OLD NUN Story

Memories of a real story that occurred in one of the monasteries about 10 years ago .

In the most ordinary suburb lived the most ordinary young family.

The Lord gave this family the only and beloved son. Like most believers, his parents took him to Communion from birth, often taken to temples and monasteries of the city.

The convent on the river bank was especially fond of the child, and in its small church ,the monastery was just being rebuilt, there was a beautiful miraculous icon of the Mother of God. The boy was not even two years old when he began to get up before everyone else, wake up his mother and ask: “Mom, go to the monastery!” He could also gather his mother in the middle of the day for a pilgrimage to his beloved image: the mother did not refuse such requests. They went to the bus stop and drove for a long time to the old city center, to their favorite abode. Basically, the child was in the arms of the mother or firmly held her hand, never for a second letting go of her. “You have it your hand! - friends laughed. “Even this age, now you can’t walk away from it at all ...”

Once they arrived at the monastery in the middle of the day. They climbed the narrow stairs. On the floor there was only a small church shop behind a glass case in which it was possible to buy candles with icons and record names for commemoration, while the glass case had tables and several chairs. The doors on the right led into the home church. Mother and son came to it. “Go, go to the Mother of God!” the child hurried.

But on this day in the church it was not allowed. After the service, a group of pilgrims from the other end of the country came to the miraculous icon. Now they came out one by one, and the nun was already closing the temple behind them: first the lattice with a large lock, then the old wooden doors. “The temple will open for evening service,” she told the people in the shop and left. As she left, she almost tripped over a chair at the door, on which another elderly woman, elderly and small, was sitting. She seemed to be smiling with half-closed eyes, the prayer rope moving in her hand.

The child lounged like a sparrow and climbed into his mothers's arms .

“Well, hare,” said the mother to her son. - Let's take a couple of candles home and go?

She lowered him to the floor. “Mom!” The child shouted.

“Wait, son, just a minute,” said the mother and let go of his hand. Exactly for such a time that it was necessary to give money to the stern mother in the window with one hand, and the second to take a few candles.

Then she turned around.

There was no child.

She still did not understand, looked around. She looked under the table and chairs. The boy was not there either.

She looked at the people standing nearby in fright. They gave her the same frightened look. “But after all, he was just here!” - some man scratched his head confusedly and put his cap back on he was holding. Another couple of women, like her, looked under the table.

Mother ran to the stairs, went upstairs, the stairs led to the cells.

“No, he did not run up here,” the nun, who was sitting at the door, answered her. "Just over two years?" and she looked puzzled at the high steps.

Mother ran out into the street. There was no child in the yard.

"My son !!!" she screamed.

How much she looked for him. There were mothers who came out with an angry voicel “you are in a monastery, why are you screaming” and those who remained helped looking for him.

People appeared from somewhere, a lot of people. She ran to the fence of the monastery, thought that behind a high wall — the city, the whole city. Exhausted she fell to the ground. She tried to get the phone, dial the number, her fingers shook.

Suddenly, a calm voice shouted to out to her:

"Come on, woman. We found your boy."

She turned and fell, her legs did not obey. Several pairs of hands raised her up and carried her in. She tried to walk up the stairs herself, but her legs buckled again, and the same hands again caught her.

Before her were the wide open wooden doors of the temple. The lattice was still closed on a big lock ... and from the temple, holding onto the bars of this lattice, her little son was smiling happily!

An elderly nun ran up to her like to her own:

“When you started shouting, I heard a small voice from the temple:“ Mom, I'm here! ”They didn’t believe me, they said, stupid, how can he be in a closed temple? And I say - you open, open! Open up. And he stands at the most miraculous icon of our Lady - and prays! Wow!

The temple was finally opened, the child was picked up in his arms.

“My son, what have you done to me,” her mother whispered. "I was so scared ... "

And the son, not afraid at all of the crowd filling the room, or of the other men who held him, shouted joyfully:

"Mom, how could you be scared? I was at the Mother of God!"

"Well done boy," one of the men laughed, "I wanted to go see the icon myself and I got to see it! What faith you have, eh?

Mother and son were helped out. Someone came back to finish the notes, talked a little about the incident.

"The doors were closed! How did he get in?"

"Maybe he ran in when the Siberian pilgrims were led out, and the mother didn’t notice?"

"So no one noticed ..".

And only a little old nun was sitting on her chair again.

She was still smiling and praying with her prayer rope.

Photo: Ivan Zhuk (Moscow)