Is there any possibility of consolation? What should it be - reading the Bible, participating in the Sacraments?
Only those who have experienced a similar tragedy and found consolation in something, for example, in reading the Bible or in the Sacraments, have the moral right to give advice to people who have lost what is most precious to them. I don’t have such experience, so I can’t say anything. Here, in my opinion, it’s not so much words that are needed, but personal participation; it’s not so much about talking as it is about listening, absorbing what you hear, and simply being close to the person. So that he can cry on your shoulder and know that you won’t say all sorts of clever things, but just cry with him.
And to advise something like this from a distance, from the outside, in my opinion, is a very dubious activity.
"Do not Cry"
“Crying, dissolved in trust in God, is useful: it consoles the soul, softens the heart, opens it to all holy, spiritual impressions” St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov).
"Cry"
A girl was lying in front of the priest. A very pretty girl, or rather, even a girl of about fourteen. She lay in a coffin in the church, and the priest was preparing to perform her funeral service. Her parents stood nearby and told stories. Accident. They said that Olya, together with her mother and twin sister, were crossing the railway tracks, and she fell behind a little. For some reason, her headphones were in her ears at that time, and the driver did not have time to brake in time... The priest listened to his mother’s words, and her pain was transmitted to him. It was as if there was a lump in his throat, and yet he still had to say a word of consolation to his parents and everyone present and sing the funeral service himself in the absence of a choir. The priest paused and began to speak...
We need to say: “Cry,” hug the person and cry with him
Why?
God, determining the moment of death of a person, makes sure that the person achieves eternal life
God takes each person from this world at the most appropriate moment for him.
Whatever God does to us, he does for our benefit.
It is impossible to understand and discover the cause of the early death of each individual person. This is a secret hidden in the depths of Divine Omniscience and inaccessible to our reason, at least in earthly life. There is no need to try to penetrate this secret: such attempts, while remaining fruitless, can lead a person who has lost his loved one to extreme sadness and even despair. It is better to try to comprehend this loss in the light of faith in God, for only the heart of a believer one day, in a quiet moment of sadness, will be able to hear the comforting message: “Don’t cry, your beloved is with Me.”
Source
Can an ordinary priest console such grief?
“Ordinary” is unlikely. But an experienced, sensitive person, capable of empathizing with the grief of others - yes, he can. There are amazing words in the New Testament: ... the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which God comforts us! (2 Cor 1:3-4). A very important idea is expressed here: it turns out that only those who have experienced grief themselves, received consolation from God and are now able to share it with other sufferers can console. If a priest has such personal experience of grief and consolation in it, then he can console others. Such a priest will find places in the Bible that will help to survive grief, and will properly prepare a person for the Sacraments.
The priesthood itself does not make a person capable of helping in such troubles. This does not come immediately and not to everyone.
Orthodox Life
And so we bring candles and flowers to the site of the tragedy, but we feel it. This is not enough. Is it possible to truly share pain with another person?
In the modern information world, we hear about someone else’s grief immediately and in detail. This could be the grief of a stranger whom you accidentally learned about from the news, or the grief of someone you know personally, but not so much that you have real emotional contact. And sometimes we want to do something, but we absolutely don’t know what.
Why does God select children? What can a person rely on in the event of such a loss?
A strange way to pose the question. Here God is likened to officials from the guardianship authorities who take children away from their parents for one reason or another, which can be considered and appealed in case of an unfair decision. But where in the Gospel do we see Christ taking children away from their parents? On the contrary, He returns to the ruler of the synagogue his daughter, taken away by death, resurrects this twelve-year-old girl, returns her dead son to the widow of Nain.
Children are not taken away by God, but by death. In the Holy Scriptures, death is directly named as the enemy of Christ: The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Cor 15-26).
To put it very briefly, death entered the world through sin, that is, through man’s free deviation from good. And when children die today, it would be naive to reproach God for their death. It is not God who kills children, but the anger of adults, their irresponsibility, disregard for their responsibilities, indifference and hard-heartedness. In some cases, God protects children from the consequences of sinful behavior of adults and averts the trouble that is already about to break out, in others - not. Why this is so - we are not given the opportunity to find out now. But it is not God who takes children from their parents. You need to know this and firmly believe in it. Because otherwise, you can deprive yourself of the last support and consolation in your grief. If God appears to a person as an enemy who takes away children, who can you complain about Him to, who will protect you from Him? This line of thinking is a sure path to madness.
Regarding the posthumous fate of dead and lost children, one of the most revered fathers of our Church, the Monk Ephraim the Syrian, writes that they are glorified by God even higher than the saints:
“Praise be to Thee, our God, from the lips of sucklings and children, who, like pure lambs in Eden, are nourished in the Kingdom! According to what was said by the Holy Spirit (Ezek. 34:14), they graze among the trees, and Archangel Gabriel is the shepherd of these flocks. Their degree is higher and more beautiful than that of virgins and saints; they are children of God, pets of the Holy Spirit. They are companions on high, friends of the sons of light, inhabitants of a pure land, far from the land of curses. On the day when they hear the voice of the Son of God, their bones rejoice and are glad, freedom, which has not yet had time to disturb their spirit, will bow its head. Their days on earth were short; but life is preserved for them in Eden; and it is most desirable for their parents to approach their abodes.”
A believer generally perceives death differently than an atheist. Where an unbeliever sees a complete and final cessation of existence, for a Christian, through faith, the light of a new life opens, much better than the earthly one. Modern theologian Alexey Ilyich Osipov writes about it this way: “Imagine, in winter, in the mountains in severe bad weather, a group of people, among whom are a mother and her son, got lost. They walk along the paths with every minute danger to their lives. It is unknown how long or how long it will take to get home. But suddenly a helicopter appears, lands and the commander says that he is flying there and there is one free seat. Won't the mother try to do everything possible to get her son taken so that he can be saved?!
This is exactly what happens in human life, when a “helicopter” takes our dear relatives and friends and delivers them home, while we are still walking, not knowing what will happen on our way, what sorrows, illnesses, tragedies, what death . Christianity claims that man on earth is a wanderer, and earthly life is only the way home, and death is only a short-term separation. Soon we will all meet again in our home. Therefore, the apostle said: we do not have a permanent city here, but we are looking for the future (Heb. 13:14). Just God grant that the meeting there with our relatives will not be overshadowed by our bad deeds, but will turn out to be joyful and happy.”
Why does God allow suffering, the death of children and terrorist attacks?
Why does God allow suffering, the death of children and terrorist attacks?
— If a person has never tried ice cream, it will be difficult for him to describe its taste.
The same applies to life in God. You can talk about it a hundred times, but all words will be empty. Thus, very often people who poorly understand the ways of life in God, who do not know the sweetness of life with God, try to explain the will of God to other people. If a child dies, they say to the unhappy mother: “The Lord wanted to take an angel for himself...”. If people die in a terrorist attack, they explain to their relatives: “The best died…”. That is, they make such a fascist out of God. But what kind of God is this who takes away what I love most?
This is not true, the Lord does not want anyone to die. And He proved it, He himself went to death. God mourns every murdered child, every victim of a disaster. He created us and took responsibility for everything that happens to man, including our fall.
When blaming God for any catastrophe or terrorist attack, we must remember that God Himself gives His life for the salvation of man.
Therefore, we, as Christians, must understand that with all the pain and absurdity of death in the world, no one can be blamed, but everyone must try to fight death within themselves.
The world will always test us as the image of God for strength - how beautiful this image is or how much it is desecrated. Remembering the words of Christ, “the dead bury their dead,” we can die without living. Because a person’s life is real only when his death is not meaningless, when he can devote it to something.
We shouldn't talk about the taste of ice cream without ever trying it, but we should try to taste it. To be with God means to have the experience of prayer, the experience of inner conversation with Him. And then only, based on this real experience, will a person be able to console other people.
And it is very important to remember that in the face of death and misfortune we all stand at the judgment of God. The person I loved died - whether it was due to his old age or an accident - I, as a Christian, understand that this person is now answerable to God for his entire life and for me as well. Which means I’m also at this trial. This is why we pray for the dead.
Why does God allow wars? Why does God allow children to die? Why does God allow terrorist attacks?
The toughest question people ask is: Why does God allow children to die? Why is there pain and suffering in the world? To talk about such issues in a Christian way, we need to know the basics of our faith. And the first, most important question in such a serious conversation is the question of the origin of evil. Where did evil come from in the world, who is responsible for it?
We have observed the presence of evil in the world from the first days of human life: small children fight for their toys, unable to speak, show jealousy, defend their primacy, and so on. The biblical answer to the question of the origin of evil lies in that catastrophe, in that fall, which we call original sin.
It is not that the first people sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. This name “forbidden fruit” is incorrect. The man was told that he could not eat from the tree, and it was explained why: because it was not time yet, because the person was not yet ready, not ripe, to taste this fruit. There was no direct prohibition, because God does not play around. If He did something impossible for man, it would simply be impossible for man. But this was the education of freedom.
Remember the fairy tale “The Little Flower of Seven Flowers” with a real ending? The girl has two petals left after all her wishes, and suddenly she remembers that behind her house lives the most handsome boy in the city, whom she loves. She rushes to him and tells him about the magic flower. He doesn’t believe it, she pulls the petal and fulfills his wish, and then says: “Now, boy, I’ll tear off the last petal - and you will love me.” And he tells her in horror: “Don’t do this, because then you will kill me. I will follow you as a shadow, and all your life you will know that I love you only by magic, and not by the truth of my heart.” And the girl tramples this flower.
This is a magnificent religious attempt to explain to man why God created us free, why He did not create us obedient, loving by definition. God doesn't need that kind of love.
But humanity could not resist this love and freedom that God gave it, it could not bear it. And each of us does not ennoble this world after the Fall, but introduces a share of our own poison into it.
The evil that accompanies us in the world is not caused by the actions of God, it exists contrary to the will of God “for all mankind to be saved and to come to the understanding of truth.”
God tests Adam several times in paradise after he fell: “Where are you Adam? Why are you hiding?". Adam transfers everything to Eve. And the Lord is trying to save Eve. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ will try to save Judas: “Will you betray Me with a kiss?” After all, God already knows in advance what Adam did and that Judas betrayed Him, but He asks: Stop, repent, change your fate, change God’s judgment. Repentance is the step where a person’s fate can change.
Adam was the first to see this increasing evil. Already in the generation of his children, sin begins to grow like a lump. Human evil, born in the free will of man, begins its destructive work in this world. And the most terrible consequence of original sin is death. It is because of her that we live our way in sadness and grief.
Therefore, when we talk about such difficult things as the death of innocent people in terrible wars, in terrorist attacks, we must understand that the source of this catastrophe, the source of this misfortune is in our human fall, in our human sin. To the question - “why does God allow the death of children, etc.?” you need to look from a different angle.
When Christ was asked about those who died under the rubble of the tower, he replied: “Do you think that these Galileans were more sinful than all the Galileans, that they suffered so much? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish the same way.”
Behind these words is not revenge, not punishment, but grief. God's sorrow for man. Every person knows about his sinfulness, and we all understand that we will exit this life only through death. And therefore, death is not just a hopeless step, but our most serious and most difficult exam that we are called to pass.
Life is our school. We are all now in a kind of waiting room. And overcoming death is a Christian victory, the crown of our life and the desire of our heart. And it is possible only because Christ achieved this victory.
And, in this sense, any suffering in this world for us is sorrow and crying because of how deeply a person is affected by sin. This is Christ's cry for His children. Christ wept in this world when it was unbearable for Him to observe what sin and death had turned man into. He cried over his friend Lazarus, because He was choked by pain at the sight of the series of illnesses and ugliness of dying that man, His beloved creation, was clothed with. That is why Christ's heart was torn.
This world is hopeless, it cannot be healed. This world will pass. But our task, even knowing that the world will perish, is to bring the light of Christ into it, enlighten it with love, fill it with Christ through ourselves and give this world a chance to be reborn into a new world.
“Come, Lord Jesus!” - this is our main Christian prayer.
Therefore, with all our sorrow, with all the catastrophe of our existence, we must remember that our most terrible and very last enemy that must be defeated is death. The Christian heart should never resign itself to death.
We should not look at our neighbors lying in a coffin and convince ourselves that this is how it should be, that this is the course of human life. This is not true, there is no such course of human life, the Lord did not prepare such ugliness. This is our catastrophe, and since we ourselves could not defeat this catastrophe, Christ defeated it at the cost of His love.
Therefore, no matter how painful it may be for us to look at our reality, we must, as Christians, being responsible for this world, try to transform it. This world will always be filled with murderers, rapists, thieves, but our task is to sort out our hearts in the society in which we live, to teach our children love and not to be afraid, not to humble ourselves before our enemy - death.
Archpriest Vitaly Shinkar
Let's start with the fact that, in fact, there is no answer to this question in any other worldview other than the Christian one. Any non-Christian answer comes down to either the statement that since this exists, it cannot be otherwise; or to the hopeless hope that, along with progress, times will come when there will be no wars or diseases and humanity will discover the secrets of a now unknown life expectancy and the development of abilities; or - and this is, perhaps, the highest to which non-Christian thought rose among the Stoics - that since a person is given only two possibilities, like a dog tied to a cart: either run after it, or, if you don’t want to run, drag after it, peeling off its sides on the stones, then everything can be explained only by fate, drawing us into the unknown.
The answer that the Gospel gives to this question comes down to one very decisive statement: yes, in the world there are diseases, cataclysms, wars that entered into it with sin, cruelty and injustice incomprehensible and incomprehensible to the human mind, but in this terrifying world for the sake of its salvation it was not an Angel, not a prophet, not a moral teacher who came, but God who became part of this world. This is the core of our faith: God has become a part of this world, completely identical to us, in order to regenerate it from the inside.
And therefore we know that there is not a baby’s tear that is not wiped away in the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no grief that will not be overcome and overcome when a person meets Christ at the end of his journey. There is nothing unjust, unjustified, unrealized that would not be made up where God will be all things in all (1 Cor. 15:28).
And this is the only true answer, because the Savior came to our world in order to share with us all this horror and all this sorrow, to transform it from the inside, and not in order to switch buttons and reconfigure the program...
prot. Maxim Kozlov
– How to talk about what happened? You can only cry and pray. All the time blaming and reproaching God - Where have you been, where have you been? - impossible. We live in a world where our every word, our every deed is reflected in this world.
Any big war begins with a quarrel in a communal apartment. But we don’t think about it, we don’t notice it.
By and large, we organize all wars and all terrorist attacks against each other ourselves - albeit small, microscopic, but terrible. When we take revenge on each other, we fight against each other, we hate each other, we do not forgive each other. These terrorist attacks exist in our lives, but we don’t notice them because they are of homeopathic size.
And we carry out such terrorist attacks every day - with an insult, a curse, a wish for someone else to die. They happen in our world all the time, they happen to us every day, and we pay attention to them and perceive them as a tragedy only when they grow to catastrophic proportions.
Archpriest Alexy Uminsky
– Crimes and misfortunes have haunted us at all times. Unfortunately, terrorist attacks and other intentional killings of people have already become commonplace and commonplace. All this is sinful and terrible, but murders are committed in large numbers every day all over the world. If we talk about massacres, we can recall Nazi Germany, the beginning of the last century in our country, and in other places around the planet.
But God is Love, and this is unchangeable. The Apostle Peter clearly answered the question “how does God allow evil?” The Lord does not hesitate, He is long-suffering, gives us time to repent and correct ourselves, and calls us to unity with Himself. The moment will come when God will intervene and destroy all evil, and this will be the end of the world. The Grace of God, Divine Love will fill everything and everyone. People who accept this with joy will attain eternal bliss. People for whom life with God is undesirable will, by this reluctance, doom themselves to eternal torment.
The Last Judgment awaits each of us, not just terrorists. Are we ready? I’ll say about myself: I’m not ready, and therefore I’m not rushing the second coming of Christ, but let everyone decide for themselves. God gives us time to repent and prepare for the end of the world, which for everyone personally will come with the end of his earthly life, and then the resurrection and the Last Judgment.
Returning to the death of people in Brussels, I will say: misfortunes happen, but we should accept the will of God with humility and patience.
You shouldn’t create psychosis for yourself in a quiet apartment by endlessly reading the news.
Yes, such events remind us that we are mortal, we can die unexpectedly on the way from or to work. Therefore, we should prepare to meet God and use the time allotted to us for good.
And one last thing. Do we pray for murderers who physically destroy other people and spiritually destroy themselves?
Archpriest Konstantin Ostrovsky
I don't want to say platitudes. A lot has been said. Everything is obvious and very scary. It’s scary because it doesn’t leave us with the feeling that we are still approaching some kind of difficult outcome. However, this feeling is not new and is no longer experienced by us as acutely as by those who saw and heard the Savior during the days of His earthly sojourn with us. From the moment of His Ascension, those who followed Him looked forward to His glorious and great return, probably more than even tomorrow. So the most mysterious and terrible book of the New Testament ends with a call to the One who will come to this world for Judgment: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus...” (Rev. 22:20.).
Apparently, there is no place left on this earth where there is no pain and suffering. Death in this world is, alas, an irreversible process. Even in the circle of loved ones, with a glass of water, with prayer and blessing, but the person will die. He will die in poverty and sorrow, lonely and embittered. And this is even worse. This can also happen on board an airliner, in a residential building, at the airport and in the subway. And the worst thing in all this is that a person, no matter how collected he is, no matter how much faith and perseverance he has, will still not be completely ready for this. It won’t, because death for a mortal person, paradoxically as it may seem, is still unnatural. He was not created for death and sorrow. But what happened cannot be reversed; it is impossible to turn on the reverse for the moment “before meeting the snake”, and there is no need to do so. Because the price for this careless consent has already been paid. She is immeasurably high. And this is the price of blood. His Blood.
This means that in all this madness and horror, it’s time to remember that every tear will be wiped away and sorrow will receive consolation. But this will not happen through joint statements or all sorts of actions and operations. And even more so, no compensation in the world can make up for the loss of a loved one.
I believe that if a person, having seen, even on a screen, in a news broadcast, someone else’s terrible misfortune, sighs with at least a drop of compassion for someone who is in distress, or has died, is homeless and is in despair, then evil will definitely stumble.
At least in his heart. There are already too many of these places, where horror and death have almost merged into the color of the eyes, in this world. And we must have compassion without thinking about whether they will sympathize with us? What is the benefit of loving only those whom we know for sure that they love us too. There have been quite a few such opinions on the Internet in recent days: “so what about the explosions, so what about Brussels, and which of them was worried about our airliners, about the attacks on our cities and schools, and who imposed sanctions?......etc.” d." With this logic, it’s not far from joy “that your neighbor’s cow died.” With the same logic, children's slides are filled with tar and they are also offered to be impregnated with sarin.
Such non-accidents and clearly inhuman calculations on them must also be taken into account. Take it into account in order to know who and why truly rejoices in pain and death, suffering and chaos. Take this into account so that you are horrified by this and do not pass by. To understand that indifference, especially conscious indifference, is the most fertile soil for a terrible and deadly emptiness in the soul, which those who do not need flesh and blood strive to occupy.
The time of Lent is given in order to learn to love. In the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian we ask for this daily together with chastity and humility. It does not indicate who specifically and for what. If there is no love, then there is no prayer, and if there is no prayer, then we do not seek the opportunity to be with Him, to breathe what His Kingdom is filled with. As it is done to “one of these little ones,” so it will be done to Him. Moreover, the words “Yes, I am coming soon” were uttered a very long time ago. And God forbid that this soon does not become painful and unexpected for someone.
Priest Andrey Mizyuk
