In our parish, as in other modern parishes, there is such a pious tradition: At Great Lent on Sundays, seafood is served in the refectory for lunch, as is customary among the Greeks. Well, for example (or most often), squid … Not that I really like these squid, but – as they say – a small thing, and pleasant. Especially when it is a trifle of gastronomic, especially with Lent. But one day on a Sunday after the Liturgy, there were no squids for lunch. I will not say that this fact looks extremely sad or crushing, but the little things that have become habit sometimes dictate to a sinful person where he should go and what to do. In general, in accordance with the established tradition, I decided to get squid on my own — at least for dinner, because there were still classes in Sunday school after lunch — and in the meantime, the usual March cold day began to lean towards the evening. It would seem that these days squid is quite a common product, but in the first store, where I went, squid was not. True, the squid thought that determined the route of my shopping that day said that the squid in the banks is “not Comilfo”, they are too subtile and stale in their canned “own juice”, they clearly lack natural fleshiness, while I, unworthy priest, who from early morning suffered great feats of service and learning, of course need natural gastronomic consolation. It was this purely human and understandable motive that led me to visit several grocery stores in a row in search of legitimate food delight. But, surprisingly, ice cream squid (cut or not cut, carcass or, at worst, cut with rings) was nowhere to be found.
I had already made bizarre zigzags in my car around the area from one store I knew to another and almost despaired, so that the treacherous thought had already begun to creep into my heart: they say, there is nothing left but to agree to squid canned or even dried. Of course, this would be a betrayal of the high principles of gastronomic purity and taste, but – what to do! – a weak person and easily content with a tit in his hands, forgetting about a crane in the sky. With such desperate thoughts, I drove up to the last one on my difficult journey that day shop. However, it was not even a store, but a typical food pavilion, which, as a rule, does not contain any delights, but is satisfied with the necessary «gentleman’s minimum» of alcohol, cigarettes, canned food, chips and bread. Without any hope, with the thought that there could be nothing good here, I opened the doors of the pavilion and viewed its contents with a view filled with doubts about the usefulness of the local assortment.
— “Are there squid?” I asked in order to quickly complete my presence here, to finally come to terms with defeat and, perhaps, to capitulate to a canned product, from which, however, with the addition of onions and a green pot, some salad could also be obtained.
— What do you want? he said. There are ice creams, there are canned ones.
— What? Any ice cream?
— Yes, there are ice cream uncut, and there are also cut – fillets.
— Well, Come on, come on, come on, come on! Kilogram fillet!
When the squid was already weighed and I put the desired object in the bag, I heard an unexpected question:
— You serve here in the temple, don’t you?
Although I have already taken off the serpent, it is probable that, having been wounded in the temple (or elsewhere), I was seen, and therefore I have now been unmistakably identified.
— I have a serious question for you, Father. – asked the seller – a middle-aged woman, fat and, as they say, with noticeable traces of the struggle for survival. I have a daughter here in Moscow, very young, eighteen years old, studying in her first year.
— Where are you from? — I dared to ask.
— We ourselves are from Mordovia… My daughter is studying, I work here, I rent an apartment, but there was such a story: my Katya met with one guy and now she is pregnant. And where did she give birth when she was still in her first year, just starting to live, she needs to learn, so we decided that it was better for her to have an abortion, she is going to go tomorrow, and I also had such a story when I was young, I also had to go for an abortion, and then my mother took me to church — a prayer to take, So I think how would my Katya also come for prayer later? I’m not mistaken, are they?
Here I should start to tear my clothes and sprinkle ash on my head. However, I did not have ashes with me, and the jacket was still pathetic, although external pockets might be useful for tearing off. However, I still gave and gave a short lecture on the terrible sin of abortion and the general harm it causes to a woman’s health. There were almost no customers in the store at that time and I managed to do it in one breath. The mother of a poor first-year student was impressionable.
— What about… How can they pray? she was able to squeeze out at the sight of my righteous Jeremiah anger.
I had to deliver another, albeit more brief, speech explaining where and how the practice of applying this prayer (in case of involuntary miscarriage) to women guilty of the sin of killing their own child came from in modern Russia. Considerations of tolerance, political correctness and intra-workshop solidarity were of little concern to me. It is obvious that some of the world constants previously formed in the consciousness of this woman, collapsed before her very eyes.
— Wow. She said when she heard that in ancient times for abortion was excommunicated from the Church for twenty years, and I thought it was enough to take a prayer and everything is fine. We have planned everything for tomorrow… God must have brought you here!
In short, this whole squid thing has its happy ending. We still called, met, talked, mother and daughter came to confession, the daughter soon married her boyfriend, and closer to the next winter gave birth to a daughter. In general, if not the passionate desire of a priest to eat squid on one of the Sunday days of Lent, it is unlikely that this child would see the light of day. In all of this, we can see God’s purpose. It is sad that not all children get this kind of luck.
The author of the story:
Archpriest Andrei Spiridonov
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
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Orthodox stories from life
