Behold, the breath of our Venerable Mother Parascheva has set forth over mountains and valleys, over seas and lands! What emotion, what heartbeats! The month of Brumărel (November) trembles with preparations, with the steps of pilgrims, with the doxology of miracles and and joy! Venerable Parascheva and Saint Demetrius Basarabov now give pulse to the entire country, sprinkling dust of light over the golden leaves of autumn.
But who is Saint Parascheva? Why does every Romanian rejoice at the thought that her time is approaching, why can no one stand still and seek how they might come to worship her?
Saint Parascheva knows how to listen to every soul, every prayer. She is pre-eminently the Venerable One of our country; she generously shares miracles and cannot overlook people's tears and needs.
For me, Saint Parascheva is not just a wonderful source of help and divine intervention in our earthly needs, but above all, far beyond that, she is spiritual mother. Amma. Gherondissa. Every time I spend a little time before her holy relics, she imparts a new meaning to me, a spiritual understanding of life, of salvation as an inner becoming; she makes me partake, in an understandable way, in the mysterious work that the saints accomplish in the economy of our salvation.
These living meanings within me, within man in general, are priceless. For from here, from within, we manage what is outside. If inside we have chaos, or nothing, or a wrong perception of reality, then what surrounds us will be similar. But the inner penetration of spiritual truths places everything in that primordial order in which God conceived the world when He created it. Therefore, for me, this is the greatest miracle, and I do not long for another!
My soul enjoys so much experience, peace, and restoration when I spend time and beyond-time with our spiritual Mother, that I feel as if I am feeding on the manna that once snowed from heaven. My chest is filled, my mind is filled with doxology, realizing thoughts of understanding beyond my reason, and my eyes shed tears of gratitude.
I will now make a digression, to better understand the importance of saints like the Venerable One.
I send you forth (into the world) as lambs in the midst of wolves, says the Lord. Thus we, Christians, live in the city as a good opportunity for witness, for love and prayer in the midst of the world. But also for understanding, conceptual updating of the type of society in which we live, with the aim of realistically assuming it in our prayers to the Lord for all people.
I will not insist on this aspect, but it is dramatic to see how the prioritization of seemingly good concepts, such as tolerance, and technology (which also has a good purpose and much use in medicine, for example), has gradually led to dehumanization, has set man against man and distorted an entire society. We call ourselves “civilized” because we have material goods and a lot of media, but we are increasingly uncivilized in behavior; the law of physical superiority and aggression reigns, and common sense seems to look at us sadly with helplessness, from the frightened eyes of a child subjected to bullying of any kind.
Thus humankind has lost its role as a synonym for humanity and has become the antonym of its own value. Who could understand the phrase humankind versus humanity? Or civilization-anti-civilization? In such a diagnosis, we urgently need saints, their intervention, and that is why we now run thirstily to the Venerable One. Who, having lived long ago, through the Holy Spirit and love, now works, in exactly this type of context, to make our salvation, of those of this age, possible.
However, I do not wish to bear witness now about the pathology of society, although in my heart it rises not as a criticism, but as a cry of prayer on behalf of the wounded, a burning desire for the world to stop this free-fallunconsciously. For it is traumatizing to see how good children either suffer like lambs, or "adapt," adopting the same types of attitudes as those of the influencers.
Nevertheless, what I wish to strongly attest is the fact that, behind the visible, concretely contextual reality, lies the fierce battle between light and darkness. How much the enemy of salvation fights to win souls, to bring confusion, to divide us! But also how much thirst the Lord has to see in us, those to whom He has made Himself a participant, that we bear His heart in our chests and that we are ready to accomplish what He desires from us!
How much we need to build good, to fight with zeal, each in their own way, for the Life of the world!
Behind the scene lies an entire unseen reality. A true war, about which Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite also spoke. But salvation is also made in a mysterious way; it ferments within us, around us, through every small drop of goodness. Therefore, everything each of us offers in our lives overflows into the book of life of the entire world.
In this book, the Venerable one wrote much. In this book, of which we are now also a part, she has already written for everyone, not with letters, but with spirit, not in sonorous rhymes, but in stirring depths. Perhaps no one utters it, but lives it. Every tear shed in the name of the Lord waters the earth of all Adam, every prayer embalms the air within humanity. Prayer, no matter how small, forms the underground river that nourishes the entire world beneath existence.
My heart beats to the rhythm of the struggle between worlds, my chest is full of people, of souls, of lives before me and long after, until the end of ages, for the Venerable one taught me more than once, through her prayer, that each of us is called to be participants in the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit, which she also served, and to leave as an inheritance for the Life of the world a prayer of total devotion.
There, in the desert, she carried both me and you, in the longing of her heart, she poured grace into our thoughts across centuries, so that now we may find it, actualize it, and work like Her, like the Lord, for the healing from the disease of death, of non-existence, of all Adam.
We need such people in the world now. Not activists against vaccines, IDs, or whatever else. But people who drip light, drip grace, love, co-suffering, and spiritual presence. Whether they are in cities or in the desert, we need workers of the Holy Spirit on earth. Behold, in recent years the Venerable one served in the world, unknown to anyone, and became sanctified. And through her sanctification, our soul leaps, awakens towards the Lord.
I was intensely wondering in the past weeks what would need to happen, what I should do, what exactly humanity needs to stop this destruction, decay, corruption into which it is collapsing, as we all see. And now, on the Feast of the Venerable one, I received a thought from the Lord: Of people available for crucifixion. For what did God Himself do when He saw man perishing in the death of his own sin? Meek and humble in heart, He took ours, was crucified and was buried. And thus He resurrected on the third day.
Therefore, this would be the solution. And crucifixion does not necessarily mean crucification. But, behold, also a spiritual sojourn like that of Saint Parascheva – cutting off one's own will, ascetic struggles, solitude, prayer, burying in silence and gentleness thousands of wounds. A sojourn in the desert, perhaps sometimes the desert of the heart and humility in receiving unjust reproaches, the love to bear the burden of the world, to transform this constant pain of Adam's wounding into crushed prayer.
His inner crucifixion in prayer, his cry to the Lord accomplished in the desert, is revealed today through the unsuspected niches of our souls, calls us and encourages us to believe that every opening of man towards God is a path to a deeper closeness of Him to us, which will one day resonate in the hearts of other generations of souls.
Venerable Mother Parascheva, Amma, who with the wisdom of the Spirit guides us towards the calling of Grace, pray to the Lord to write within us the scriptural words, making us walking Gospels: "Rejoice always! Pray without ceasing! Bear one another's burdens! Love one another! Love each other, love each other...".
And thus it will be possible, through your prayers, to hear within us: "Come, Lord!".
Maria Tudor
Selections from a text and photos taken from doxologia.ro