Mourning which is according to God is a melancholy of the soul, a disposition of an anguished heart that passionately seeks what is thirsts for, and when it fails to attain it, pursues it diligently and follows behind it lamenting bitterly.

On the Fourth Sunday of Great and Holy Lent we commemorate Saint John Climacus, Egoumenos (Abbot) of Sinai (6th Century), who is assigned a special Sunday in Lent because, by virtue of his writings and his own life, he forms a pattern of the True Christian Ascetic. Saint John is the author of The Ladder of Paradise, one of the spiritual texts appointed to be read in church during holy Lent. His memorial, like that of Saint Theodore, has been transferred to the movable from the fixed calendar, where he is remembered on 30 March. The first Canon at Matins (Orthros) on this Sunday is based on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (St. Luke 10: 30-35): the repentant Christian is likened to the man who fell among thieves.

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One wonders where the souls, which have been separated by death from the body, live? To a similar question, the pillar of Orthodoxy, Saint Athanasius, gives the following answer:

"This question is "a strange and fearful one and hidden from mankind". For God has not permitted someone to return from there to tell us where and how the souls live after they have departed. But, the Holy Father continues, we are informed by the Holy Scripture, "that the souls of the sinners are in Hades", and according to the Psalmist, they are "in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep" (Psalm 88:6).

"... God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from the passions or caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated or the illiterate, of the healthy or the sick, of the young or the very old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather, which are the same for everyone without exception. "For God is no respecter of persons" (Romans 2:11). An impious man is a rational being, one that must die, who willingly runs away from life, and refuses to believe in the existence of his own everlasting Creator. A transgressor is someone who observes the Divine law only in his own depraved fashion and holds on to heretical belief in opposition to God.

The holy Apostle Paul clearly and definitely teaches about the judgment which every man incurs immediately upon his death. He says, "As it is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). The words of the holy Apostle apparently do not admit any lapse of time between death and the judgment; consequently, it is a particular, individual judgment that he has in mind, rather than the general judgment at the Second Coming of Christ.

Bright sadness may be the most powerful and important experience we can know. It brings to our mind and heart, in the most direct and personal way, the ultimate purpose of our life and the object or end of our most passionate desire. It reminds us of who we are, as beloved children of God, created in His image and invited to glorify and enjoy Him forever.