“It is natural for people to be saddened for the deprivation and the death of their beloved spouses, children, parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. And our Lord Jesus Christ wept upon the death of His friend Lazarus. But if nature urges us to be sad, our faith consoles, encourages us, urges us and teaches us not to be sad, but to hope and believe that he who died was not lost, but exists and lives after death as well. He departed from the present temporal life and went to the eternal one, from the earthly homeland to the heavenly one. This the Lord and God-Man Jesus Christ Himself certifies in the Gospel of John chapter 5 verse 24: “Amen, amen I say to you that he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come to judgment but has gone from death to life.”
- From Paternal Counsels: Volume 2 by Father Philotheos Zervakos, translated by Father Nicholas Palis and edited by Father Mark Andrews.
