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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