Ordination of Archdeacon Moses

On Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 26, 2009, at St. Mau­rice Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion ordained the blessed ser­vant, Paul Saman, as an Archdea­con for the Dio­cese of Los Ange­les to con­tinue his ser­vice at St. Demi­ana Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in San Diego.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Divine Liturgy were the rev­erend Hegu­men Fr. Mina Wahba Youssef, Hegu­men Fr. Michael Gabriel, Fr. Shenouda Ghat­tas, Fr. John Paul Abdel­sayed, Fr. David Abdel­sayed, and Fr. Daniel Habib.

Also, prior to the Divine Liturgy, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion bap­tized Samuel Athana­sius, son of the newly ordained Archdea­con Moses and Carol.

May Our Lord grant Archdea­con Moses and his fam­ily a blessed ser­vice for the Glory of His Name.

Ordination of Archdeacon Moses

On Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 26, 2009, at St. Mau­rice Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion ordained the blessed ser­vant, Paul Saman, as an Archdea­con for the Dio­cese of Los Ange­les to con­tinue his ser­vice at St. Demi­ana Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in San Diego.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Divine Liturgy were the rev­erend Hegu­men Fr. Mina Wahba Youssef, Hegu­men Fr. Michael Gabriel, Fr. Shenouda Ghat­tas, Fr. John Paul Abdel­sayed, Fr. David Abdel­sayed, and Fr. Daniel Habib.

Also, prior to the Divine Liturgy, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion bap­tized Samuel Athana­sius, son of the newly ordained Archdea­con Moses and Carol.

May Our Lord grant Archdea­con Moses and his fam­ily a blessed ser­vice for the Glory of His Name.

On the Apparitions of St. Mary in Egypt

Through­out the past month the world has wit­nessed the unprece­dented vis­i­ta­tion of the holy Vir­gin Mary in the lands of Egypt, across sev­eral churches, by tens of thou­sands of eye­wit­nesses, and count­less mir­a­cles and healings.

These appari­tions of our holy and blessed Mother began in the month of Kiyahk. Dur­ing the past weeks, many have been filled with the same ques­tion as was in the mouth of St. Eliz­a­beth, “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). Why is it that St. Mary chose to visit our land in this time? There is no land, other than Egypt, to which the Lord and Holy Fam­ily made a spe­cial vis­i­ta­tion. The deep faith of the Egyp­tians is well known. There can be many rea­sons for this visit, but when we return to this gospel we find that the Holy Vir­gin does not answer St. Elizabeth’s ques­tion except with praise for the Lord, Who fills the hun­gry, grants mercy, and has done “great things” for St. Mary. St. Mary was so filled with the Love of God, and moved to com­pas­sion to visit and serve St. Eliz­a­beth for three months in her preg­nancy until her conception.

More impor­tantly, St. Elizabeth’s ques­tion was sand­wiched by praise for the Vir­gin, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” she praises the Vir­gin, and in praise of the vir­gin, we praise the Lord who took flesh and was incar­nate of her. This is the ortho­dox way to praise the virgin—to praise her through the work God had done in her, and with His incar­na­tion. That is what we do dur­ing this blessed month of Kiyahk. She is also blessed because she believed in the promises God granted her.

As the Vir­gin her­self pro­claimed, “Hence­forth all gen­er­a­tions will call me blessed.” This is our duty; this is our pride; this is our strength. We call her blessed for sev­eral hours each week. Cop­tic churches through­out the world praise the Vir­gin and the Incar­na­tion for hours con­tin­u­ously, with sin­cere devo­tion and heart­felt grat­i­tude for His great love for mankind, and her great care for her chil­dren. Notice St. Mary appears often in the mid­dle of the night, after the faith­ful has praised for hours on end in earnest expec­ta­tion. We praise her for the great work He has done in her, as a liv­ing tes­ti­mony to the great work He seeks to per­form in us, should we be so worthy.

He is the Lover of mankind; she loves her each of chil­dren. He is our Father of all; she is the Lady of us all. He is the Good Shep­herd; she is the blessed mother. He is the Bride­groom; she, the pure and blessed bride. He is the Light of the world; she is the mother of the true Light. He is the Sec­ond Adam and the First­born of all cre­ation; she is the Sec­ond Eve and the pride of our race. He is the Alpha and Omega; She is the Ever-virgin. He is the Holy One; She is the Pana­gia. We wor­ship You, O Christ; we mag­nify you, the holy Theotokos.

The pic­tures and videos only cap­ture a glimpse of her lov­ing care for us. Let us not be only like those peo­ple who wit­nessed the mir­a­cles and won­ders that our Lord Jesus Christ worked in their streets, but did not ben­e­fit and change their lives. Christ came to save them and change their lives; yet they remained the same as they were. They said,”’We ate and drank in Your pres­ence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you work­ers of iniq­uity” (Lk. 13:26–27).

Let us truly ben­e­fit from these blessed days and appari­tions with a renewed heart and changed life. Let us please the Lord and His mother, with hearts full of repen­tance and deeds reflect­ing the life of Christ. Let these won­drous appari­tions not only be some­thing we talk about as any news­wor­thy events, but some­thing that changes our lives.

Let her enter into our homes, into our work­places, into our schools, into our fam­i­lies, into our hearts and never leave. May we be known as the chil­dren of God, and the chil­dren of St. Mary, who reflect her pure life and His sac­ri­fice on our behalf. Let us seek to please Him as she did. Let us con­tin­u­ally thank the Lord and ask for the never-ending inter­ces­sions of the Lady of us All, the Holy Theotokos, Saint Mary.

On the Apparitions of St. Mary in Egypt

Through­out the past month the world has wit­nessed the unprece­dented vis­i­ta­tion of the holy Vir­gin Mary in the lands of Egypt, across sev­eral churches, by tens of thou­sands of eye­wit­nesses, and count­less mir­a­cles and healings.

These appari­tions of our holy and blessed Mother began in the month of Kiahk. Dur­ing the past weeks, many have been filled with the same ques­tion as was in the mouth of St. Eliz­a­beth, “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). Why is it that St. Mary chose to visit our land in this time? There is no land, other than Egypt, to which the Lord and Holy Fam­ily made a spe­cial vis­i­ta­tion. The deep faith of the Egyp­tians is well known. There can be many rea­sons for this visit, but when we return to this gospel we find that the Holy Vir­gin does not answer St. Elizabeth’s ques­tion except with praise for the Lord, Who fills the hun­gry, grants mercy, and has done “great things” for St. Mary. St. Mary was so filled with the Love of God, and moved to com­pas­sion to visit and serve St. Eliz­a­beth for three months in her preg­nancy until her conception.

More impor­tantly, St. Elizabeth’s ques­tion was enveloped by praise for the Vir­gin: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She praises the Vir­gin, and in praise of the vir­gin, we praise the Lord Who took flesh and was incar­nate of her. This is the ortho­dox way to praise the virgin—to praise her through the work God has done in her and through His incar­na­tion. That is what we do dur­ing this blessed month of Kiahk. She is also blessed because she believed in the promises God granted her.

As the Vir­gin her­self pro­claimed, “Hence­forth all gen­er­a­tions will call me blessed.” This is our duty; this is our pride; this is our strength. We call her blessed for sev­eral hours each week. Cop­tic churches through­out the world praise the Vir­gin and the Incar­na­tion for hours con­tin­u­ously, with sin­cere devo­tion and heart­felt grat­i­tude for His great love for mankind, and her great care for her chil­dren. Notice St. Mary appears often in the mid­dle of the night, after the faith­ful has praised for hours on end in earnest expec­ta­tion. We praise her for the great work He has done in her, as a liv­ing tes­ti­mony to the great work He seeks to per­form in us, should we be so worthy.

He is the Lover of mankind; she loves her each of chil­dren. He is our Father of all; she is the Lady of us all. He is the Good Shep­herd; she is the blessed mother. He is the Bride­groom; she, the pure and blessed bride. He is the Light of the world; she is the mother of the true Light. He is the Sec­ond Adam and the First­born of all cre­ation; she is the Sec­ond Eve and the pride of our race. He is the Alpha and Omega; She is the Ever-virgin. He is the Holy One; She is the Pana­gia. We wor­ship You, O Christ; we mag­nify you, the holy Theotokos.

The pic­tures and videos only cap­ture a glimpse of her lov­ing care for us. Let us not be only like those peo­ple who wit­nessed the mir­a­cles and won­ders that our Lord Jesus Christ worked in their streets, but did not ben­e­fit and change their lives. Christ came to save them and change their lives; yet they remained the same as they were. They said,”’We ate and drank in Your pres­ence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you work­ers of iniq­uity” (Lk. 13:26–27).

Let us truly ben­e­fit from these blessed days and appari­tions with a renewed heart and changed life. Let us please the Lord and His mother, with hearts full of repen­tance and deeds reflect­ing the life of Christ. Let these won­drous appari­tions not only be some­thing we talk about as any news­wor­thy events, but some­thing that changes our lives.

Let her enter into our homes, into our work­places, into our schools, into our fam­i­lies, into our hearts and never leave. May we be known as the chil­dren of God, and the chil­dren of St. Mary, who reflect her pure life and His sac­ri­fice on our behalf. Let us seek to please Him as she did. Let us con­tin­u­ally thank the Lord and ask for the never-ending inter­ces­sions of the Lady of us All, the Holy Theotokos, Saint Mary.

Ordination of the Blessed Servant Paul Samaan as an Archdeacon

With great joy, we announce and invite you to the ordi­na­tion of the blessed ser­vant Paul Samaan as an Archdea­con on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 26, at St. Mau­rice Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in Pomona.
The joy­ful day begins at 8:00am with the bap­tism of Samuel Athana­sius Samaan, son of Paul and Carol Samaan. The bap­tism will be followed […]

Understanding the Process of Grief

Mod­ern soci­ety is a “death deny­ing and death-defying society”1. We speed along high­ways, eat fats and sug­ars to excess, over­work, smoke, pol­lute, and inject tox­ins into our faces all with the child­ish façade that death hap­pens to other peo­ple. This is not to say that we ignore death – in fact it is con­stantly in our faces with up to the sec­ond media and tech­nol­ogy report­ing all the tragedies around the world. Yet, fam­i­lies seem to spend lit­tle time dis­cussing death with each other. For instance, how often have we heard a friend of a bereaved per­son say “Do not talk to them about the loss – it will only upset him/her”?

It is in this larger con­text of ambi­gu­ity that one must suf­fer with the grief. Mod­ern soci­ety often does not pro­vide for aware­ness of recov­ery or sup­port. This form of “insti­tu­tion­al­ized denial” 2 is fos­tered by the lack of edu­ca­tion about bereave­ment, lack of faith, and unrealistic media.

This paper addresses death and the griev­ing process. Under­stand­ing the process of grief helps to break down the mis­con­cep­tions of death and bereave­ment that soci­ety holds so dearly – in a fran­tic fear of what it does not know. It is the hope that by bet­ter under­stand­ing this process, fam­i­lies can bet­ter fight against society’s desires to rush through life, but rather appre­ci­ate God’s gifts of human emotional processing.

The Process of Grief

Before mov­ing for­ward, it must be noted that although there is believed to be a basic out­line or process by which grief man­i­fests itself, this by no means nor­mal­izes or makes con­crete indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. There are many qual­i­ties such as cul­ture, per­son­al­ity dif­fer­ences, type of rela­tion­ship with the lost loved one, and how the death occurred — just to name a few — that affect the inten­sity, longevity, and process of mourn­ing. Nev­er­the­less, the grief time­line is a use­ful way to describe the process of grief at it offers a gen­eral pic­ture of the mourning experience.

Shock Phase

Dur­ing the ini­tial, or shock phase, the bereaved usu­ally demon­strate the cul­tur­ally appro­pri­ate and expected emo­tions asso­ci­ated with grief. Numb­ness, sad­ness, fatigue, lone­li­ness, anger, anx­i­ety, and guilt are often felt and may per­sist for weeks to months. Daily activ­i­ties are done in an uncar­ing and mech­a­nis­tic fash­ion, sim­i­lar to the lack of plea­sure peo­ple with depres­sion often expe­ri­ence. Although this phase of grief may be thought of as a neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence, it serves an adap­tive func­tion as it insu­lates the mourner from the over­whelm­ing emo­tional pain by cre­at­ing a general numbness.

The bereaved often feel a need to be alone. Their anhe­do­nic feel­ings and numb­ness reflect a push for emo­tional dis­tance from oth­ers, yet the con­di­tioned response of oth­ers is to increase close­ness with the bereaved. Although it is ironic that many West­ern tra­di­tions pull peo­ple toward the bereaved at a time when they are least likely to appre­ci­ate the emo­tional sup­port and close­ness. How­ever, fam­ily and friends must not allow the bereaved to derail from the task at hand. Even if they do not demon­strate any desire to have con­nec­tions with oth­ers, pulling away is only coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to growth at this phase of the grief process. All involved need to acknowl­edge the depres­sion and social dis­plea­sure as part of the grief process and help them work through it.

Dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion Phase

The dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion phase presents some of the most dif­fi­cult chal­lenges for fam­i­lies. It is con­sid­ered the most painful and intense feel­ings of grief. Because of the strong emo­tions of this phase, the bereaved come to appre­ci­ate close inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships that allow them to express their feel­ings in a safe and lov­ing envi­ron­ment. How­ever, these strong feel­ings some­times seem too intense and dif­fi­cult for friends and fam­ily to con­tain with their loved ones. Unfor­tu­nately, many may try to escape and dis­tance them­selves from the bereaved, mak­ing this time an even more needy and dif­fi­cult phase. While mourn­ers long to talk about and feel close to their lost ones, most of their friends are not com­fort­able deal­ing with the inten­sity of the pain and longing.

It is at this most inop­por­tune time that many friends and fam­ily mem­bers will encour­age the bereaved to stop talk­ing about the deceased. They claim that it is not help­ful or healthy for the bereaved to wal­low in their painful emo­tions – “We shouldn’t talk about it any­more because it just makes you feel so terrible.”

Not only does the emo­tional inten­sity of this phase put a strain on the mourner’s inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships, but it also makes it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to ful­fill their day-to-day duties and roles. Thus, the dif­fi­culty and inner tur­moil of this time leads griev­ers to believe they are “going crazy” and that their world “can never be right again”. Their lives, emo­tions, rela­tion­ships, and behav­iors seem unman­age­able and painful.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand that the over­whelm­ing feel­ings of grief in this phase can be man­i­fested in a vari­ety of emo­tions, such as sad­ness, anger, anx­i­ety, and guilt.

Reor­ga­ni­za­tion Phase

Through prayer, time, tears, and major adjust­ments to life, the bereaved is finally able to reen­ter their world in a more sat­is­fy­ing and mean­ing­ful way through the reor­ga­ni­za­tion phase. Their social inter­ac­tions and daily func­tion­ing are restored to a level com­pa­ra­ble to before the loss. Although they may still have deep feel­ings of loss for their loved ones, the emo­tions of grief are less intense and over­whelm­ing. In this phase, it is said the bereaved are bet­ter able to cre­ate new and bal­anced rela­tion­ships with the liv­ing and the deceased.

Impor­tance of Fam­ily and Friends

Death and loss will inevitably be faced all liv­ing beings, mak­ing the process of grief a “social net­work cri­sis”. Although the pain of grief is expe­ri­enced indi­vid­u­ally, the pain and heal­ing occurs within the con­text of relationships.

It becomes impor­tant for the fam­i­lies and friends to build rela­tion­ships with each fam­ily member’s unique expe­ri­ence with the loss. Those who appre­ci­ate the expe­ri­ence of the bereaved and under­stand his/her own pace of heal­ing becomes a more powerful helper.

In an attempt to join the mourner’s expe­ri­ence, one is required to be aware of the com­mon social pres­sures placed on the bereaved to not express their intense feel­ings. It is essen­tial that the care­giver to cre­ate a safe envi­ron­ment for the bereaved to do so – for many peo­ple, this may be the only place in which they feel respected enough to do so. An individual’s expres­sions of anger, sad­ness, guilt, and other painful emo­tions must be appre­ci­ated as nor­mal, func­tional, and holy.

March 2009

 

RESOURCES ON THE PROCESS OF GRIEF

Grief and Loss. http://www.aarp.org/life/griefandloss

James, J., & Cherry, F. (1984). The Grief Recov­ery Hand­book: A Step-By-Step Program for

Mov­ing Beyond Loss. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Rando, T. (1984). Grief, Dying, and Death. Cham­paign, IL: Research Press.

Shapiro, E. (1994). Grief as a Fam­ily Process. New York: Guilford Press.

Tames, R. (1977). Liv­ing with an Empty Chair. Amherst, MA: Man­dela.

Wynot, Gre­gory P. (2006). Jesus Wept: A Psy­chos­pir­i­tual Hand­book of Death, Grief, and

Bereave­ment Coun­sel­ing for East­ern Ortho­dox Clergy. Lin­coln, NE: iUni­verse.

The Nurse of Hope: Patience in Tribulations

The blessed prophet David shows that those who put their trust in God were most coura­geous when he says, “Act like men and let your hearts be strong, all you who hope in the Lord” (Ps. 31:24, LXX). For those plants which are in plea­sure gar­dens both increase, bloom, and are raised to a great height by abun­dant streams of waters. And a man’s soul, by the com­forts and encour­age­ments of the Holy Spirit, becomes brave in piety, is made firm in faith, and gets that unbreak­able patience which the blessed Paul admired more than all other virtues and so says, “And not only that, but we also glory in tribu­la­tions, know­ing that tribu­la­tion pro­duces per­se­ver­ance; and per­se­ver­ance, char­ac­ter; and char­ac­ter, hope. Now hope does not dis­ap­point” (Romans 5:3–5). There­fore, patience is the sup­plier and win­ner of all good to us, a way of approval and esteem, a nurse of the hope which is unto the life to come. But in what way shall we cor­rect our­selves and improve as it regards patience? The Scrip­ture of God teaches by say­ing, “My child, when you come to serve the Lord, pre­pare your soul for tribu­la­tion. Set your heart aright and be stead­fast and endure” (Sirach 2:1).

Per­haps some­one will say, “Is there no other way for man to acquire approval and esteem? Couldn’t he have set him­self aright as it regards good without toil?”

“In no way,” he says.

“And for what reason?”

[I answer], because those who plot against the saints are very many and the war about them is ter­ri­ble, and for that rea­son the Sav­ior Him­self was say­ing, “In the world you will have tribu­la­tion; but be of good cheer, I have over­come the world” (John 16:33). There­fore, pre­cisely because there is much war from every side against the saints, it is nec­es­sary for them to bear up bravely and stoutly against the assaults of temp­ta­tions and tri­als, and to keep in mem­ory the fol­low­ing say­ing of a disciple:“Blessed is the man who endures tribu­la­tion; for when he is tried and approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12).

But, I wish to adduce some­thing by means of more ancient exam­ples, that you may learn the result of good spir­i­tual courage. The tyrants of the Baby­lo­ni­ans and those who had the admin­is­tra­tion of kingly thrones among them, were some­how always very prone to cru­elty and arro­gance. And, over­pass­ing the bounds of human­ity they wished to usurp to them­selves that honor which belongs alone to the Pan­to­cra­tor. There­fore, the accursed Neb­uchad­nez­zar set up a golden image while sweet-toned instru­ments sounded sub­servient to it and he com­manded that the peo­ple sub­ject to him bow to it (Dan. 3).But when the Baby­lo­ni­ans led into the midst of the Hebrew boys (they were Ana­ni­ans, Azarias, and Mis­ael), they began to com­mand them to “wor­ship to the golden image,” and to force the most noble and God-loving race to slip down to the “same sin with them­selves,” and to “wor­ship to the golden image”; but they did not at all suc­ceed. And so, being foiled by the love of those boys for God, they inflicted on them the pun­ish­ment of fire.

And the accu­sa­tion against those thus over­reached and mal­treated was firm­ness in faith, fixed­ness in piety, [and] refusal to wor­ship a man, and their not being will­ing to hold those opin­ions which insult and out­rage the divine nature.

But when they were cast into the fur­nace of fire, then indeed, occurred that great man­i­fes­ta­tion of the power unspeak­able. For the power of the ele­ments was changed into that which is against its nature and the fire obeyed the wishes and decrees of the Cre­ator, and the flame was trans­formed into a dewy whistling wind. And the youth (οἱ νεανίαι), per­ceiv­ing that the assis­tance was from above, began to chant in the fur­nace of fire and made the fire a mild thing by their chant­ing of hymns to God.That fur­nace was a fig­ure of the Church which has, as holy choirs (χορευτάς), not only men, but angels also.

You have admired the virtue of those men. You have praised their patience, and the great­ness of their love for God. Let us see in what state mat­ters are with us. For they indeed were under bar­bar­ian tyrants: but we are under pious scepters, for we have most pious [men as] rulers of all things. How [then] shall we give in to our ene­mies? For even though plot­ters kin­dle a fur­nace, and though they wake the flames of per­ver­sity by bring­ing in to us man-worship (ἀνθρωπολατρεία), nev­er­the­less, we have a God in heaven—we will worship Him.

For being God by nature, He became like us, not cast­ing away His being God, but hon­or­ing the nature of men [by tak­ing it on Him]. He is able to deliver us. For fol­low­ing the faith of the most reli­gious Emper­ors, and know­ing the great­ness of the gen­tle­ness that is in them, we will not endure the bungling and evil [doc­trine] of our oppo­nents, but we will con­fess that the Immanuel is God by Nature. And say­ing that, and so con­tin­u­ing we shall gain that rec­om­pense which is the great­est pos­si­ble. And what is that? He Him­self will teach us by saing, “There­fore who­ever con­fesses Me before men, him I will also con­fess before My Father who is in the heav­ens. But who­ever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in the heav­ens” (Matthew 10:32–33).

But he who says that He is very God and rebukes those who dis­be­lieve [it], con­fesses Him. And on the other hand, he who says not that He is very God but con­tends against those who do acknowl­edge Him [too be so], he denies Him. There­fore, the Sav­ior of all will deny them, but will con­fess us: the Sav­ior of all, through Whom, and with Whom be the glory and the might to God the Father, forever. Amen.

Grief and Healing within the Family

All humans are influ­enced by their inter­ac­tions with sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers through­out their lives. One’s social con­text helps peo­ple under­stand, orga­nize, and define them­selves and their sit­u­a­tions. Thus it is com­mon and nat­ural that the loss of a sig­nif­i­cant other brings a great loss of one’s own iden­tity and reality.

The loss of a per­son who has been so impor­tant in defin­ing one’s self and envi­ron­ment leads a per­son to grief. The absence of this rela­tion­ship forces peo­ple to search for alter­na­tive guides to help them under­stand this sit­u­a­tion and them­selves. They often feel lost in their basic abil­ity to inter­pret and define events, feel­ings, and mean­ings for their new life expe­ri­ences with­out their loved ones. Thus, grief grows from emo­tional pain to an uncer­tainty about one’s self, future, and pur­pose. All this plus the need for the bereaved to cre­ate a new mean­ing to life and death can be extremely over­whelm­ing. Safe and lov­ing sup­port from friend and fam­ily is cru­cial to get through these changes in a healthy way. 

Four Tasks of Mourning

These four basic tasks, or chal­lenges, must be suc­cess­fully com­pleted for a per­son to move on to a healthy life after the death of a loved one. Just as a child must suc­cess­fully pass through each phase of devel­op­ment to grow into a healthy adult, a mourner must pass through each of these tasks to reestab­lish healthy functioning.

The four tasks include accept­ing the real­ity of the loss, expe­ri­enc­ing the pain, adapt­ing to a new envi­ron­ment, and rein­vest­ing one’s emo­tional energy. This time­line gives the fam­ily a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the process of grief and heal­ing– allow­ing for the space and knowl­edge of how to help their mourn­ers come back to real­ity with­out their lost beloved.


Accept the Real­ity of Loss

The first task of mourn­ing is accept­ing the death and the loss. It is not easy for any­one to help mourn­ers through this task. How­ever, there are sev­eral ways for fam­ily mem­bers and friends to know that the bereaved is mov­ing towards through this chal­lenge, such as sub­tle shifts in speech and needs. For exam­ple, a mourner becomes able to speak about the deceased less in the present tense and more in the past tense with time and accep­tance. This may also include the family’s abil­ity to incor­po­rate the deceased into con­ver­sa­tions less painfully.

One help­ful way to mea­sure progress is the way deceased’s pos­ses­sions are used. It is not uncom­mon for peo­ple to use their loved one’s pos­ses­sions as tran­si­tional objects through this dif­fi­cult time. Imme­di­ately after a loss, the griev­ing may hold closely onto a pos­ses­sion of the deceased. He/she will always carry that object and is greatly dis­tressed if it is mis­placed. As the grief passes, the bereaved per­son is able to sep­a­rate from the object only if he/she knows where it is and how to access it eas­ily. With time, the object is finally able to be put away in a trea­sured place for safe­keep­ing.
 It is impor­tant to under­stand that the accep­tance of death is a process — not an end point. The bereaved will for­ever expe­ri­ence their pain to some degree through­out his/her life­time. But the task of this phase is for the sys­tem to sim­ply accept the fact of loss and not deny the impact it will have on one’s life. It is also impor­tant to note that our Ortho­dox faith dic­tates that phys­i­cal death is not nec­es­sar­ily per­ma­nent loss – rather it is a tem­po­rary pause in rela­tion­ship until we meet each other again in Par­adise with the Lord. The deceased is not dead, but fully alive with the Lord.

Walk through the Pain of Grief


The sec­ond, and most dif­fi­cult, task of mourn­ing is to allow one­self to expe­ri­ence the emo­tions, what­ever they might be – sad­ness, aban­don­ment, anger, con­fu­sion. Sur­pris­ingly, it is usu­ally at around this time that soci­ety expects the bereaved to have com­pleted and “got­ten over” the pain. Friends and sup­port sys­tems begin to pull away and return to their “nor­mal” lives and expect the griev­ers to fol­low. But to the con­trary, this is usu­ally the most intensely emo­tional phase in the grief process. When oth­ers begin to pull away, it leaves the griever feel­ing even more alone than ever!
 The bereaved are often cau­tioned not to talk about the deceased any­more, even though this is the most impor­tant time to do so. They will hear things like, “You should stop tak­ing about him, it only makes you feel worse.” But that is not the case, by talk­ing about the loss, the mourner gets to release his/her emo­tions and begin to heal. When the mourner is forced to stay quiet, it makes them feel as if their painful emo­tions are inap­pro­pri­ate, “abnor­mal”, “out of con­trol”, and that they can never belong in this world again. 
 Fur­ther­more, fam­ily func­tion­ing is greatly impacted dur­ing this time, as grief hin­ders the fam­ily mem­bers’ abil­ity to per­form their duties, day-to-day roles and activ­i­ties. This prob­lem is dealt with dur­ing the next task of mourning.

Adjust to an Envi­ron­ment where the Deceased is Missing


Adapt­ing to a new envi­ron­ment with­out the deceased is the third task of bereave­ment. By now, one’s sys­tem has had time to allow the shock to sub­side. They are begin­ning to set­tle down and live with the loss. With time comes the real­iza­tion that the death has brought many unwanted changes in the func­tion­ing of the fam­ily, and the pain is high­lighted every­day when the prac­ti­cal, every­day rou­tines are no longer rou­tine with­out the deceased. For exam­ple, if a wife is used to hav­ing to hus­band drive her to the mar­ket every Tues­day and leave the light on in the kitchen for when they return home – the Tues­days with­out her hus­band will feel espe­cially dif­fi­cult when she finds she has to shop alone and come home to a dark house.

The adap­ta­tion process requires indi­vid­u­als, and the fam­ily as a whole, to shift and cre­ate new pat­terns. The fam­ily must be flex­i­ble in order to cope with the dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion and grief. They must be will­ing to shift rela­tion­ship bound­aries and del­e­gate new fam­ily roles and responsibilities.


Emo­tion­ally Relo­cate the Deceased and Move on with Life


The final task of mourn­ing is to rein­vest­ment the emo­tional energy into new rela­tion­ships with the liv­ing. In other words, indi­vid­u­als must strive to give less energy to the pain of their loss and reserve their efforts and heart for re-creating their pre­vi­ous, close rela­tion­ships. This is not to say that the bereaved has com­pletely aban­doned the deceased from their every­day expe­ri­ence, but is now able to focus on liv­ing in the other areas of their lives – keep­ing space and respect for the deceased, while mak­ing room in one’s heart for new or rekin­dled rela­tion­ships and growth. Be aware that with this grow­ing hap­pi­ness, some­times comes dif­fi­cult feel­ings of dis­loy­alty, guilt, or fear as they begin to care for oth­ers again. It is impor­tant to remem­ber to hand over to the Lord all our hard­ships and bur­dens, in order to allow space for Him to shine His light and warmth into our souls.

Con­clu­sion

Death and loss are faced at one time or another by all peo­ple. Bereave­ment cen­ters around indi­vid­ual pain, how­ever, grief occurs within social rela­tion­ship. Unfor­tu­nately, peo­ple who are mourn­ing usu­ally lack the focus, energy, or flex­i­bil­ity to deal eas­ily with oth­ers. Due to this stress of grief, one’s avail­abil­ity to oth­ers declines – often mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for fam­ily and friends to sup­port one another.

Besides grief’s pain, the dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion it causes, and the ten­dency it has to make peo­ple less avail­able to sup­port one another, is the prob­lem of form­ing new rules, pat­terns, and pur­pose for life. How­ever stud­ies show that the sin­gle best indi­ca­tor of dis­tress one month after a loss is lack of inter­ac­tion with close friends. There­fore, pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate social sup­port and under­stand­ing the four tasks of mourn­ing are the most effec­tive ways of decreas­ing the dis­tress of bereavement.

Grief and Healing within the Family

All humans are influ­enced by their inter­ac­tions with sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers through­out their lives. One’s social con­text helps peo­ple under­stand, orga­nize, and define them­selves and their sit­u­a­tions. Thus it is com­mon and nat­ural that the loss of a sig­nif­i­cant other brings a great loss of one’s own iden­tity and reality.

The loss of a per­son who has been so impor­tant in defin­ing one’s self and envi­ron­ment leads a per­son to grief. The absence of this rela­tion­ship forces peo­ple to search for alter­na­tive guides to help them under­stand this sit­u­a­tion and them­selves. They often feel lost in their basic abil­ity to inter­pret and define events, feel­ings, and mean­ings for their new life expe­ri­ences with­out their loved ones. Thus, grief grows from emo­tional pain to an uncer­tainty about one’s self, future, and pur­pose. All this plus the need for the bereaved to cre­ate a new mean­ing to life and death can be extremely over­whelm­ing. Safe and lov­ing sup­port from friend and fam­ily is cru­cial to get through these changes in a healthy way. 

Four Tasks of Mourning

These four basic tasks, or chal­lenges, must be suc­cess­fully com­pleted for a per­son to move on to a healthy life after the death of a loved one. Just as a child must suc­cess­fully pass through each phase of devel­op­ment to grow into a healthy adult, a mourner must pass through each of these tasks to reestab­lish healthy functioning.

The four tasks include accept­ing the real­ity of the loss, expe­ri­enc­ing the pain, adapt­ing to a new envi­ron­ment, and rein­vest­ing one’s emo­tional energy. This time­line gives the fam­ily a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the process of grief and heal­ing– allow­ing for the space and knowl­edge of how to help their mourn­ers come back to real­ity with­out their lost beloved.


Accept the Real­ity of Loss

The first task of mourn­ing is accept­ing the death and the loss. It is not easy for any­one to help mourn­ers through this task. How­ever, there are sev­eral ways for fam­ily mem­bers and friends to know that the bereaved is mov­ing towards through this chal­lenge, such as sub­tle shifts in speech and needs. For exam­ple, a mourner becomes able to speak about the deceased less in the present tense and more in the past tense with time and accep­tance. This may also include the family’s abil­ity to incor­po­rate the deceased into con­ver­sa­tions less painfully.

One help­ful way to mea­sure progress is the way deceased’s pos­ses­sions are used. It is not uncom­mon for peo­ple to use their loved one’s pos­ses­sions as tran­si­tional objects through this dif­fi­cult time. Imme­di­ately after a loss, the griev­ing may hold closely onto a pos­ses­sion of the deceased. He/she will always carry that object and is greatly dis­tressed if it is mis­placed. As the grief passes, the bereaved per­son is able to sep­a­rate from the object only if he/she knows where it is and how to access it eas­ily. With time, the object is finally able to be put away in a trea­sured place for safe­keep­ing.
 It is impor­tant to under­stand that the accep­tance of death is a process — not an end point. The bereaved will for­ever expe­ri­ence their pain to some degree through­out his/her life­time. But the task of this phase is for the sys­tem to sim­ply accept the fact of loss and not deny the impact it will have on one’s life. It is also impor­tant to note that our Ortho­dox faith dic­tates that phys­i­cal death is not nec­es­sar­ily per­ma­nent loss – rather it is a tem­po­rary pause in rela­tion­ship until we meet each other again in Par­adise with the Lord. The deceased is not dead, but fully alive with the Lord.

Walk through the Pain of Grief


The sec­ond, and most dif­fi­cult, task of mourn­ing is to allow one­self to expe­ri­ence the emo­tions, what­ever they might be – sad­ness, aban­don­ment, anger, con­fu­sion. Sur­pris­ingly, it is usu­ally at around this time that soci­ety expects the bereaved to have com­pleted and “got­ten over” the pain. Friends and sup­port sys­tems begin to pull away and return to their “nor­mal” lives and expect the griev­ers to fol­low. But to the con­trary, this is usu­ally the most intensely emo­tional phase in the grief process. When oth­ers begin to pull away, it leaves the griever feel­ing even more alone than ever!
 The bereaved are often cau­tioned not to talk about the deceased any­more, even though this is the most impor­tant time to do so. They will hear things like, “You should stop tak­ing about him, it only makes you feel worse.” But that is not the case, by talk­ing about the loss, the mourner gets to release his/her emo­tions and begin to heal. When the mourner is forced to stay quiet, it makes them feel as if their painful emo­tions are inap­pro­pri­ate, “abnor­mal”, “out of con­trol”, and that they can never belong in this world again. 
 Fur­ther­more, fam­ily func­tion­ing is greatly impacted dur­ing this time, as grief hin­ders the fam­ily mem­bers’ abil­ity to per­form their duties, day-to-day roles and activ­i­ties. This prob­lem is dealt with dur­ing the next task of mourning.

Adjust to an Envi­ron­ment where the Deceased is Missing


Adapt­ing to a new envi­ron­ment with­out the deceased is the third task of bereave­ment. By now, one’s sys­tem has had time to allow the shock to sub­side. They are begin­ning to set­tle down and live with the loss. With time comes the real­iza­tion that the death has brought many unwanted changes in the func­tion­ing of the fam­ily, and the pain is high­lighted every­day when the prac­ti­cal, every­day rou­tines are no longer rou­tine with­out the deceased. For exam­ple, if a wife is used to hav­ing to hus­band drive her to the mar­ket every Tues­day and leave the light on in the kitchen for when they return home – the Tues­days with­out her hus­band will feel espe­cially dif­fi­cult when she finds she has to shop alone and come home to a dark house.

The adap­ta­tion process requires indi­vid­u­als, and the fam­ily as a whole, to shift and cre­ate new pat­terns. The fam­ily must be flex­i­ble in order to cope with the dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion and grief. They must be will­ing to shift rela­tion­ship bound­aries and del­e­gate new fam­ily roles and responsibilities.


Emo­tion­ally Relo­cate the Deceased and Move on with Life


The final task of mourn­ing is to rein­vest­ment the emo­tional energy into new rela­tion­ships with the liv­ing. In other words, indi­vid­u­als must strive to give less energy to the pain of their loss and reserve their efforts and heart for re-creating their pre­vi­ous, close rela­tion­ships. This is not to say that the bereaved has com­pletely aban­doned the deceased from their every­day expe­ri­ence, but is now able to focus on liv­ing in the other areas of their lives – keep­ing space and respect for the deceased, while mak­ing room in one’s heart for new or rekin­dled rela­tion­ships and growth. Be aware that with this grow­ing hap­pi­ness, some­times comes dif­fi­cult feel­ings of dis­loy­alty, guilt, or fear as they begin to care for oth­ers again. It is impor­tant to remem­ber to hand over to the Lord all our hard­ships and bur­dens, in order to allow space for Him to shine His light and warmth into our souls.

Con­clu­sion

Death and loss are faced at one time or another by all peo­ple. Bereave­ment cen­ters around indi­vid­ual pain, how­ever, grief occurs within social rela­tion­ship. Unfor­tu­nately, peo­ple who are mourn­ing usu­ally lack the focus, energy, or flex­i­bil­ity to deal eas­ily with oth­ers. Due to this stress of grief, one’s avail­abil­ity to oth­ers declines – often mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for fam­ily and friends to sup­port one another.

Besides grief’s pain, the dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion it causes, and the ten­dency it has to make peo­ple less avail­able to sup­port one another, is the prob­lem of form­ing new rules, pat­terns, and pur­pose for life. How­ever stud­ies show that the sin­gle best indi­ca­tor of dis­tress one month after a loss is lack of inter­ac­tion with close friends. There­fore, pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate social sup­port and under­stand­ing the four tasks of mourn­ing are the most effec­tive ways of decreas­ing the dis­tress of bereavement.

Grand Opening of Archangel Raphael Church Building

On Decem­ber 7, 2009, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion and sev­eral dioce­san priests cel­e­brated the grand open­ing of the new church build­ing at Archangel Raphael Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in Palm­dale, Cal­i­for­nia. His Grace was joined by His Emi­nence Arch­bishop Mor Clemis Eugene Kaplan, the Patri­ar­chal Vicar of the Syr­ian Ortho­dox Arch­dio­cese of the West­ern United States and sev­eral dignitaries, including:

• Mr. Norm Hick­ling, Field Agent for Los Ange­les County Super­vi­sor Michael Antonovitch
• Mr. Isaac Barcelona, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from City Coun­cil­man Pete Knite
• Mr. Drew Mercy,  Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Con­gress­man George Runner
• Mr. Raj Malhi, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Lan­caster Mayor R. Rex Parris
• Father Angus Dower from the Anglican Church
• Father Leo Dechant from Father Sierra Church
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Grace Resource Center

 

The Dio­cese con­grat­u­lates the clergy and con­gre­ga­tion of Archangel Raphael Church for the bless­ing of this new church build­ing and prays that the Lord may con­tinue to bless thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

 

Next Page »