St. Paisios on the death of children

God arranges things correspondingly. When I hear of the death of some youth, I mourn, but I mourn as a man. Because, if we examine things more deeply, we see that, the older someone gets, the greater struggle he has, and the more sins he adds. Especially when he is wordly, as the years pass by, instead of his spiritual state improving, it gets worse with cares of life, with injustices, etc. Because of this, it is more triumphant when God takes a youth.

-Elder, why does God allow so many young people to die?

-No one has a say with God when he will die. God takes each person in the best instant of his life, in a special way, for him to give up his soul. If He sees that someone will become better, He allows him to live. If, however, He sees that he will become worse, He takes him, in order to save him. There are some further who have a sinful life, but have the attitude to do good, and He takes them near Him, before they are allowed to do it, because He knows that they would do good, if only He would give them the chance. It is as if He tells them: “Don't tire yourself; your good intentions suffice.” With others, because they are very good, He decides to take them near Him, because Paradise requires flower buds.

Naturally, it is difficult for parents and relatives to understand this. They see that a small child dies, that Christ took a little angel, and the parents cry and wail, while they should be joyful, because, do they know what would happen if he grew older? Would he have been able to have been saved? When we left Asia Minor by boat in 1924 to come to Greece, I was a baby. The boat was full of refugees, and, as my mother had me in swaddling clothes, a sailor trampled on top of me. My mother thought that I had died and began to cry. A fellow villager of ours opened the swaddling clothes, and confirmed that I had not been hurt at all. If I had died then, I surely would have gone to Paradise. Now that I am so old, and [though] I have done so much asceticism, I am not sure that I will go to Paradise.

How to pray for the dead to benefit them? Elder Charalamby of Dionysius

One hundred Jesus prayers, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, rest the soul of your servant (name),” takes no more than fifteen minutes.

And during the first forty days after death, it would be possible to read even one thousand Jesus prayers

- this is not more than an hour and a half, which is not too much for the salvation of the soul of a loved one.

Elder Charalamby of Dionysius, a disciple of the elder Joseph Hesychast, spoke about the benefits of such work.

“A prayer on a komboskini for a brother, a relative can liberate his soul from hell — prayer has that power, ”he taught his students.

Elder Charalamby himself experienced this, praying with a komboskini for his grandfather.

Priest-Martyr Daniel Sysoev. An Ideal Death vs. An Awful Death.

 Now, what kind of death is best? For a Christian, the best death is to be martyred for the sake of Christ the Savior. This is the best possible way for man to die. Some people sent condolences to Optina Hermitage after the murder of three monks ( on Pascha, 1993 ), but for a Christian, that kind of death is a very great joy. In the ancient Church, they would never send their condolences when someone somewhere was killed. All of the churches would immediately send out congratulations. Imagine, to congratulate them with having a new defender in the Heavens! A martyrs death washes away all sins except for heresy and schism. All other sins--fornication, murder, adultery--are washed away. Heresy is distortion of the teachings of the Church, a distortion not made out of ignorance, but a conscious distortion, going against the will of God. Is that not so? Schism is an organized rebellion against the Church. All other sins are washed away. Remember the martyr St. Boniface!

The Slavic language is always letting us down. Ever since the Slavs mistranslated the word "martyr", we have always misunderstood it. We should not read the word "martyr" as commonly understood ( one who has been tortured ). A martyr is a witness, a term Arabs correctly render as "shaheed." Except that the shaheed is a witness to evil, the spirit-Allah, while for us, a martyr witnesses that Christ is good, and that He conquered death. Thus, a martyr is one who by his death has borne witness that Christ conquered death, that He rose from the dead.

SPIRITUAL GEMS. St. Nikolai Velimirovich.

SPIRITUAL GEMS

St. Nikolai Velimirovich.

Adevout elder lay on his death bed. His friends gathered around him and mourned him. With that, the elder laughed three times. The monks asked him: “What are you laughing at?” The elder replied: “I laughed the first time, because all of you are afraid of death; the second time, for none of you are prepared for death; the third time, because I am going from labor to rest.”

Behold, how a righteous man dies! He is not death. He is prepared for death. He sees, that through dear he passes from the difficult life to eternal rest.

When the nature of man imagines itself in its original state in Paradise, then death is unnatural, the same way that sin is unnatural. Death emanated from sin. Repented and cleansed from sin, man does not consider death annihilation, but the gate to life eternal.

If, at times, the righteous prayed to God to prolong their earthly life, that was not because of love for this life nor because of the fear of death but solely that they would gain more time for repentance and cleansing from sin in order that they may present themselves before God, more sinless and more pure. Even if they showed fear before death, that was not out of fear of death but the fear of God’s judgment. What kind of fear then must the unrepentant sinner have before death?

A Wondrous Vision

A Wondrous Vision    

A married man who had children, servants and plenty of wealth, was very merciful and hospitable. One evening after dinner, he slept and in the morning he was found lying on the ground, cold and unconscious as if dead. His relatives carried him to his bed giving him first aid and warming him to bring him back to consciousness. After many days, he recovered and was asked by his relatives to tell them what happened to him and where he was while he was as dead for so many days. He did not respond, only crying inconsolably and without ceasing and until his death he told nobody. When he was approaching his end he called his eldest son and told him this in front of everybody.