By Fr. George Dorbarakis
It is well known that, for our Church, although every Saturday is dedicated to the holy martyrs and to her departed faithful, there are two principal Soul Saturdays: the one on the eve of Meatfare Sunday and the one on the eve of Holy Pentecost. For this reason, on both of these days we hear the Synaxarion note: “On this same day, the most divine Fathers decreed that remembrance be made of all who from the ages have fallen asleep in piety, in the hope of the resurrection unto eternal life.”
For the Church, the departed do not constitute a part of the world that has “ended and passed away” — as many believe, those who have confined their existence within the suffocating boundaries of this present world because they have erased God and Christ from their lives. The departed are an organic part of the Church, that is, a part of the Body of Christ, because death is not the gate leading to nonexistence, but the gate opening into the embrace of Christ. Just as we faithful live within that embrace in this present world, so too — and even more so — at the hour of our death and thereafter. The Apostle Paul tells us this directly, basing his words upon the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself: “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” In other words, whether we remain in this life or depart from it, we belong to the Lord.
And this is only natural. The Lord, as Pantocrator, as Creator, Provider, and Governor of the entire universe, as the One “from Whom and through Whom and unto Whom all things were created,” grants us the ability to live here in this world as embodied souls, and after death as souls. Even more so, after His Second Coming, when He will raise our bodies and reunite them with our souls, we shall live in our entirety within His presence, either positively (Paradise) or, tragically, negatively (Hell). If life exists at all — as indeed it does — this is because of its Source, Who is God Himself. “For with You is the fountain of life.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The Lord is the God of both the living and the departed.
It is these departed, especially those who have fallen asleep in the faith, whom we remember on Saturdays and especially on the Soul Saturdays, such as today. On the one hand, we pray for their repose in the Lord — for as human beings they may not have completed their repentance. On the other hand, we ourselves who are still living in this world are challenged to deepen our repentance, to realize in view of the boundary of death that true life is the life that possesses an eternal character and not the life that merely feeds our passions, especially our egoism and all its offshoots. We are called to direct our hearts and minds toward the Lord’s commandment: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things” — all the necessities of life — “shall be added unto you.”
And we must emphasize that these two things — prayer for the departed and the challenge to genuine repentance — are not merely two separate activities, as if we do one and then happen to do the other as well. Rather, the one is the prerequisite for the other. To repent means to change one’s mind, to change one’s way of seeing reality, to change one’s life — to turn back toward God by remaining within His holy will, which is love. And this means that, in proportion to our repentance, we begin to love both God and our neighbor correctly — our neighbor not only wherever he may be on earth, but also in whatever period of history he may have lived.
Let us not forget that according to our faith the Christian is an “imitation of Christ,” having been created according to His image. Therefore the mind of Christ, which embraced within itself all humanity across every place and every age, is also the measure for every Christian. Consequently, the repentant Christian embraces every fellow human being, in every place and every age, within his own existence, regarding that person as an organic part of himself. Thus prayer for the departed is not merely a desirable spiritual practice but an established reality of his consciousness, a duty without which he almost falls away from his faith. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Thus our Church, taking as its starting point the boundary of death, calls us to repentance, to the boundless experience of life in the Lord, to true life according to the commandments of God. For unfortunately it is very easy in this fallen world to stray from the Way of Christ and become attached to our passions, drawn by the seductive worship of the flesh that characterizes the world. One of the many hymns offered to us by the Church is especially striking in its call to cast off the deception of the senses and open our eyes to the true reality of God:
“All who are attached to this life, come, stand in awe before the tombs; bend down and behold the deception of the world. Where now is bodily beauty? Where is the glory of wealth? Where is the pride of life? Truly, all things are vanity. Therefore let us cry out to the Savior: Grant rest, in Your great mercy, to those whom You have taken from these temporary things.”
The hymn speaks about all of us who have not yet reached the spiritual condition of true sons of God — that is, being attached to the Lord through love for Him. Often, perhaps even constantly, attached instead to the cares of life and captivated by our passions, we forget what is most essential for our salvation: eternal life as a living relationship with God. Then our encounter with the tombs, especially on a day such as this, reminds us that whatever we do and pursue in this life, if it is not illumined by Christ, is vanity — beauty, wealth, positions, honors, all of it.
How often we ought to remember the words of Scripture, already proclaimed in the Old Testament: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” And again: “Remember your last end, and you will never sin.” If the love of God does not move us, then at least let the fear of death move us. It may not be the highest motive, but it can nevertheless become a saving one.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
