Commemorating the memory of those reposed in Christ is our resistance to fall prey to the contingencies of time which make us forget our departed ones gradually dis-membering them from our flock. Therefore, celebrating the memory of those fallen asleep in Christ is to re-member them into our assembly. As the adage goes; “The past does not disappear, it exists, as long as we remember it. As long as we remember each other.” In fact, the departed summon us to do so. In the Fourth Service of the Funeral Liturgy of Women we hear the plea of the departed;
“Pray for me, my beloved and remember me always, for death takes me from this life and my sins make me afraid. By your prayers may I be saved from the great outer darkness.”
The Church is the communion of saints (Heb 12:1) both the living and the dead. Sainthood is not an esoteric calling reserved for a few rather the vocation of each Christian. This is why St. Paul addresses the audience of his epistles unequivocally as saints (Rom 1:7; Eph 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2). Notice how the fifth diptych of our Holy Eucharist qualifies the saints – “Our Fathers who have been clothed with God.” All of us by virtue of our Holy Baptism have been clothed with God. The concluding prayer of the Liturgy of Holy Baptism remarks;
“May God the Father be with you, and the adorable Son guard you, and the Holy Spirit whom you have been clothed with, perfect you and deliver you from all harm.”
However, we seem to have forgotten who we are and thus the particular canonized saints remind us of our true identity; the fact that we are existentially sinners but essentially sinless as we constitute the body of Christ.
One of the etymological trails of the Syriac word employed for prayer (ܨܠܽܘܬܳܐ slootho) leads to the word inclination. This indicates that prayer is basically an inclination towards God; a yearning of the prototype (us) for the archetype (Christ). Therefore, when we pray to the saints we are more specifically praying with them (ܐܰܦܺܝܣܘ ܥܰܡܰܢ ܩܰܕܺܝܫܶܐ – pray with us saints). We incline towards the saints and beseech them to lead us in our prayers for “the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (Jas 5:16; Job 42:8). Owing to our own unrighteousness we take refuge and confidence in their righteousness requesting them to spearhead our supplications before God for they are the “friends of God” (Jas. 2:23; John 15:15; Ex 33:11; Eph 2:19). The Qolo of Friday Compline (Sh’himo) allegorically expresses this;
“If a slave offends his master, he takes refuge in his master’s friend; By that friend’s pleading, the master forgives the slave of his offences.”
We who fight against the “cosmic powers of darkness and the spiritual forces of evil” (Eph. 6: 12) on earth belong to the Church Militant while the saints who have “fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7) belong to the Church Triumphant in heaven. Therefore, the intercession of saints then becomes a conversation between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. As the Book of Revelation records;
“Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.” (Rev. 8:3-4)
“When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Rev 5:8)
Saints reveal to us the scope and extent of our potentiality. In them we discover our former garment of glory which we traded for this decomposable garment of skin. As St. Ephrem notes;
“Among the saints none is naked, for they have put on glory; nor is any clad in those leaves or standing in shame, for they have found, through our Lord, the robe that belongs to Adam and Eve.” (Hymns on Paradise 6.9)
Life continues beyond the grave. Death is just the cessation of our corporeal existence. As Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” (John 11:25). Christians call their burial places cemetery. Cemetery comes from the Greek word κοιμητήριον – koimeterion, from the verb κοιμάω koimao, meaning “to put to sleep”. Therefore, cemeteries are sleeping places. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh states; “A cemetery is not a place where corpses are laid but a place where the Resurrection awaits.”
Christ through His Cross has trampled death by death and thus we no longer fear death. The icon of Anastasis depicts Christ descending to Sheol and raising Adam and Eve out of their tombs. Thus St. Athanasius proclaims;
“Now that the Saviour has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ.” (On the Incarnation 5.27)
May I conclude with the words of the great Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov who critiques the afterlife paralysis which propagates that death represents the end of the time of deeds and the beginning of the time of retribution;
“The disincarnation in death does not suppress the activity of the spirit. This is clear from the fact that saints participate with their prayers in the life of the world and in human history…The boundary between paradise and hell is by no means absolute, for it can be overcome by the prayers of the Church.”
Thus the intercession of the saints of the Church is powerful to intrude the seemingly impregnable thresholds.
~ Dayroyo Fr. Basil
Urho, The Way 