GARLINGTON: Tragedy On I-55; Memento Mori

Living in the hurly-burly of a fallen world, it is easy for us to lose our focus on what is most important.  Very easy.

Inevitably, though, something will befall us to shake us out of our day-dreaming.  We got one of those events on Monday morning, 23 October, in Louisiana, as a vehicle pileup in dense fog along I-55 in St. John the Baptist Parish killed at least seven people and wounded more than two dozen others, according to La. State Police.  At least 158 vehicles were involved.

At times like this, all the illusions and distractions that have occupied our attention get stripped away, and we are left looking at reality in all its cold nakedness.  And because of our heedlessness, this stripping away, this mini-apocalypse, is quite painful and disconcerting.

What can we as Louisianans do in the wake of such a tragedy to heal the wounds of our souls and to re-orient ourselves in the proper direction?

One of the primary things is to remember the ultimate importance of the Resurrection of Christ.  A Patriarch of the Orthodox Christians in Serbia, Bishop Pavle, a holy man of our time (reposed in 2009), says in an Easter sermon,

If there is no Resurrection, then man is the most lamentable creature “in all the worlds,” a slave of “nature,” an object with which nature plays by deceiving him with a little life, just so in the end she can show him to be utterly nothing.  If Christ is not risen and has not conquered death, then there is no life—there remains only absurdity and an unsatisfied hunger for life and love.

. . . Faith in the Resurrection, and the experience of the beauty and joy of life that accompanies this faith, is the most radiant jewel of the human spirit, the priceless treasure deposited in the hidden places of human life.  It shines forth with divine power, giving man the strength to constantly love anew and to create for eternity.  To deprive man of this treasure would mean to abandon him to senselessness and the darkness of nothingness.  To leave a person without faith in the Resurrection is equivalent to murder, for it means to render him meaningless, and thereby dehumanize him (‘A Paschal Sermon Given by Patriarch Pavle of Blessed Memory in the Year 2002,’ The Orthodox Word, No. 269, Nov.-Dec. 2009, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, Cal., pgs. 282, 283).

However, many in the younger generations seem to think that Christianity is moribund and old hat, that it is time to move on to other religions and techniques that offer different, more exciting spiritual experiences:  transcendental meditation, psychedelic drugs, etc.  Patriarch Pavle answers this as well in his Easter sermon:

The Resurrection of Christ is “the only thing new under the sun” because it has broken the monotony of the endless cycle of birth and death.  This is why everything in the Church breathes the youthfulness of Christ’s life.  Sprinkled with His grace, the Church has always been kept fresh and new by the Holy Spirit through every epoch and turn of history.  . . .  And in sanctifying and renewing everything in every age, it is always contemporary and always young.  The youthfulness of the Church, the “Bride of Christ,” is found in the fact that it is the eternal Spring of the Spirit, the eternal budding forth of new Life (Ibid., p. 284).

When we have drawn close once again to the Source of Life and Resurrection, to radiant and healing Love – that is, to Christ in His Church – we will be able to do a second thing to heal the scars of this calamity:  pray.  Prayers for those who suffered harm and survived, and prayers for the departed who left this life suddenly, without time to properly prepare for death:

It is natural to be concerned about the souls of our departed loved ones. It is natural to want to pray for them. This is a universal human reaction. Only by forcing ourselves can we stifle the urge to ask God for the care and salvation of those we love the most. It is human to pray for the departed. It is inhuman not to.  . . .

. . . prayers for the dead are important for the living. We feel closer to our departed loved ones when we pray to God for them. The memorials in Church make us feel loved and supported by our community as we endure our grief. Praying for the dead helps us meditate on this life, its meaning, and most importantly, its end. The prayers for the dead, and their prayers for us, emphasize the union of the Faithful across even the chasm of death. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

The author of these words then quotes the ever-memorable St. John Maximovitch of San Francisco (+1966) on the importance of prayer for the departed:

Advertisement

We can do nothing better or greater for the dead than to pray for them, offering commemoration for them at the Liturgy, of this they are always in need, and especially during those forty days when the soul of the deceased is proceeding on its path to the eternal habitations. The body feels nothing then: it does not see its close ones who have assembled, does not smell the fragrance of the flowers, does not hear the funeral orations. But the soul senses the prayers offered for it and is grateful to those who make them and is spiritually close to them.

Therefore, panikhidas (memorial services for the dead) and prayer at home for the dead are beneficial for them, as  are good deeds done in their memory, such as alms or contributions to the Church. But especially beneficial for them is commemoration at the Divine Liturgy. There have been many appearances of the dead and other occurrences which confirm how beneficial the commemoration of the dead is. Many who died in repentance, but who were unable to manifest this while they were alive, have been freed from tortures and have obtained repose. In the Church, prayers are continually offered for the repose of the dead, and on the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, in the kneeling prayers at vespers, there is even a special petition “for those in hell.” Let us take care for those who have departed into the other world before us, in order to do for them all that we can, remembering that “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Louisianans have been rather ebullient after the recent elections, but perhaps the Lord is trying to remind us, through this deadly accident, that we ought not to put too much emphasis on worldly endeavors – politics, the economy, etc.  Patriarch Pavle says as much in his Easter sermon:

This particularly needs to be understood by those who have been entrusted with the honorable and responsible duty of governing the people.  They need to understand that the welfare of a society requires more than meeting the material needs of its members and enjoying relative social peace.  Man needs something which will fill his life with meaning and motivate him to accomplish things of enduring value, both spiritual and cultural.  Faith in the Resurrection, more than anything else, illumines human life with meaning—not as some kind of “opium of the people,” given to sedate people and anesthetize them to the pain of mortal life, but rather as the living experience of love, in which we come to know that those whom we love in Christ will live forever (‘Paschal Sermon,’ p. 282).

Will any of Louisiana’s government officials accept Patriarch Pavle’s challenge and speak of Christ’s Bright Resurrection during this heartbreaking time?

Louisiana is well known for her joie de vivre, her enjoyment of living.  But death comes for every man.  We have now had a stark reminder of this.  The Forerunner, in whose parish this tragedy occurred, warned us it was so ages ago:  ‘The axe is already laid at the root of the trees,’ he tells us in St. Luke’s Gospel (3:9).

But there is always mercy with the Lord.  This same St. John the Baptist who warned us sinners of the suddenness of death, after he was beheaded also shared the good news of Christ’s Incarnation with all those in Hades:  ‘The glorious beheading of the Forerunner, / became an act of divine dispensation, / for he preached to those in hell the coming of the Savior’ (from a hymn of the Orthodox Church).  Thus did a heinous crime beget the joyful preaching of the Gospel to the souls held captive in the nether regions.

May it be so with us in Louisiana.  May the deaths and injuries and the bewilderment and grief of Monday, Oct. 23rd, be for us an opportunity to more firmly ground ourselves in the all-important Resurrection of the God-man and to devote ourselves more fully to prayer for those in need here on the earth and for the souls of our departed brothers and sisters.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Interested in more news from Louisiana? We've got you covered! See More Louisiana News
Previous Article
Next Article

Trending on The Hayride