The Passing of my brother and What I can do about it!

 

John Thomas Vivanco, With the Saints give rest, O Christ to the soul of your
servant John, where there is no pain, no suffering, no sighing but Life Everlasting. Amen

     I thought when I became a catechumen, I would be blogging all the time, given how excited I was to finally be entering into the Church and my propensity to want to share my journey online. But, I am happy to say, I am far too busy trying to “make myself Orthodox” in a Parish setting to do much blogging about it.  But something happened that I would like to talk about.  As you can guess from the picture above (and the blog post title), my brother passed away (quite unexpectedly) at the age of  60.  He was walking to work and simply collapsed -heart attack.  True, he was a big guy and had diabetes and we siblings always thought he might go first, even though he is the youngest, because of his health issues but it was still a shock to us when it happened.

     Many people can feel powerless in such a situation, that there is nothing we can do to help. In my Protestant years, I would simply have said, “Well, he is gone so there is nothing we can do.” I am happy to say, in Holy Orthodoxy,- and to be fair, in Catholicism as well -   that in our grief there IS something we can do, we can pray. And not just for the friends and family of those left behind but we can pray for the one who has passed.  One of the regrettable outcomes of the Protestant Reformation is an almost complete abandonment of Holy Tradition so that asking for the intercessions of the Saints in heaven or praying for our deceased loved ones is something just isn’t done anymore- if you’re a Protestant.  I wish all Protestants would study early Church history. It would become clear to them that their current “Stripped down” Christianity is devoid of things that were actually quite helpful to the Soul. 

     That is why I am in the process of praying “The Psalter for the Departed.” Basically, it is a reading of the entire book of Psalms, accompanied by specific prayers for the departed.  Now what usually is supposed to happen is people gather together and take turns reading through the Psalms while, I believe, in the presence of the body.  Well, that is not possible, so I have been doing that in the mornings before I go to work.  Right now, I am one third of the way through and I hope to finish before the end of the week.  This practice, besides being a benefit for my departed brother, works out as a source of comfort to me, as only the book of Psalms can be. 

From Ancient Faith Ministries, worth having

     I bought a Psalter from Ancient Faith Ministries which is arranged in the order Monks pray them in the Monastery. The Psalms are divided by Kathismata, twenty sections, each subdivided by three Stasis and specific prayers are said after each Stasis.  Below is the prayers that are used, one for males, the other females.  Also, he is a link to the Kathismata just in case you do not have a Psalter which has it divided like that already.  Liturgics - The Division of the Psalter into Kathismas - Orthodox Church in America

   

    I want to thank all of you who messaged me or commented on my Facebook post, expressing condolences regarding my brother’s passing.  Thank you for those of you who said a prayer for him.  If someone you know has recently died, why don’t you pray “The Psalter for the Departed” for them? It will not only help them but it will help you.

Christ is Risen!