![\"Theotokos](\"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1566531_32.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
How the Mother of God Turned a Woman Back from the Edge<\/p>\n
In the first year of my priesthood\u2014this was in 1991\u2014I regarded the fourth Saturday of Great Lent rather simply. It seemed to me a pious tradition, established by the ancient Fathers: a day on which we turn to the Mother of God and ask Her help to meet the Resurrection of Christ worthily.<\/p>\n
And how could it be otherwise? Is She not \u201cthe fervent helper of the Christian race,\u201d \u201cthe purification of the whole world,\u201d \u201cthe opening of the gates of paradise\u201d? We call upon Her everywhere\u2014at home, on the road, in every need\u2014and in church we honour Her at every service.<\/p>\n
To support this understanding, I would even recall an incident from my own parish. A certain local \u201ctheologian\u201d once declared aloud that we ought not to say, \u201cMost Holy Mother of God, save us,\u201d since God alone saves.<\/p>\n
And then our quiet, almost unnoticed church helper\u2014who rarely spoke at all\u2014answered him:<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me, my dear\u2014do you remember when you were a little boy and a goose chased you? You ran and hid behind your mother\u2019s skirt, crying, \u2018Mum, save me!\u2019 I remember\u2014you were a red-haired one. That is how we turn to Her: we run to Her and cry, \u2018Mother of God, help us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
I was quite certain, then, that I understood the meaning of this Lenten Saturday, and of the whole day of praise offered to the Mother of God.
\nThat certainty was gently undone in the course of a single conversation.<\/p>\n
It happened the following year, just before Great Lent. I brought five of my parishioners to Optina Pustyn Monastery\u2014the monastery where I myself had spent nearly a year, and which had played a decisive part in my becoming a priest.<\/p>\n
After the evening service and supper, we were invited by the monastery\u2019s dean, Abbot Melchisedek, to speak together. He asked about our life, our parish\u2014and then, quite unexpectedly, he turned to my parishioners and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me\u2014how has the Mother of God helped you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I was taken aback. What could they possibly say? I even feared the conversation would turn into a monologue.<\/p>\n
I was mistaken.<\/p>\n
One after another, they began to speak\u2014almost interrupting each other.<\/p>\n
One woman told us how, after losing two loved ones in her still young family, she could no longer bear the grief. In despair, she ran to the river, determined to end her life and put an end to her suffering.<\/p>\n
She had already decided. She stood at the edge\u2014one more moment and she would have stepped forward.<\/p>\n
But suddenly someone took her by the shoulder and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWho will you leave your children with?\u201d<\/p>\n
She turned back.<\/p>\n
When she returned home, she recognised that woman\u2014in an icon of the Mother of God. It was a simple icon, not especially remarkable. But it was She who had stopped her.<\/p>\n
Another parishioner spoke of her son. After a mining accident, he had lost his leg and fallen into heavy drinking. She prayed to the Most Pure Mother of God for him, and was advised to go on pilgrimage and ask for Her help.<\/p>\n
She went\u2014and the Mother of God helped.<\/p>\n
Her son came to his senses, found work he could manage, and his family was preserved.<\/p>\n
Then old Ivan spoke\u2014may his memory be eternal\u2014a Cossack from a nearby village. At the last moment, he had asked to join our pilgrimage.<\/p>\n
He told us how, during the war, he always carried with him an icon of the Mother of God of the Don, fixing it before him in the trench.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it were not for Her,\u201d he said simply, \u201cI would not be speaking with you now.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were other stories. And the last one brought me to tears.<\/p>\n
It turned out that, in 1990, these same parishioners had travelled several times to the diocesan authorities, asking for a priest for their newly forming parish. Each time they were refused\u2014not because anyone was unwilling, but because there were simply no priests. In those years, there were only two seminaries in the entire Soviet Union, and more than two thousand parishes had opened.<\/p>\n
There was no one to send.<\/p>\n
So they resolved to go to a functioning church in the city and serve several molebens to the Mother of God, asking Her to send them a priest.<\/p>\n
They prayed.<\/p>\n
And three weeks after my ordination\u2014having barely begun to learn what priestly service meant\u2014I was sent to them.<\/p>\n
Only then did I begin to understand what this day of praise truly is.<\/p>\n
And why the Church sings:<\/p>\n
Rejoice, You through whom Christ\u2019s miracles begin;
\nrejoice, You who are the fulfilment of His commandments.<\/p>\n
Translated by the Catalogue of Good Deeds<\/em> How the Mother of God Turned a Woman Back from the Edge In the first year of my priesthood\u2014this was in 1991\u2014I regarded the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1100,"featured_media":41972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-and-the-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1566531_32.jpeg","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-aUF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41953"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41973,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41953\/revisions\/41973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSource: https:\/\/foma.ru\/a-detishek-na-kogo-ostavish-kak-bogorodicza-ostanovila-zhenshhinu-na-krayu-gibeli.html<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"