God's grace...even the birds paused
There was once a priest who was full of God’s grace
and lived in a monastery in Romania. His name was father Menas and he later
became saint Menas. After the conclusion of Divine Liturgy, the good father
liked to go to the forest that surrounded the monastery, and there he prayed
and glorified the Lord by chanting the wonderful hymns of our faith.
While he was doing that, the birds of the forest would
gather around him; on his head, on his shoulders, and on his hands and the
father would tenderly caress them. Most of the time when father Menas chanted,
the birds would become silent and turn their heads to listen.
The service of the Divine Liturgy started very early
every morning while it was still quite dark and it concluded around dawn. So at
the time the father would finish the service the sun would be rising and that
way he would go out into the forest, very early in the morning, and would enjoy
the nature and the presence of the birds. And right there, all together, they
praised and glorified God.
It was observed, in the last years of father Menas’
life, that when they were celebrating special festive Divine Liturgies and the
service’s ending time was much after the rise of the sun, the birds would
actually gather on top of the church! Everyone was amazed because at the time
of the consecration of the bread and wine into the precious Body and Blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ all the birds on the church would become silent! And as
soon as the consecration prayers would end, and while the choir started
chanting the hymn to our All Holy Theotokos, the birds once again started to
chirp!
From the book
““Experiences during the Divine Liturgy”” of Stephanos Anagnostopoulos, a Greek
priest and writer.
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