The Lord speaks to all people of all times and races, and tells them something clear and well-known. Today a person is alive, but tomorrow he dies and everything that he has is lost to him. But the soul, which moves the body, continues to live and it is either comforted and happy, or sad and burdened. Man is created thus; the body must live as the soul desires. At the moment of death the soul continues to live without the body. Everything will perish except that which the soul has gathered through love and prayer. Everything virtuous done by a man is written in the soul and will not be taken from him. While a person is alive, he finds himself paying attention to many things: clothing, health, his job, studies. There are times when he is concerned only with the thought of war or a failed harvest - of everything that is necessary for life on earth.
So, too, in spiritual life there are times of special attention to what is needful for the soul. Such is Great Lent - a time of special attention, examination, of the freeing of spiritual forces. Fasting is established by the Holy Spirit. Righteous men, striving towards God, through life experience came to know the meaning of fasting and bear witness that without fasting there can be no spiritual life. All the various attacks of the devil, all his temptations, everything concerning the diabolic world, is cast aside -becomes powerless and is shamed-when a person firmly follows the words of the Saviour Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ: " .. . This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matt. 17:21).
Now is a time of fasting, a suitable time for cleansing the soul. This is the most important thing, for a soul to be able to accept the grace of God, so that those treasures will be stored up in the soul, which will not be taken from it. And then the path of its life will be straight; in the soul there will be peace and joy.
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
St. John Maximovich
Archbishop John's abundant miracles both before and after his death testify to his love for the people. People in America, Europe, and the other places of his pastoral labors have long known of the power of his heavenly intercessions. And now, with the publication of Blessed John the Wonderworker and other books and articles about him in the Russian language, the people of Russia are beginning to know, too, and have already experienced healings through his prayers, as the following accounts testify.
1) Valentina A. is a member of our parish which is dedicated to the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God. Having read the book on the healings and life of St. John of San Francisco (Blessed John the Wonderworker), she came to me after church services and asked for oil from the lampada in the sepulchre of Archbishop John, as her daughter was seriously sick. Valentina A. recounted that her daughter, an architect by profession, had a swelling in her breast. It grew and the daughter turned to a doctor for help. The diagnosis was a frightful one, cancer of the breast. I had Unction served over the daughter and later gave her cotton saturated with oil from Archbishop John’s lampada. She anointed the ailing spot several times by making the Sign of the Cross. The doctors insisted on surgery, but when she came to the hospital for observation, the doctors and the sick woman herself were amazed: the swelling had disappeared and there remained only a scar. (1994)
2) Our altar boy, Oleg S., asked me after church services to anoint his hand. There was a swelling on it the size of a chicken egg. I anointed him with the oil of Archbishop John in a cross-like form in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the acolyte left for home. After a week, I asked Oleg about his hand. He said he himself did not even notice when that swelling had disappeared. (1995)
3) Some time later, after Divine Liturgy, a Moleben was served with a Blessing of the Water. At the end of the Moleben, I anointed all communicants with the oil of St. John Maximovitch. I also anointed Olga. After a week, she was again at services and stood weeping. I asked her why she was weeping and all she could say was that everything was fine. Her husband, a military man, later came to me and told me that her leg had developed some infected growths. These growths had rapidly become ulcerous and had begun to multiply. The sight was awful. She turned to doctors but they simply shrugged their shoulders and could say nothing concrete. They gave her various creams but these did not help her.
Alter Holy Communion, Alga had been anointed with the oil of St. John. At home she sprinkled her legs with holy water and went to bed. In the morning, she saw no ulcers at all on her legs. Therefore, at the next church service, Olga wept from gratitude and was too emotional to tell us by herself. June, 1995)
4) Another parishioner of mine, Nadezhda, told me that her son Michael caught a severe cold and had a convulsive cough which only grew worse. She began to treat him with various medications. In the evening he would begin to fall asleep but the cough continued to torment him. Each minute he would be racked by this cough. His mother, a professional medical worker, was very frightened because at one time he had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance with these same symptoms. At this time, Nadezhda was reading the book on St. John Maximovitch and his miraculous healings. The mother began to pray, asking help from St. John, that he would heal her son. Having prayed, she came over to her sleeping son, crossed him and turned him on the other side. Some time later, the cough stopped and the boy quietly slept until morning. She no longer gave him any medication, only some holy water. For several days, her son would occasionally cough, but the convulsive fits did not return, and he became quite well. The mother was very thankful to Archbishop John for the healing of her son and continues to pray to him with gratitude. (April, 1995)
Hieromonk Cyril Osipov
Astrakhan, Russia
http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2013/11/some-recent-miracles-of-st-john.html
