Let me tell you about a discovery. These are communication mechanisms for the uninitiated; maybe these mentions will help some rule-strayer, like myself. Attention. When your eyes are webbed with sleeplessness, a perceptible and unprecedented physical phenomenon occurs! Reaching the end of an Akathist, on the spot with half a blank page where the 13th Ikos is systematically missing (but you must be extremely tired from reading!), the content of this 13th Ikos begins to settle discreetly, with a virtual, trembling calligraphy, at first glance elliptic.
So I was left with the conviction that the 13th Ikos is not mentioned precisely because of the blessed reason of your freedom, because space is left for your own participation. It's the text it's your turn to compose, it's the place where you can formulate your subjective request. Creativity in prayer is encouraged by the blank page, which makes you want to write, not read. When you are exhausted, the lines naturally lay themselves down, flowing from your heart, distinct for each saint. Having just followed Saint Nectarios, you effortlessly replicate even the archaic language or prosody; it simply occurs to you to continue, if you are already in rhythm:
...Rejoice, for celebrating Christ all your life, you have succeeded in transforming yourself now into a celebration! Rejoice, Holy Hierarch Nectarios, great wonderworker!
I myself have driven away many beggars who, over time, have clung and dragged themselves by the hem of my garment. As I did with them, I beg you, do not do so with me now. But let the myrrh of your mercy spring forth, comfort and drip upon the place where suffering has taken root in your pure children.
From the porch of Akathists, my pious brethren glorify you with well-composed prayers. Your chanters call out to you with melodious voices in this long night. But I disturb their graceful, psalmic echo, and silently scream over them, with a deafening noise, to you and will not let you, even though you have been deemed worthy of them, neither celebrate in joy nor rest in the peace of Paradise: Kill, then, and extract the worm nestled in the body of our child, so that all those kneeling in the house may sing: Alleluia!
It's restful! My little books have this last page filled in with pen.
The Tree-of-Commemoration
Thanks to Mrs. D., the one without silver, who has a series endless of academic titles printed on the institute's card-access door, and who, at the meeting, doesn't present herself, but hides behind a shy child who reigns only over an infinity of freckles. She stands Guard. And moment by moment, she shares so much hope.
Likewise, to my Father at the church-matryoshka at the University (I call the building that because there we feel we are included one within another. We have Saint Nicholas encompassing the spires, who holds inside him this Father Vasile who contains us wrapped close to his chest, we who always hold other and other children in our arms, good to bring to him). From the very beginning, I asked for a prayer for Alexia, and he gave it to me, pressing strongly on my head, in the form of a blessing, and because it was pouring rain outside when I left, I felt how it became a watercolor all over my head and shoulders. I carried the blessing with me, soaked into my clothes. I hope it never left there. I know that he prayed all the time, and he, and the Fathers there, and the other Fathers from the churches where even the walls love me, not just their holinesses. Thank you for understanding how much mine this child is.
Dance of joy to everyone in the Choir! To those who have laid your little ones on the carpet! To those whom I pulled away from your errands and worries at predetermined hours, to help me shout so loudly that it could be heard in the Orchard.
Unceasing celebration in the hearts of teachers, children, and parents at school! Never in my life have I seen a back-to-school assembly, after a summer of whispered phone calls, where people embrace each other upon reunion like this. Where a shiny little head of a schoolgirl is greeted with so many cheers of triumph.
Forgive my little ones, about whom I cannot say that I have locked up in the house and I left for half a day, because that would be a lie. Returning after the first attempt from the hospital, I started realizing that, in my haste, I hadn't even turned the key in the lock; they stayed only with Saint Mina, with the door open.
Thanks to the priest hired of the hospital, the one without a church, the one with a contract. The one I haven't mentioned anything about until now. Who humbly stayed home, not having a built altar, until he received a phone call on the Saturday when Ionuț ascended to the Upper Floor. About whom I heard, with relief, that yes, called at home, he got up, made the sign of the cross, vested, took the Holy Gifts with him and administered communion to my child, the beloved little pile of screaming bones. The situation was saved. After receiving communion, he left. And it wasn't for the child that I had cried and worried so much, realize, but for the image of the Company in my mind.
Pure adoration and unconcealed gratitude for the sublime, for the conquest, beautiful cripples. Chosen ones from everywhere. To those met in hospitals, to those who jump into my arms at agapes, to those who, perhaps, have crossed the threshold of my home, without revealing your secret, to those who secretly carry the pearl of the worm in your crown, chest, belly, or breast. Love me, carry me with you wherever you travel.
Cosmina Dragomir
Photography by Noemia Prada
See the other episodes here: The Beautiful Cripples