By Catherine de Hueck Doherty, My Russian Yesterdays, Madonna House Publications, used with permission
Catherine was brought up in Russia and had many fond memories of her life there….a life that reflected simplicity, family, religion. After fleeing Russia during the Communist Revolution, she eventually came into the Catholic Church. Catherine prayed much that her motherland would be freed from Communist rule so that people could once again openly practice their faith.
May the Soul…
Death was simple in my Russian yesterdays. There wasn’t the fear that seems to shroud her or any mention of her in our modern days.
Because she was the inevitable, people took time to consider her, to get acquainted with her, so to speak. They prepared themselves to meet her and to welcome her.
Outsiders often were heard to comment that the Russians were fatalists, and that the Eastern influences “that shaped the Russian character” were most assuredly at work here. They thought that kismet, the oriental word for “fate,” which implies the impossibility of fighting it and the need to morosely surrender oneself to it, was the set word of the Russians in the matter of dying.
In other words, we just said “kismet” and gave up the ghost! But like many other preconceived notions, this bespoke the ignorance of the strangers within our gates.
The truth was far more simple and much more beautiful than this rather rash and generalized statement. The truth was to be found in the intense faith of the people and their understanding of the most holy will of God.
In the Western Churches, pious folks are wont to recite this rather beautiful prayer of resignation: “My Lord God, even now I accept at Thy hands, cheerfully and willingly, with all its anxieties, pains, and sufferings, whatever kind of death it shall please Thee to be mine.”
The Russians did not say any prayer on the subject—they just lived it from day to day and did not forget that such a “living” necessitated a general and constant attitude of mind, soul, and heart. All these had to be always and continually exercised in submitting cheerfully to the most holy will of God through one’s whole life, to be ready to do so when death approached.
I remember one day when my father came into the house with a smile on his face and, handing Mother a lovely piece of jewelry, informed her that this would be his last token of love for quite a while, for he was utterly ruined, and that though we would have to drastically change our mode of living, there was little to worry about, for “God had given and God had taken away…May the most holy will of God be done in us…Alleluia!” It was.
It has always seemed to me that ours was the most cheerful “ruined” family I knew. No, it was not oriental fatalism that filled Russian souls. It was, rather, deep love and understanding of God’s will and a simple conformity to it.
Many there were who earnestly and dutifully prepared themselves for death. I remember many holy pilgrims who used to stop at our house, discussing, beautifully and simply, their preparations for the day when death would come to lead them to Life.
They would tell of the many prayers for a Christian death they were saying. They would speak of the penances they were inflicting on themselves, on the long vigils devoted to these wholesome and holy thoughts. They went on to say how one should live if he were to be ready to die in the Lord.
I remember many of their stories. Maybe, someday, I will have time to write them. They would make wonderful, though perhaps somewhat startling, meditations for our confused world, which has developed so thoroughly the cult of the body beautiful and neglected the nurturing of the beautiful soul.
In the villages around us, which I so often visited with my mother on errands of mercy, or with my nurse just to visit her folks and friends, we often would watch men fashioning their own coffins and weaving shrouds for themselves or for their kin. The best flax, the smoothest wood, and the most skillful workmanship went into both.
Nor were the dead forgotten. Constant prayers sped up to heaven for their souls. Anniversaries were scrupulously observed, and in every Sunday Mass the dead were mentioned by name at the altar of God.
The Eastern liturgy differs somewhat from the Western. In our churches, the deacon or reader, at the Memento of the Living and again at the Memento of the Dead, would read names from the family book he kept.
These “family books” were quite an institution. Some were plainly bound, some were bound in silver and gold, but every family had them. They were divided clearly in two parts—The Living and The Dead.
Before Mass, the head of the family would peruse the book, which measured seldom more than six by four inches, and either leave it as it was or add a name in one part. The book was brought to the vestibule of the church, where a sacristan presided over a table filled with candles and unleavened breads. The faithful would select a loaf and a taper, perhaps, and make an offering while handing in the books.
The loaves and the books were taken to the priest. He, with a little triangular golden knife, cut tiny triangular pieces out of the bread. These pieces would go into the chalice and be consecrated as the Body of Christ.
In the Eastern Rite, Communion is given under two species. Thus, you might say, the living and the dead shared in the Holy Sacrifice through the offering of the faithful, as it was done in the days when the Church was young.
All Souls’ Day was a major holyday in Russia, for the love of their dead was deep and abiding in the hearts of its people. Throughout the land, at Mass and in special prayers, the dead were remembered solemnly and with all the family present. All day the cemeteries were filled with throngs praying, fixing graves, visiting the beloved who slept their last sleep.
At eventide, there were more prayers in the church and usually a candle procession to the cemetery, with everybody chanting litanies and hymns. The candles were left to burn on the graves, in little containers or lanterns. They made beautiful patterns of light and shadows for passers-by to see. They demanded that all who saw them must whisper a prayer as they went by.
Praying as one passed a graveyard, any graveyard, anywhere in the land, was a “must” for a Russian. Men would lift their hats respectfully, and both men and women would whisper a prayer that the souls of those resting in this cemetery might know the deep peace of a Christian’s final rest. To clean and adorn cemeteries was considered one of the corporal works of mercy, but to me it was a human joy too.
For the Russian cemeteries were indeed fascinating. They sprawled unevenly, at least in the country, all around the Church. Their wooden picket fences were often painted red, blue, or white. Some remained unpainted and acquired that gray, satiny paint that hardwoods get when exposed for a long time to rain, sun, and snow, with an undertone of faint violet or purple. I loved these fences ever so much better than the painted ones.
Each grave had a wooden cross, surmounted with a little roof that made a sort of shrine under which an ikon might be placed, together with an enclosed lantern that would burn on big feast days in lieu of a vigil light. Then the cemetery looked beautiful with its big trees and simple flowers becoming immense in the shadows thrown from the gently swaying lights.
Always there were special nooks and corners in every cemetery that attracted the passer-by to stop, rest a while, and say a prayer for the good souls that slept so peacefully in these homey surroundings.
I remember especially a little corner by the huge lilac bushes that I could never resist. When they were in bloom their scent could be smelled afar off, the more so because at the feet of the lilac trees there was a white carpet of lilies of the valley, Russia’s favorite wild flower, of which there were so many in the woodland lots. I have never since smelled so sweet a fragrance as that of lilacs and lilies of the valley.
Spring and fall brought out the villagers to clean the cemeteries, rake the leaves, cut the dried branches of the many trees, and plant new flowers. Besides cleaning the abode of the dead and the beautifying of them, the preparation of the body for a decent burial was another part of the same corporal work of mercy—burying the dead.
It was the privilege of the older women to attend to it, but always they brought some young ones with them, to teach them the reverent art of laying out the dead.
Litanies were recited during this last work of mercy that neighbors could render the deceased—litanies and long, lovely prayers for the dead. There was nothing frightening or distasteful in the performance, for every gesture was full of love and respect. And love makes all things right and proper.
Wakes were solemn affairs, much resembling the Irish wakes in this part of the world. The family, visiting pilgrims, nuns, and friends prayed constantly, in relays at the coffin. Not for one second was the body left alone or without prayers while it remained in the house.
Yes, death was simple in my Russian yesterdays. Simple, beautiful, sacred, to be made ready for by a life lived in conformity with God’s most holy will.
“Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden, and waiting on the sick, could be a prayer, if it were offered to God. ~ St. Martin de Porres “Saint of the Broom”
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This was so serene and beautiful… May she rest in peace as beautifully as she has described! 🙏
Thank you for the prayers… We are very grateful, and hope an answer will present itself! 🙏
May Our Lord grant each of us a happy and a holy death, and be received into heaven, ever to behold The Beatific Vision in Perpetual Light. Amen.🙏