lives praying for their departed relatives. God works in mysterious ways.

But sometimes, with the death of loved ones, people far removed from faith often fall into despair, despondency, and a profound melancholy. That's it, life is over; if my loved one is no longer here, they cease to exist, life no longer has meaning. This isn't to say that believers don't grieve the death of loved ones, but they approach death very differently. Christian grief is radiant; we know that a person lives forever, that death is only a separation, that life continues, but in a different form.

We know that we are connected to the deceased by bonds of prayer and love. We cannot say, "He was—and now he is no more." If we loved our neighbor in life, we continue to love him after death. "Love never fails," says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 13:8). When I have lost loved ones, I always felt a sense of separation, not of ending. As if they had gone somewhere far away, but not forever, not forever.

Excessive grief is also unacceptable because it not only destroys our own souls (despondency is one of the eight deadly sins), but also prevents us from praying for the departed. A despondent soul creates a void, a vacuum; they can do nothing at all, much less pray. Yet our loved ones so desperately need our help! And with despondency, depression, and melancholy, we not only fail to help them, but may even bring suffering. For the sake of our loved ones, we must pull ourselves together, find as much peace as possible, and devote all our energy to prayer. Especially before the 40th day, the deceased needs fervent prayer.

The human soul, leaving the body, experiences anxiety and fear: accustomed to dwelling in its home for many years, it does not know what awaits it, where the Lord will place it. After death, a person answers for their entire life, and here their future destiny is determined. And it is very important to support the soul of a loved one by commemorating them at the Divine Liturgy, reading the Psalter, and observing the cell rule.

Very often, relatives of the deceased believe that if they don't show their grief to others, everyone will assume they didn't love the deceased, and sometimes one can witness a truly heartbreaking spectacle of hysteria, wailing, and howling over the deceased. This is especially common in villages where the tradition of special mourners still exists. People work themselves into a complete frenzy. What prayer is there to speak of?! True grief and sorrow, as a rule, pass quietly and almost unnoticed by others. It happens that people who mourn and weep excessively over the deceased are actually feeling more sorry for themselves: how poor, unhappy, and lonely they now are.

All these traditions are a legacy of pagan rituals and are, of course, incompatible with Orthodoxy. We, Orthodox Christians, must temper our sorrow with Christian hope that if we seek salvation ourselves and save our loved ones through our prayers, then, we dare to believe, we will meet them there, in the next life. And if they reach the Kingdom of Heaven, they will surely pray for us there.

Priest Pavel Gumerov