May You Be Remembered

On visiting Mexico several years ago, I roamed into the Orthodox Cathedral in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. After a wonderful hour and half of chanting, processions, and litanies, a table was arranged before the Iconastasis--or the Great Icon Screen--which separated the sanctuary from the rest of us. The worshipers were invited to remain with the family of a believer who had recently died. The Orthodox custom was to gather with the grieving family on the Lord’s Day for the Orthodox Christian Memorial Service. Over and over as the priest incensed the Icons of our Lord and our Lady, and a framed image of the deceased man, he chanted repeatedly throughout the service: “May you be remembered, may you be remembered, may you be remembered.” Sung in Greek, English, and Spanish, the community was embraced in this mournful, but hopeful mantra.

In a wonderful conversation with the Orthodox priest, actually a fellow North American from Brooklyn, we spoke about how Orthodox Christians viewed death and life after resurrection. He shared with me that the Orthodox theology was a bit more ambiguous about death, judgment, and eternal life than our western descriptions and belief. He explained that their view of the communion of saints was about being remembered and that was sufficient. After death we are remembered by God in his loving kindness and that the rest was left to God!

November Remembering

I have often thought of that Orthodox Memorial Service and my ecumenical conversation with the priest. Isn’t November that kind of remembering of our departed loved ones in our western thought and liturgical practice? Isn’t this how we remember our dear dead as we inscribe their names in our Book of Remembrance here at Christ the Redeemer throughout the month? Our prayer is that we remember and that God remembers. In our soulful recalling of our departed loves ones, we remember the fidelity of God in our life and commend our brothers and sisters to that covenantal loving of the Father.

This is our usual style of “remembering” which is the root of our liturgical and personal prayer. It is memory which is more than nostalgia or grief. It is

memory which is alive and vibrant in our relationship with God, which is discovered in the proclamation and embrace of God’s saving deeds in our lives.

Communion of Saints

The primary place of remembrance is at the Lord’s Eucharistic Table. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples to remember him in the breaking of the bread. Around that Table we are in communion and we are part of the Communion of Saints. We become and hope for what we remember, the Body of Christ broken, divided, and taken up in life forever.

This is what we believe about the community gathered at the Lord’s Table. We believe, as Paul tells us, that "alive or dead we are the Lord’s." By the power of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic community, we remember the past deeds of Christ, his death and rising. We know that experience in the present moment of worship, and we live in the hope that our future will be in communion with the Lord and with all the Saints.

What we celebrate at the Eucharist is that we not only receive communion, but that we are in communion with the Lord, and that we hope for blest communion with all the saints in the life to come. The Eucharist is our past, our present reality, and our blessed hope.

The Book of Remembrance allows us to publically recall and proclaim the names of our beloved dead within the liturgical Assembly. May they be remembered! The Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Sick, the Final Anointing of Extreme Unction, and the receiving of communion in Viaticum, all point to our longed-for faith and hope in death to life in Jesus Christ.

Death to Life

In the Rites of Christian Burial, the priest tells the believers that in baptism the person has died with Christ and that in death he rises with Christ to new life. Here at Christ the Redeemer we sing: “You have put on Christ, You have put on Christ. In him you have been baptized. Alleluia, alleluia!” That is our song in November and forever. May we and they be remembered!

CDH