When we
chant "eternal memory" ("αἰωνία ἡ
μνήμη") at the end of Memorial Services and Funerals, it is often falsely
assumed that this memory of the departed be preserved on earth not only in the
minds of loved ones, but even for many generations after. In fact, however,
this hymn is not addressed to the loved ones of the deceased, nor is it
addressed to the deceased, nor does it have any mortal purpose, but it is
addressed as a prayer to God, who is eternal, on behalf of the departed.
One day
the apostles came to Christ with joy saying: "Lord, even the demons submit
to us in Your name." Jesus replied: "Do not rejoice that the spirits
submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in the heavens"
(Lk. 10:17-20). In other words, Christ told His apostles to not rejoice over
something here on earth that bears nothing on their salvation, but to rejoice
over the fact that their names are eternally remembered in the kingdom of
heaven. Their names are written in what is commonly known in Holy Scripture as
the "Book of Life". This is best illustrated in the Parable of
Lazarus and the Rich Man. Poor Lazarus after death is found in God's kingdom,
and his name has become eternally remembered, while the miserable rich man
lingers in Hades, utterly nameless. The name of a person is their identity.
"Eternal
Memory" is equivalent to saying "may you ever be in God's
memory." The Church says this prayer so that the deceased
"continue" in God's memory. Because if God "forgets" us, if
He says "I never knew you" (Matt. 7:23), we are led into spiritual
extinction. But if He remembers us, then like the thief on the Cross who asked
Christ to remember him, we also will live eternally with Him in Paradise.
According
to the Holy Fathers, creation lives and exists spiritually only when it
participates in the deifying energies of God. Through this uncreated Grace we
continuously receive our spiritual being and the potential for development. And
this is natural, since "the divinity is being and creation is
non-being" (St. Maximus the Confessor). Therefore, creation exists and has
being because it participates in the essence-giving, life-giving, and deifying
uncreated Grace of God. As Saint Basil the Great says: "Only two things
exist, divinity and creation, the sanctifying power and the sanctified."
The
immortality of the soul after death is a given. We could say that it is natural
and therefore forced on humans. And the damned exist eternally on the basis of
the immortality of the soul, but their existence, precisely because immortality
is natural and forced, is a "death". Hell is a "place of the
dead," because participation in the deifying and life-giving uncreated
Grace of God is absent from those in it. Absent is the necessary relationship
with God and therefore the personal identity that creates this relationship.
For we must know that the relationship with God, the partaking of the deifying
energy of His Grace, is what gives substance to a person and not nature itself.
The relationship of a person with God substantiates their nature and they
become truly a person.
Many see
the salvation of the soul only in light of the fact that they won't be
tormented eternally, while salvation is in fact this relationship, this love,
our participation in uncreated Grace. The soul, because it is immortal by
nature according to the Grace of God, and not immortal by nature in and of
itself, has an existential need for existence, to be substantiated in a
relationship to a Person, to acquire a personal and eternal identity. And this
identity, as we said, is given by God within a relationship that is freely
initiated and created by people already in this life within the Church through
her Mysteries. If, therefore, we do not create this divine relationship, we
will be "deprived" of being in God's memory and "fall" into
the "I never knew you." Essentially, this is "spiritual
death."
By John Sanidopoulos
Source:
www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2015/05/what-does-it-mean-when-we-chant-eternal.html
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