The Sitka Icon (yet again)

  • Here are pic­tures of the Sitka Icon’s visit to our church.

    I’ve been think­ing about the icon again today, and about the won­der­work­ing things we believe in in the Ortho­dox Church. It’s pos­si­ble and so easy to take them wrong, to believe in them just because you want — every­one wants — magic pills, cura­tive tal­is­mans of luck and for­tune. But how incred­i­ble it is to see one of the vehi­cles through which God man­i­fests His grace, whether you under­stand it or not.

    That’s very vague. Sorry. I’ll just tell my lit­tle story, and maybe the point will be clear on its own. It’s a bit of a long read, but I’ll cut it as short as I can.

    There was a mes­sage on my machine last night that ended up ruin­ing my night and chang­ing my day but maybe, by the grace of God, mak­ing my evening. The call was from my god-daughter Juliana (her church name). She’s an adult con­vert, so she actu­ally has a few years on me, and though I spon­sored her into the (cap­i­tal ‘c’) Church, that par­tic­u­lar (lower case ‘c’) church has since folded (long story I’ve already told) and our rela­tion­ship has been through phone calls and occa­sional vis­its. On this mes­sage, she sounded exhausted, and was obvi­ously unable to quite pull her thoughts together. But it was clear that she was think­ing that she was at some kind of cri­sis point that she might not make it through.

    I nearly dropped the phone before it was over and then — even worse — hit the delete but­ton in my haste to hear the mes­sage again. I called her back (this was sev­eral hours after she left the mes­sage) and got a busy sig­nal. I tried it again ten min­utes later — the same. I called her cell phone and left a mes­sage. I lit incense and said a prayer, then tried the phone again and got a busy sig­nal. That’s the way I had to leave it and go to bed (hence the ruined night). I couldn’t sleep for some hours. I thought of what might be wrong and what I could do. And I thought that if I could reach her, I should bring her the only things a layper­son can — some dried blessed bread that we’ve held onto for some rea­son, some holy water … and I really wished I had picked up one of the cards of the Sitka Icon.

    In the morn­ing, I finally reached her. (Thank God!) She was embar­rassed. She had been on med­ica­tion for ter­ri­ble pains she’d been hav­ing in her abdomen, and after days with­out much eat­ing and nights with­out much sleep­ing, it affected her men­tal state and she had just come to believe she might die. In the light of morn­ing, her men­tal state was better.

    The pain was another story. About a year ago, she had had this pain that resulted in her going through many tests and hav­ing her gall blad­der removed. She got an infec­tion that led to more surgery, and appar­ently (I didn’t find this out till today) had spo­radic pain a cou­ple times as sutures worked their way out. But that had been months and months ago — and now, what? She had got­ten her pain med­ica­tion pre­scrip­tion refilled, but was expect­ing the pain to go away, and instead, it was becom­ing crippling.

    She wasn’t par­tic­u­larly com­plain­ing on the phone, just stat­ing the facts and insert­ing a lot of self-deprecating remarks about her silli­ness and what a bother she was. But her pain and con­fu­sion was audi­ble through it all the same. I said I’d be over as soon as I could.

    It turned out she still had some holy water, so I left that but brought the blessed bread I had. I still wanted a Sitka Icon to bring her, and in the end I did an elec­tronic end-run. I brought up the image from the OCA Web-site that I used on yesterday’s post and printed it off my color printer. On the back, I printed one of the kon­takia from Wednesday’s service:

    A storm of pas­sions and sins rages against us and we know not where to turn. It is then that the holy Mother of God gives us her peace; and gaz­ing at the icon she has sent us, we cry with thanks­giv­ing to God: Alleluia.

    I had a chance to think about this on the way over. Why bring the icon? As I said, I kind of hung to the rear on the whole thing. Won­der­work­ing icon? Well, … ohhhkay. Could be, right? I mean, yeah, why not? (Gracie’s Kon­takion in the 9th tone — never much of a crowd-pleaser.)

    But now, when there was an extreme need, I reached for it auto­mat­i­cally. Why? Because the sit­u­a­tion was just too damn big for me, that’s why. I should have been a priest or some­one sig­nif­i­cant, some­one with answers … but I knew I would have to do. I was at hand, and that was impor­tant for right then. But I needed to have some­thing to bring her, and that was it. A bet­ter per­son would have an apple from par­adise or a touch that could heal. But God brought our church a won­der­work­ing icon and He gave Juliana a lame god-mother with a color printer, and if that’s what He pro­vided, it must’ve been because that’s all we needed.

    So I brought her that and my other offer­ing from the Church. She seemed to be feel­ing much bet­ter, and our talk touched on all kinds of unim­por­tant things. I could tell when she moved about that the pain was there, but it was a long time before we talked about it. By that time, I had fig­ured out that the best thing I could do prob­a­bly was just hear her. There was some­thing behind her eyes that had the qual­ity of real bewil­der­ment. She was say­ing that she had had a good cry, that just let­ting it out had helped, but it went with­out say­ing that wasn’t a solu­tion, just a response.

    I was glad I could get her mind off things. I hoped that I had acci­den­tally said some­thing prof­itable. I left after some hours and made the long drive home with­out really being able to focus my thoughts on much of any­thing. Her weari­ness and her strug­gle made me feel empty.

    But here’s the good part. She called me around seven and thanked me for com­ing over. But she also wanted to know if the blessed bread had been sweet. I could tell her that it had been, hav­ing come not from a divine liturgy but some spe­cial ser­vice. She said, “Is your holy water sweet?” We both got our holy water at the same time, and she knew the answer as well as I did. It was almost two years old, and it had an acrid taste, almost undrinkable.

    She said, “The holy water tasted like honey.

    “And I feel bet­ter than I have in a week. When I was pac­ing the floor last night, I thought I was going to die. Now I can take a deep breath with­out dou­bling over.

    “Where is that icon going next?”

    Well, unfor­tu­nately, we’re outta luck there. It’s already in Illi­nois and winds up the tour next week. (If you’re in IL, WI, MN or MI and want to see if you can see her, look at the bot­tom of this arti­cle for the sched­ule.) But I’m so very, very grate­ful to God for that icon. Juliana just had to keep telling me: “The holy water tasted like honey.”

    God be praised.

    Kon­takion 5:
    Your icon shines in our Cathe­dral like a bright star enlight­en­ing the whole land with its radi­ance. It guides all the Ortho­dox in Amer­ica gone astray on the sea of life and over­whelmed by the waves of sor­row, tribu­la­tions and sick­ness, giv­ing them peace and hap­pi­ness as they take refuge in you and sing to God: Alleluia.


    Related posts:

    1. The Sitka Icon (again)
    2. The Sitka Icon
    3. Pascha on the porch
    4. Fr. John Platko — Mem­ory eternal
    5. Prayer request

    September 30th, 2005 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Karl Thienes 09.30.2005

    Fan­tas­tic story, Grace. There is a cou­ple I know who keep a jar of holy water in their icon cor­ner and it con­tin­ues to smell of roses and honey these 3 years running.

  • Michelle

    Oh my good­ness, Grace! What an incred­i­ble story. Thanks be to God!

  • Grace

    Karl,
    That’s very inter­est­ing to hear. I was unpre­pared for this cir­cum­stance, but that added to the won­der of it for me. But I like hear­ing how it goes for others.

  • Grace

    Michelle,
    Amen and amen! Nei­ther Juliana nor I know what hap­pens next, and it may be that this episode didn’t pro­vide per­ma­nent and last­ing relief. But in any case, it was a much-needed respite and a source of refresh­ment to the soul. I’m glad I got to see it, and I hope telling the story to oth­ers brings a lit­tle of that refresh­ment to them as well.

  • kay

    The first time we brought Holy Water home (we’re adult converts)

    it smelled like roses — only more so — on Theo­phany that year.

    I still mar­vel at the mercy of God and how that love is made

    man­i­fest.….

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