There is a legend about a monk who, having already reached a high spiritual life, having accomplished all sorts of feats, began to be confused by the thought of what eternal bliss would consist in. After all, a person can get bored. In confusion, the monk found no rest for himself, his soul grieved. One day he went into the forest and went into a thick thicket. Tired, he sat down on an old stump, and suddenly it seemed to him that the whole forest was illuminated by some wonderful light. Then there was an unspeakable sweet singing. Full of spiritual delight, the Elder listened to this singing. He forgot everything. But finally, the singing stopped. How long it lasted – a year, an hour, a minute – the Elder could not determine. With regret he rose from his seat, as he wished that this heavenly singing would never cease! With great difficulty he got out of the forest and went to his monastery. But for some reason at every step the Elder was surprised to see new buildings and streets unfamiliar to him. Here’s finally the monastery. “What is it?” he said to himself, “I must have gotten in the wrong place.” The elder entered the fence and sat on a bench next to some novice.
Tell me, for God’s sake, brother, is this the city of N?
— Yes, he replied.
What’s your monastery called?
That’s it.
“What marvel?” – and the monk began to ask in detail about the Abbot, about the brethren, called them by name, but he could not understand him and took him to the Abbot.
“Bring the ancient chronicle of our monastery,” said the hegumen, anticipating that there was some mystery of God.
— Your abbot was Hilarion?
— Yeah, well, yeah! — The old man was happy.
— Celarius so-and-so, hieromonks so-and-so?
“Right, right,” agreed the excited old man.
“Give glory to the Lord, Father,” said the Abbot. God has performed a great miracle on you. The monks you knew and sought lived three hundred years ago. In the annals it appears that in such and such a year, such and such a date and month, one of the monks of the monastery disappeared unknown to where.
Then everyone glorified God.
There is a legend that in ancient times there were birds whose singing sounded so sweet that a person, listening, died of emotion. The Elder, who had listened to angelic singing for three hundred years, was amazed by the Lord’s mercy. He did not leave his servant, who had worked for him for so many years, in embarrassment, but he reasoned and comforted him with the one destiny that he knew. The Lord loves the meek and humble, for “I am meek and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). “Whom shall I look,” says the Lord, “on the meek and silent and trembling words of My word” (Isaiah 66:2).
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Orthodox stories from life
