Elder Ephraim and R. S. Thomas on Death

Last Judgment: The Balance of Justice - A.D. 1350 at Decani Monastery in Kosovo, Serbia

1. Bible & Fathers

Thursday: 2 Tim. 3:10-15. Lk. 5:12-16. Online here.

Friday: Eph. 1:7-17. Lk. 4:22-30. Online here.

Saturday – Falling Asleep of St John the Evangelist and Theologian: 1 Jn. 4:12-19. Jn. 19:25-27; 21:24-25. Online here.

A friend of mine is listening to a series of lectures on Judaism and he recently mentioned that the ancient Jews did not think about life beyond death. If any of you are scholars in the Old Testament or Judaism, please enlighten us. That comment set me to thinking about death, particularly a fairly recent publication—a massive tome at 1,111 pages published in 2017: The Departure of the Soul According to the Orthodox Church. Here’s the opening paragraphs from the epilogue by Elder Ephraim of Arizona:

After death, eternity follows. Every person at a certain moment will abandon his body on the earth and proceed with his soul to eternity, to the life that has no end. Man’s soul will remain without the body until the Second Coming of Christ, at which time the bodies of both the righteous and the unrighteous will be resurrected in order to be judged. It is a fact that after death, man’s soul is separated from the body and lives in a unique state.

For this reason, we should—and I first—seriously take into account this reality and regulate our life accordingly. Let us correct our lives in order to avoid eternal Hell and instead acquire (through God’s mercy and compassion) the Kingdom of Heaven. We must take a long, hard look at our salvation and realize that it is not a game; it is not something we can ignore; it is not a joke.

Let us stare our salvation straight in the eyes, no matter how alarming and disconcerting it is. Let us correct our life. Let us thank God from the depth of our heart, and let us offer Him praise and doxology because we are still alive and we can attend the matters related to our soul and prepare ourselves.

Read the entire piece here.

2. Books & Culture: “The Country Clergy” by R. S. Thomas

I’ve been reading through a collection of poems by R. S. Thomas and this poem seems fitting for today's content:

I see them working in old rectories

By the sun’s light, by candlelight,

Venerable men, their black cloth

A little dusty, a little green

With holy mildew. And yet their skulls,

Ripening over so many prayers,

Toppled into the same grave

With oafs and yokels. They left no books,

Memorial to their lonely thought

In grey parishes; rather they wrote

On men’s hearts and in the minds

Of young children sublime words

Too soon forgotten. God in his time

Or out of time will correct this.

3. Essays et al: “Where Do We Go From Here?” by R. S. Thomas

I’m also dipping in and out of R. S. Thomas’s prose. I read this piece earlier today, which ended up altogether shifting the theme for today’s content. Here’s two paragraphs from the middle of this short reflection, originally published in The Listener, 8 August 1974, pp. 177-178:

This is an age of searching and doubt, of confidence and hesitation. In the strangely shifting climate which is common to most of the world today, can there be a finer, more satisfying response than trust? The great hymn of the Christian Church, the Te Deum Laudamus, closes on the humble yet proud verse: “In Thee, O Lord, have I trusted, let me never be confounded.”

There is no God but God. The very use of the word answers all questions. The ability to create life automatically posits the ability to re-create it. We die utterly, completely. Our bones are consumed in the crematoria. Shall the Creator, who composed this solid, fertile earth out of incendiary gases, find more difficulty in forming a new life around the nucleus of a human soul? The question is rhetorical. It can be framed in a hundred different ways. It was a cardinal doctrine of Aquinas that God reveals Himself in accordance with the mind’s ability to receive Him. I have already scoffed at democracy. To one person, God may reveal Himself as a loving shepherd leading to green pastures; to another as a consuming fire. I must end this talk, surely, by telling you how He has revealed Himself to me, if that is the right way to describe the knowledge—half hope, half intuition—by which I live.

I’ll give you a hint: he appeals to William Blake, Francis Thompson, T. S. Eliot, William Wordsworth, and Jesus Christ. And it’s beautiful. Read the whole piece here.

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