- Aug 27, 2014
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As has been said, it would be good to see some encouragement around here instead of doom and gloom. Okay, then! Let's do it, my friends! After all, our God was and is victorious over death, so what on earth can squash our joy in that fact?
It''s perhaps a strange place to find it (not really if you're Coptic, but I grant that not everyone is), but I would like to submit to begin this positive thread the following speech on the joy of the martyrs and what we can expect in heaven, delivered by HG Bishop Moussa of the Coptic Orthodox Church at the funeral for the martyrs of the terrorist bombing of the Church of the Saints in the holy city of Alexandria, Egypt in 2011 (starting at about 3:30 in the video, but I include the entire thing for the beautiful prayers of Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty before the speech of HG):
Whether you are Orthodox or not, I trust that everyone can understand and be comforted by the fact that those who have died in their Christian faith are a source of hope for Christians, not a reason to shrink away in either fear or despair, even as we grieve quite naturally. We do not grieve as those who have no hope. "For there is no death for Your servants, but a departure." ( -- a part of the prayers from the Coptic Orthodox funeral rite)
What can be more encouraging than to know that those who go before us go into the eternal love and presence of God and all of the saints they join who have pleased God since the beginning? This is our future, brothers and sisters, if we endure to the end. Eternal life with God. It is the heavenly reality. It is what God has given us through His Only-Begotten Son, may He be praised and worshiped forever together with His good Father and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. +
Please do add your own encouraging passages, thoughts, videos, or whatever you have that strengthens the fellow Christian, as we are meant to do. Thank you.
It''s perhaps a strange place to find it (not really if you're Coptic, but I grant that not everyone is), but I would like to submit to begin this positive thread the following speech on the joy of the martyrs and what we can expect in heaven, delivered by HG Bishop Moussa of the Coptic Orthodox Church at the funeral for the martyrs of the terrorist bombing of the Church of the Saints in the holy city of Alexandria, Egypt in 2011 (starting at about 3:30 in the video, but I include the entire thing for the beautiful prayers of Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty before the speech of HG):
Whether you are Orthodox or not, I trust that everyone can understand and be comforted by the fact that those who have died in their Christian faith are a source of hope for Christians, not a reason to shrink away in either fear or despair, even as we grieve quite naturally. We do not grieve as those who have no hope. "For there is no death for Your servants, but a departure." ( -- a part of the prayers from the Coptic Orthodox funeral rite)
What can be more encouraging than to know that those who go before us go into the eternal love and presence of God and all of the saints they join who have pleased God since the beginning? This is our future, brothers and sisters, if we endure to the end. Eternal life with God. It is the heavenly reality. It is what God has given us through His Only-Begotten Son, may He be praised and worshiped forever together with His good Father and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. +
Please do add your own encouraging passages, thoughts, videos, or whatever you have that strengthens the fellow Christian, as we are meant to do. Thank you.