All Souls Saturday
This Saturday, March 19th, is the third All-Souls Saturday, where we commemorate the dead. Dokimos Olivia's currently reading a book about the Great Fast that talks about All Soul Saturday and was struck by this passage:"Praying for the dead is an essential expression of the Church as love. We ask God to remember those whom we remember, and we remember them because we love them. Praying for them we meet them in Christ who is love and who, because He is Love, overcomes death which is the ultimate victory of separation and lovelessness. In Christ there is no difference between living and dead because all are alive in Him. He is the Life and that Life is the light of man. Loving Christ, we love all those who are in Him; loving those who are in Him, we love Christ: this is the law of the Church and the obvious rationale for her prayer for the dead...The great Vigil for the Dead of Meat-Fare Saturday serves as a pattern for all other commemorations of the departed and it is repeated on the second, third, and fourth Saturdays of Lent."
-Great Lent: A Journey to Pascha by: Alexander Schmemann
This Saturday let us remember to pray for those who have gone before us out of love for them and out of love for God.
In love we sing,
"Eternal memory, eternal memory, blessed rest, eternal memory."