Here Father Ily comes out after the service on the salt of the temple in honor of the Kazan icon of the Blessed Virgin, the hands of pilgrims reach for him: they ask for blessings, prayers, pass notes with names. Next to me is a tall, powerful man with an expression of grief on his face. He’s trying to approach the old man, but we have too many people in front of us. And I notice with horror that my neighbor is weeping quietly with anguish and suffering. It’s hard to see a man’s tears, catches his breath, and I frantically try to figure out how to help him approach the elder.
And Father Eli, short, completely closed from us by the crowd, already hears this grief in spirit. The crowd parted, and he himself approached the suffering man, and we see how the elder embraced him affectionately, like a mother comforting a crying child. A man through tears tries to explain, talk about his grief, and others understand that this is the loss of a loved one. And now the man is already weeping, leaning to the shoulder of the elder, and the father himself is almost crying and tenderly embraces the weeping one. And such love on the face of the old man.
So they stand, snuggled together, and everyone understands that the father is praying for this suffering man with all his strength. And gradually the sobbing calms down, his face in some elusive way changes. This is difficult to define in words: despair and torment are replaced by hope, consolation. It happens when someone takes on your pain and your suffering.
Author: Olga Rozhneva
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Soul investment!
Orthodox stories from life
