Saint Phanourios: a Friend in Suffering and One Who Finds What is Lost

Original icon of St. Phanourios from Rhodes1

This is the continuation of my essay series on St. Phanourios.  You can read part 1 here.²

As it is for many, we often spiritually grow through suffering. Elder Sophrony³, when writing to his sister Maria, writes about what suffering can give us:

Do you really think that my in my years of monastic life I have escaped periods when the vision of my ruin was so petrifying that it is not permitted to speak of it? But, strangely, when these visions were transformed into an opening up of NEW horizons, into manifestation of the INFINITE LIGHT of another world, could not find words to express my gratitude to God for my experience of hellish torments, because these spiritual events occurred in a sequence such that precisely these intense sufferings were an indispensable condition for the development of the very capacity to receive eternity⁴.

I would never claim to have the level of suffering and consolation that God granted to Elder Sophrony.  But I did go through a period of suffering in my thirties that was incredibly pivotal in my life.  I began to see how St. Phanourios’ prayers and presence were part of what God used to save me.⁵ I was in between jobs, running out of money, received a tax bill the size of my savings, my unbalanced neighbour tried to get me evicted and I fell ill – all at once. The illness was that I got a huge rash on my face, it was really bad and super sudden. I was at the dermatologist office and was told that there was a 50/50 chance that I had cancer. (The rash often being a sign of cancer’s presence). Blood work was done, I would meet with a  hematologist to be told if I had cancer later that month. Nothing like a shot of fear to urge one to pray even more! I had the service to St. Phanourios with me in the doctor’s office and I vividly remember praying parts of it, begging for his prayers. I was so afraid and felt very alone. But St. Phanourios prayers were with me. Within a month, I found out that the sickness was idiopathic, not caused by cancer; I met with a hematologist who gave me the good news, a happy meeting, thank God!

Slowly, I got better physically; by the mercy of God and the prayers of the Saints, my family, church family and friends prayers, I found work again a few months later. But that was not the end of my experiences of St. Phanourios’ prayers for help in times of need – in my life and in the life of others. I can see how I was carried through this very difficult time; how I received, more than once, unexpected monies, always enough for rent and food. Around St. Nicholas’ day, I found a plane ticket home that my parents could afford to purchase for me; that Christmas was so special. I felt surrounded with love, as I recovered from my illness, struggling with insomnia and the effects of the strong medicine I was on. I found new work and, within months, I discovered a new direction that would totally upend my life as I knew it. St. Phanourios’ prayers never left me. St. Phanourios helped me when I was lost in a sea of questions, fear, exhaustion and uncertain future. I know his prayers helped me find my way out of this struggle.  

St. Phanourios is known, as I previously wrote, for helping people find both deep things (life direction, spiritual fathers, a spouse) but also things that are lost. I want to share three such stories. First story: Once my sister-friend, when they did not have much extra money to spare, lost a car key, one that was made special for the car and would cost a few hundred dollars to replace. They looked everywhere, for days. They asked St. Phanourios for help, reading the service I had given them⁶. Days went by and then, suddenly, their then four year old son walked into the kitchen holding the car key. When asked, he said he found it on the couch, the same couch they had searched more than once by stripping all the cushions off it more than once.

Second story: a family from my church in Ottawa were enjoying a nice family holiday at the beach. The Mom had a special ring that she had for years and she lost it there, at the beach. They felt no hope of finding it but their young son thought of St. Phanourios and asked this Saint’s prayers. A day or so later, the Mother was busy washing dishes, and all of a sudden, she realized that the ring she had lost was back on her finger. Wow! When we heard of this miracle, we all had chills! God is wonderful in His Saints!

Third story, but not the last . . . a family I know was gathered for Christmas. The Mother’s wedding band was getting a bit loose on her finger but she had not had time to get it resized at the Jewelers. She realized, after coming home from a store, that her wedding ring of so many decades was gone! The Mother called the store, feeling sure she lost it where she was recycling pop cans and asked them to leave all the bags there until she could return. They did. One of her family members, while the Mom went back, hurried to St. Phanourios to ask his prayers. The ring was found! In a large bag with tons of pop cans. One of many such bags…. God is truly wonderful in His Saints! I think we often forget that we can pray about everything, that God’s care for us is manifold.

In two weeks, God willing, I will write again here of how St. Phanourios helped me find what I was long wishing for: the husband I had been waiting for nearly 20 year. As a friend said later on, I was in trouble for a while and then, unexpectedly, my future husband suddenly appeared and I was saved. I agreed, saying, it was as if all the hidden sunlight, during my time of darkness, burst out at once. It was a miracle.

---

(1) This picture was found here: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Phanourios
(2) Elizabeth Roosje. “Revealer of Light: St. Phanourios”.  Conciliar Post.  Wordpress. November 3, 2016.  http://www.conciliarpost.com/journeys-of-faith/revealer-of-light-st-phanourios/
(3) For a brief outline of his life, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophrony_(Sakharov)
(4) Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov). Letters to His Family. Essex, England: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2015, pp. 183-184.
(5) I have written about this before, in this post: http://www.conciliarpost.com/journeys-of-faith/perspective-choices-and-what-a-picture-from-1904-taught-me/
(6) I write about this and where to get this service here, in part 1 of this series: http://www.conciliarpost.com/journeys-of-faith/revealer-of-light-st-phanourios

This post is also published on Conciliar Post here: http://www.conciliarpost.com/journeys-of-faith/saint-phanourios-friend-suffering-one-finds-lost/ 

St Xenia and What Prayer Can Look Like

I went on a walk with a friend recently, we saw trees fully green and trees with delicate yellow leaves, falling in the wind, on green grass. Autumn in Northern New Jersey! While sitting on a bench, we talked about books, ideas and our dreams for life. I reminisced a bit. I told her how when I was in school, years back, outside Vancouver and new to the Orthodox Church. I saw 2 icons for sale, I told her, one of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus, looking healthy, with full round faces. And that there was this other icon, with a woman in drab clothes and a thin face, who looked, by comparison, unhealthy to me. The suffering I saw in her I instinctively veered away from. I did not understand what I was seeing. I did not want such an icon.

After seeing this icon, I went away for Christmas holiday and my Aunt H. gave me ten dollars for my birthday. I was a typical poor student and ten extra dollars meant that I could buy my first icon. While I was on holiday, the icon with the thin gaunt faced woman kept coming back to my mind, again and again. I did not understand why, but this icon, the woman pictured there, was calling to me. When I went back to Church, I asked who she was, and learned her name was Saint Xenia1 (to me this sounded like Zenya but Russians actually say Kzenya, like ‘Kuhzenya’ said quickly). I learned that she lived a rich epicurean life before her husband, who struggled with alcohol, died; that she was so worried for her husband’s soul, so shaken by his death, that she started going to church, acted crazy, wore her husband’s clothes, lived outdoors and prayed in intense ways. 

Today we call her a ‘holy fool’ and know many stories about her. One is that she saved a woman from great peril, as her fiance was an undisclosed murderer and this was uncovered before she married him; this young woman was saved from a disastrous marriage! St. Xenia protected the vulnerable, really understood the struggles of others and cared about the poor, the struggling. She became a prayerful vagrant wanderer…

I told my friend that I did not know what to do with her icon, once I bought it. I would sit in one of the old IKEA chairs; chairs my professor had lent me for my studio apartment, and just stare at this icon of St. Xenia. I put this icon on the mantle of the small black gas fireplace in my small studio apartment. Once, I remember, I was holding this icon and looking deeply at it when I suddenly felt like I was falling into the icon; that somehow the layers of the icon opened and there I was, falling. I did not know it then, but that was prayer.

Prayer can happen just by looking at an icon; just staring at it, as if to memorize the face of one you love. Looking back, I see how the author of Courage to Pray2 , was encouraging me that, as young as I was, I too was praying. It is best explained this way, by way of an old friend’s blog:

“There is a story told by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (of blessed memory) in his book, Living Prayer3, about an old Orthodox man who would sit in church for hours in front of the icon of Jesus without saying a word. When asked about this, the old man replied, “I look at Him, and He looks at me, and we are happy together.4”

(1) More can be found about St. Xenia of Petersburg, including the following sources:https://orthodoxwiki.org/Xenia_of_St._Petersburg, https://oca.org/saints/lives/2013/01/24/100297-blessed-xenia-of-st-petersburg, http://www.goarch.org/chapel/saints_view?contentid=402,http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/01/saint-xenia-fool-for-christ.html,http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/44559.htm
(2) Anthony Bloom and Georges Lefebvre. Courage to Pray. Crestwood NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.
(3) Anthony Bloom. Living Prayer. Springfield IL: Templegate Publishing, 1974.
(4) Kimberly Francis. “Good old fashioned Quiet.” “January the Twentieth” Blogger, Friday, March 10, 2006. Accessed October 17, 2016. http://januarythetwentieth.blogspot.com/2006/03/good-old-fashioned-quiet.html

This essay is posted today at Conciliar Post and is found here. 

“Do not be afraid” ~ {While Experiencing the Abandonment of God}

(Image Credit is my own; the icon is St. Seraphim of Sarov praying for 1000 days and nights on
a rock in front of an icon of the Mother of God.)

I1 am nearing the end of a really beautiful book, called Dimitri’s Cross.2 Right now I am reading the letters he wrote his wife, Tamara, from his first place of imprisonment.  I already know, from reading this book, that he is later sent to Dora, a camp called the “Man-Eater” where Fr. Dimitri is forced to work in horrid, extreme conditions, ages quickly, becomes very ill and at the end, speaks of feeling the abandonment of God. The day after Fr. Dimitri speaks of feeling abandoned by God, he dies, with a man kind enough to move Fr. Dimitri’s hand to cross himself, right before taking his last breath. Fr Dimitri is now a Saint of the Orthodox Church, as he was in these camps because of his work to save Jews and others during the Nazi regime in Paris. He worked carefully with the monastic Mother Maria of Paris, who was arrested at the same time as Fr. Dimitri. Mother Maria is also a newly canonized Saint, dying in the gas chambers of the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, having taken another a woman’s place3.

Mother Teresa, after having very close, real, felt intimacy with God, suffered – for a long time – from God’s absence, experiencing a profound abandonment of God. Yet she radiated such joy and peace to others; it’s as if she was submerged in God so much that others received God’s light by being near to her, while she felt herself in darkness.

Elizabeth Goudge’s books also speak of this experience of God’s absence and even His abandonment. Goudge’s book The Dean’s Watch4is one. In this book, the root cause of the feeling of desolation, the experience of being forsaken by God, came in part from great grief and personal loss. This grief was coupled with the physical depletion of, Miss Montague, leading to extreme fatigue, what would be called “classic burnout” in today’s self-care/self-help milieu. I have found that this experience of feeling forsaken by God is often in relation to both deep personal loss and illness, as Elizabeth Goudge writes.

Elizabeth Goudge also speaks of what faith, in such moments, can look like. She describes, in The Middle Window, a man fighting in the highlands of Scotland, who nearly died before a kindly couple took him in, nursing him back to consciousness and health. He, having thought his life over, now had to come back to life, and realizes what troubled him most is his loss of faith. It is then that he realizes, “[f]lames may die down but nothing could rob one of the ashes” and that, perhaps, “he was, for the first time in his life, actually experiencing faith. This fighting with no certainty that there was anything to fight for, this going out into the night with no belief that dawn would ever come, was…the real thing…”(Goudge, 200-201)5.

In my later 20’s, while still studying at Trinity Western University, I lead a discipleship group (basically a Bible study organized by the student life leadership). It was a year after the death of a woman who was my first spiritual mother. When she died I felt like I had lost my Mother; the sun shining on campus was merely a violation of my suddenly shattered world. A year later, I felt that God had fallen silent, as if He had left me; His Word, which fed me daily, was empty as a bowl of dust. Yet, in God’s mercy, He gave me words about His silence via CS Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle… teaching me that all Christians can, will, or have gone through this. Thankfully the other leaders I served with were supportive and kind, helping me to lead while experiencing the unexpected silence of God. In time this silence passed, after creating within me room for new spiritual growth and directions.

Whether by God’s will, by physical illness and exhaustion, or by a challenging season in life, many do not sense God’s presence. They, who were once sustained by His Presence in difficult afflictions, can later be cut off from the same sense of His Presence, often when the situation gets even more difficult.

It is here that we must remember that God is everywhere present, filling all things6; and yet, at the same moment, is in relationship to us as a Person. And that God, in relationship to us, may choose to be silent7. We may need to learn something. Or we may need to have great courage and faith.  

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom8 writes of a woman who wrote him (she had cancer, was dying) that she was sustained by His Presence, but later only found God’s absence. She wrote to Metropolitan Anthony that her only prayer was to avoid fabricating a sense of God’s Presence when He choose to only give His absence. She had great courage and faith.

Did not Christ Himself cry out to God the Father in His experience of being forsaken while on the Cross? Courage comes when we remember that Christ’s cry of deep pain and abandonment is right before He dies. After He dies, Christ filled Hades with His light9, His Divinity, and on the third day, rose from the dead, resurrected, with a new body and hope for the entire world.  

All of this tells me to be persistent in prayer, to keep going even if I feel God’s absence or even the abandonment of God. It tells me not to give up hope, but to trust that God is still near; to remember God, to have courage and faith even when the battle appears lost. Lastly, it tells me: do not be afraid…

---

(1) [Original material first published as]: Elizabeth Roosje. “Do Not Be Afraid”. Roosje: Little Rose, Blogger, August 08, 2016 https://eroosje.blogspot.com/2016/08/do-not-be-afraid.html
(2) Klepinin-Arjakovsky, Helene. Dimitri’s Cross: The Life & Letters of St. Dimitri Klepinin, Martyred during the Holocaust. Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press Ministries, 2008.
(3) Mother Maria’s life is detailed in Dimitri’s Cross: The Life & Letters of St. Dimitri Klepinin, Martyred during the Holocaust. But there is, in English, an entire book on her life by Sergei Hackel: Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova 1891-1945. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982.
(4) Goudge, Elizabeth. The Dean’s Watch. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1960.
(5) Goudge, Elizabeth. The Middle Window. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935, 1971.
(6) This is part of the prayer to the Holy Spirit, found in the trisagion prayers, that can be seen here: https://oca.org/orthodoxy/prayers/trisagion 
(7) Metropolitan Anthony Bloom writes of this in his book, Courage to Pray and in other books he wrote on prayer. Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev’s book on prayer, Prayer: Encounter with the Living God, also speaks of God as an encounter and that we are in relationship with God as a Person. Fr. Alexander Men’s Book, Inner Step Towards God, also speaks of prayer to God as an encounter.
(8) Bloom, Metropolitan Anthony, Lefebvre, George. Courage to Pray. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.
(9) For more on this, see Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev’s essay “Christ the Conqueror of Hell: The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions” found here: http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/11/1/5.aspx and “Christ, The Medicine of Life: The Syriac Fathers on the Lord’s Descent Into Hell” by Irina Kukota, published in Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthdoox Faith and Culture. Vol. VI, No. 1 (#20), also found here: http://www.roadtoemmaus.net/back_issue_articles/RTE_20/Christ_the_Medicine_of_Life.pdf

This essay is also published on Conciliar Post today, September 8, 2016.  http://www.conciliarpost.com/journeys-of-faith/do-not-be-afraid-while-experiencing-the-abandonment-of-god