I’m coming to the temple. Nine in the morning, when the first lamps and candles are lit, the temple is preparing to receive people. Crossed, attached to the icon. I turn around and see a woman coming from the depths of the temple. Shrunken, with a distorted face. You can tell she has some kind of grief or pain. She is preceded by a guard: “Father, a woman is waiting for you from eight in the morning. I came earlier and sat at the closed doors of the temple.”
A woman comes up to me, starts crying. But she no longer has tears, she cried. She somehow clings to me because it’s hard for her to stand.
— What happened?
I take her by the shoulders, look into her eyes.
And here’s a really scary story she’s telling me. Last night we came from a walk with our three-year-old son, Vanechka. She took off her shoes in the hallway of her son and took off her shoes herself. And Vanechka to the kitchen. And there is a chair at the windowsill, so climbing on the windowsill is easy. There’s a mosquito net on the window. The kid got in and leaned on the net. And with her … fell out the window. Fifth floor, asphalt down. She didn’t understand anything, only heard a scream and a knock. It’s a knock that God doesn’t let any of us hear. That’s it, no more sound. Stepped into the kitchen and suffocated: empty window and no baby.
Vanechka was still breathing, but was unconscious. Of course, ambulance, ICU… Doctors don’t give a chance. “If you believe,” they say, “pray.” And she goes to the temple at night. It’s closed. She stood and cried at the door, and as they opened, she rushed to look for Constantine’s father.
«If she’s a believer.» Of course, believer! Two and a half years ago, this baby was baptized in our cathedral. I baptized. And before Baptism I took the word from the parents and godparents that they would bring the child and bring him to the temple and commune.
“Father, we never got out in that time!” My mother cries, clinging to me. — One thing or another. Everyone postponed. The worst part is that I dreamed of you a few days ago. Never dreamed. I didn’t dream of you. It was a dream. Clothes. Stand and look so hard. In my dream, I wonder why God looks like this. And then I realize that it’s because Vanechka is not communion. And then I decide: all in the morning we will go to the temple.
Wake up, we didn’t go to the temple. We decided to go tomorrow, but… as usual, overslept. And then the dream weathered, if anything, in fact, will dream, not break the same habitual way of life. «We’ll go sometime…» We never did.
Dear Father, help me… I don’t know how, help me!
I was desperately sorry for my child, my parents, but I didn’t know God’s plans. “We can pray that the Lord will save the baby, if it is His will,” I told my mother. We cannot demand: necessarily heal, cure.
— Yes, yes, come on, please, let’s pray!
— In that case, let me go to the service, I said gently, because the woman clutched my jacket so tightly—I entered the temple and was in street clothes—that it was impossible to tear off her arms.
— Yeah, yeah, sure.
She let me go, apparently reluctantly. It’s so hard to bear it alone, so want to grab someone and hold on.
I led the woman to the huge icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Vsezaritsa” – in a richly decorated salary, with a dozen colored lamps, near the chapel of St. Torch. John the Warrior.
— Stand here and pray.
— I can’t…
— As you can. Ask the Lord to help your child. I’ll go to confession soon. Come to me and confess. Ask God for forgiveness for all your sins. When the service begins, step away from the icon and stand here. Listen to the service, whatever the deacon says is sung, and pray. Then take communion.
— We have to prepare for this, I don’t know how…
— This time I bless you to take communion like this. The Lord wants you, as His daughter, to support and nourish you with strength and support. Be grateful for that.
I went to the altar and told the sad news to those present.
The deacon began to inscribe in his synodik the name of the “severely ill infant John.” “I’m going to say a separate thing,” he said.
Readers and ponomari also treated with the most genuine participation.
We have begun service. Of course, they remembered the baby on the proskomedia — I took out with a special prayer for the sick, a particle from the prosphora. I put it on a disco near the Lamb. Confession and Divine Liturgy. I wanted not only the clergy, but also the people of God, members of the Church, to pray for this situation, so I asked the parishioners to pray for trouble.
The mother of the baby John all the service stood like a candle, it was clear that sincerely praying. Then she came to Communion, and after the service suddenly disappeared. When I finished the sermon, I went back to the temple. Got it. Her face was light. “Father, I was leaving the church because the hospital called. They said Vanechka had recovered. They took repeated pictures and said that everything was not as scary as the doctors thought at night. It will live.
Then we prayed for the baby John, and this woman came to the temple every day. A week or more later, she brought her son to Communion, who had been discharged from the hospital. No internal ruptures, no fractures, only two ribs cracked. They go to the temple now. They try every week. Vanechka turned out to be a pretty and smart blond-haired boy, he likes to commune very much. And our ponomari, knowing about his history, pour him a double drink.
Priest Konstantin Parkhomenko
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Soul investment!
Orthodox stories from life
