All Souls Saturday; The Holy Apostle Onesimus
Read
1 Corinthians 10:23-28; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17;
Luke 21:8-9, 25-27, 33-36; John 5:24-30
Our liturgical calendar prescribes special prayers for the dead on five Saturdays every year: the Saturday before the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Second, Third, and Fourth Saturdays of Great Lent, and the Saturday before Pentecost. Except for the last, each of these Saturdays occurs during the Triodion. In Ukraine, these Saturdays are kept very solemnly.
One might ask, “why Saturday?” Surely we may pray for the dead—and we do—on any day of the week, and we pray for the dead at every Divine Liturgy. What is the special significance of Saturday for this purpose? Every Saturday of the year reminds us of two Saturdays in particular: Lazarus Saturday, when Our Lord called Lazarus back to life from the tomb after Lazarus had been dead for four days, and Holy Saturday, when Our Lord Himself “rested” in the tomb before His Resurrection. We shall speak more about these two Saturdays later in this instruction. But their connection with the themes of death and Resurrection is obvious, and this moves us to pray for the dead on Saturdays.
The practice of submitting memorial lists of our deceased relatives and friends (called diptychs or hramoty) to the priest, who will read them aloud during services for the dead on these Saturdays, is still widespread. This recitation of the names is of spiritual importance and is not by any means to be neglected, because every individual is precious to God and precious to the Church.
[A pastoral note: To enable the priest or deacon to read the names aloud intelligibly, it is proper to type the names, or at least print them very clearly. For this purpose, we use either the baptismal name or the monastic name of each individual (“John” or “Mary”) but not the surname. We provide monastic or hierarchical designations (“the Nun Macrina,” “the Deacon Stephen,” “the Priest George,” “the Bishop Daniel”) but no secular titles. We do not use nicknames or diminutives.]
No priest will refuse to pray for those whose friends and relatives are unable to come themselves to Church for the service. But nevertheless, I do ask everyone to try to participate in these services for the dead. We believe that those who have gone before us are consoled by our prayers and pray for us in return. We know that God wants us to pray for one another.
Excerpt from Our Paschal Pilgrimage. A Guide for the Great Fast for Ukrainian Catholics by Bishop Basil Losten