Helping Departed Loved Ones — Our Drawing Near to God #
The death of a loved one is a time to reflect on the meaning and ideals that govern our lives. Are we doing all we can to approach the end of our own life with dignity? Do we live for God and for the good of our neighbors, or is our personal comfort more important to us? Do we regularly attend church? Do we go to confession? Do we partake of Holy Communion? Are we raising our children in the faith?
Most importantly, in memory of the departed, we should strive—even if only a little—to change our lives for the better: to become kinder, more patient, more attentive to those in need and to the sorrows of others. If the memory of our departed loved ones leads us to become better people, this is more precious to God than candles or a hundred words.
The lives of the saints contain many accounts where private prayer by loved ones delivered sinful souls from torment after death. But in all these cases, the prayer was united with spiritual labor, with self-sacrifice, with fasting, vigil, and almsgiving. A special grace was granted to the prayers of those who labored in all these virtues—desert fathers such as Macarius the Great, Paisius the Great, Paul the Simple, Andrew the Fool-for-Christ, and others.
Among Christians, it became customary to pray for the deliverance of the unrepentant dead especially through St. Paisius the Great and the martyr Uar. Their lives contain remarkable examples of true prayer to God. Saint Paisius, who labored in monastic asceticism throughout his life, asked for no reward for his efforts—only that the soul of a young sinner might be spared punishment. And the Lord mercifully received the vigils and tears of His servant, appearing to him and saying: “O My faithful one, this is good—that in love resembling Mine, thou carest for sinners, even willing to suffer torment for their deliverance.”
It sometimes happens that a person departs this life bearing a grudge, having not forgiven someone, or not having received forgiveness from someone he wronged. The relatives of the deceased must do all they can to eliminate the consequences of such enmity: to reconcile with those who were offended, to forgive those who caused offense, and to humble themselves before all enemies.
It is known how Emperor Theodosius the Younger tearfully begged forgiveness at the tomb of St. John Chrysostom—not for himself, but for his mother, Empress Eudoxia, who had unjustly exiled the holy bishop. In the 4th century, during a pagan uprising in the Syrian city of Apamea, the bishop Marcellus was murdered. Yet his relatives, for Christ’s sake, forgave the killers and persuaded the judges not to sentence them to death.
The importance of forgiving one’s enemies is also reflected in a canon from the Nomocanon, traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul himself: if two people are in enmity with one another and one of them dies, the surviving party is to be barred from receiving the Holy Mysteries for one year. As a penance, he must go to the grave of the deceased for forty days, saying: “Forgive me, brother, and may God forgive you.”