| As we prepare for the celebration of Holy Pentecost next Sunday, we pause first to remember those of our family, relatives, friends and perfect strangers who have, as Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) said “gone before us marked with the sign of faith.”
The coming Saturday of Souls seems oddly placed in the Church’s liturgical calendar. How does it connect with Pentecost? How does the coming of the Holy Spirit in power and fire relate to commemorating the departed souls? The association can be summed up in a single word: remembrance (?ν?μνησις). At the heart of the Christian faith, particularly at the center of the Divine Liturgy and other services, is memory – the calling to mind and action of Salvation History as God directed it in His wisdom.
Addressing the World Council of Churches in 2000, Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana (Albania) noted: “Thousands of people from every nation and cultural tradition, representing hundreds of Christian communities and millions of people from throughout the world, are gathered at this place. The common link that binds all of us here: a series of remembrances of extraordinary events. But mainly, a specific remembrance, an anamnesis which is the main root of all the others.”
The type of memory we refer to in the term ?ν?μνησις (remembrance), is not simply an intellectual recalling of past historic events, like, “I remember the year I got my first car.” The kind of remembering at the heart of the Church, actually makes present, in a wonder-filled and mystical way, the event remembered. When the Lord Jesus, at table with his Apostles the night before He died, said “Do this in memory of me!” — He was not directing them to just think of “the good old days“ when He walked among them. Remembrance is not nostalgia. Rather, He was commanding them to continue the Eucharistic sacrifice at which He Himself is wonderfully present as High Priest. He is the celebrant. He makes present His holy body and blood. He offers Himself as the Bread of Angels and the Cup of Eternal Salvation. Remembrance, in its theological and spiritual sense, makes present the remembered.
Remembrance in the Church is much deeper than a mere recollection of history or recitation of scripture. There is something very profound in what we do. Something below the surface. Something lasting. Something mysterious. Something eternal. What that it is difficult to explain or to pinpoint within the limits of human reason. It is a subject best understood by the ascetics and mystics for whom time takes on a different character from our normal thinking.
The German mystic of the Middle Ages, Meister Eckhardt, wrote: “The Now in which God created the first man and the Now in which the last man will disappear and the Now in which I am speaking — all are the same in God and there is only one Now.” This is “remembering time”, it is the essence of ?ν?μνησις (remembering).
The present moment contains all moments, past, present, and future. That is why in the Divine Liturgy we pray as if the Second and Glorious Coming has already occurred. In fact, we give thanks that it has! Now that is a mystery indeed! We are remembering and experiencing the whole of Christ’s work at the time.
There is only one moment and it is eternal. When we recently celebrated Holy Pascha and the Ascension of the Lord, those two holy events occurred now. There is only one present moment, full, complete, pregnant with the Holy Spirit, the life and energy that moves and connects all things. And we are all in it, everyone of us, for there is literally no place else to be.
Protopresbyter John Behr, former Dean of St. Vladimir’s School of Theology, expressed it this way: “When Jesus tells us that he will never leave us nor forsake us, this promise is not bound by time or space at all, it overflows time and space itself. Eternity is not a place where time continues to flow forever and ever, but a place where time is no more and not really a place, but rather a Way and a state of Being.”
This returns us to the coming Saturday of Souls, indeed to prayer for the departed in general, and its relationship to Holy Pentecost. When we pray such things as “May his/her memory be eternal,” and “Rememberhim/her, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.” – we are remembering our departed loved ones in the fullest spiritual sense. It is the Holy Spirit who makes them present with and in us. As the monk and spiritual writer, Lev Gillet, wrote: “They transcend the bonds of history and are not held captive by space or time. Thanks to the work of God the Holy Spirit and Comforter, they are the Heaven-dwellers who live in a Kingdom that is here already but yet is still to come.”
The very image of God as fire and light, it is the Holy Spirit who fills all things and is the Treasury of blessings Who holds our departed loved ones close and brings them the rest of the Angels and the promise of the Resurrection on the last day. That blessed Kingdom has no time. Indeed, in the Liturgy we read the prayer “We give thanks that you have granted us your kingdom which is to come.” Present and coming, coming and present, for there is only one Now and it is eternal. That is the life our departed loved ones, and all who tried to live a Godly life, now enjoy. We prepare to celebrate the coming of the Spirit of God, knowing that our departed loved ones are “at His side” and alive in the present of our hearts.
As we remember them this coming Saturday, let us take from their lives all the goodness and godliness that they lived. Let us beseech the Lord for mercy on them for their sins and transgressions. Let us ask the Holy Spirit of God, who dwells with the Creator-Father and the Word-Made-Flesh, that they continue to be given rest and the blessed hope that they, Like their Master and Lord, will rise in glory. To this end
Let us make own, the fervent prayer of the Hieroschemamonk Feofil the Fool for Christ (19the cent.) as we continue to advance to the Kingdom of the Blessed, living a Christ-like life with hope in our hearts:
“If you are praised, be silent. If you are scolded, be silent. If you incur losses, be silent. If you receive profit, be silent. If you are satiated, be silent. If you are hungry, also be silent. And do not be afraid that there will be no fruit when our life ends; there will be! Not everything will end. Energy will appear, and O, what an energy it will be!”
May the departed souls find eternal rest in the dwelling place of God, and may each of you come to feel the warmth and brightness of the Holy Spirit today, and all the days of your lives!
Faithfully in the Ascended Lord,
Fr. Dimitrios |
