Orthodox Parables and Stories: "How can a thousand years pass like one day?"

Long lived a monk in a monastery and kept asking himself: "How can a thousand years pass like one day?" But in paradise it is so beautiful and there is such great bliss that a thousand years in it seems like one day.

The monk for several years prayed to the Mother of God and said: "Mother of God, pray to the Savior Christ, that He would reveal to me how a thousand years pass like one day. For I know that these words of the Holy Spirit are true. " Three years he prayed, and God showed him this.

Once the sexton left the temple alone at the end of the half-hour and began to read the Akathist to the Mother of God. The keys were in his hand. .

Suddenly a bird flew into the temple and landed directly onto the iconostasis. Such beauty was this bird, which in this life no one has seen. Its feathers were covered with all the colors of the rainbow, a crest was sticking out on its head, eyes were examining all the decoration of the church. Each feather was akin to a precious stone.

The monk, seeing the bird, thought: "Oh, I'll catch it! If I can only take a feather from it! "

He rushed to the bird, and it flew up and sank to the floor, sat in the very heart of the temple - pretending that it could not fly further. The monk stretched out his hands to grab it, but the bird flew to the porch.

And again, only when had put his hand on it, the bird again soared, but not high, and flew from the church to the monastery yard, then sat on the fence. When the monk ran to the fence, the bird flew into the forest. The monk jumped over the bark, saying: "Lord, help me to catch it!"

And theny he brought his hand over the bird, as it flew to a large clearing. "Lord, do not leave me. At least let me take one of its feathers! " When he rushed to the bird in the middle of the clearing, it flew up to the spruce. Then the monk cried: "Lord, I was not worthy to take at least one of its feathers! Lord, Lord, what a beautiful bird! I've never seen such a beautiful bird! "

And then the bird suddenly sang a song that he had never heard on earth. It was an Angel in the image of a bird, but the monk did not know this; and so he stood and looked at the bird, and it sang to him for 355 years.

It seemed to the monk that only an hour had passed, and for all that time he had not grown old, tired, he did not want to eat or drink, and no one had come upon him.

Then the bird flew away, and the monk, seeing the keys of the church in his hands, remembered: "Oh, woe to me, the temple is still open, I go to lock it." He came to a monastery with keys from the temple, but did not recognize his monastery. The church looked different, and the cells were different.

He thought to himself: "Either I went mad, or it's not our monastery." Knowing that he was absent only an hour or so, the monk went to the porter with the keys in his hands. The gatekeeper saw a gray-bearded old man with a radiant face and said to him:

"Bless, Father!" What leads you to us?

"Brother, I'm going to lock up the church."

- Were are you from?

"From here, from the monastery."

- And where did you go?

- Yes, here I went, not far.

"Father, but you are not one of our own."

"Do you not recognize me, child, but I'm a monk, I'm a sexton and I'm going to lock up the church!"

"Wait, Father, I'll go tell the abbot."

And the rector saw a revelation that night in a dream and heard a voice three times: "Open the gates of the monastery so that the dove of the Lord will enter!"

"Father, here comes an old monk with a shining face and says that he wants to lock up the church, as if he's a sexton."

"Let him in, child, for there is a great secret hidden here! Come with him here, to me."

When they came, the abbot asked him:

"Father, do you recognize me?"

- No.

"Do you recognize the monastery?"

- I do not recognize it anymore. I recognize the Church, but it seems to be no longer what it was. It had another roof.

"Where did you go, Father?"

"I walked here not far, into the forest."

The abbot ordered the monastic bells to ring and gathered the whole fraternity, three hundred monks, to the church. Then he put this monk in the middle of the church, just before the iconostasis, so that everyone could see it, and asked:

"Father, do you recognize any of these monks?"

"Christ lives, I do not recognize anyone!" He answered.

"Do you recognize this monk?" asked the abbot the monks.

"We do not know," they answered.

"Father, if you say that you left an hour ago, then who was the abbot when you left?" the abbot asked then.

"Abba Hilarion."

"A ecclesiarch?"

"Abba Ambrose."

"Who was the sacristan?"

"Abba Gerontius".

Then the abbot said:

"A great mystery has been revealed among us." Call the monastery archivist here. - And he said to him: - Go bring here the monastery archives for the last several hundred years and look, when there was such a composition of monks.

He searched in records of fifty years ago, he searched in the centennial, he searched for two hundred and three hundred year olds, too, but he did not find them. And he began to look even further and found some old, worm-out annals in the monastic attic, which was three hundred and fifty-five years old. And when he began to read: "such-and-such, such and such", he found them.

"Father, when did you leave the monastery?"

"It must be an hour ago."

"Father, what did you pray to God before you left to go?"

"I prayed for a long time and read the prayers of the Mother of God, that the Savior would reveal to me what He means in the Psalms: "A thousand years in your eyes, Lord, like yesterday's day! (Ps 89: 5)Ps. 89: 5 )

"Father, well, here is the All-Holy and Most-Wonderful God and fulfilled the prayer of your holiness." You did not want to believe it or even believed it, but just wanted to make sure of it. So, since you left, it's been three hundred and fifty-five years!

The old man started to cry. And the abbot says to him:

"Do you see, Father, that God has shown you a miracle, since you prayed with faith?" If three hundred and fifty-five years have seemed to you one hour, do you now believe that a thousand years before God as one day?

"I believe you, Father!"

Then the abbot ordered the priest to quickly dress. He brought the Holy Mysteries and communicated the old man in front of everyone.

The elder received the Holy Mysteries and said:

"Fathers, forgive me, I brought great astonishment upon you."

His face shone like the sun. Then he asked all to forgive and then died in the temple. And he went to paradise, to those beauties that no one can ever describe, for the holy apostle Paul says: "What the eye did not see and the ear did not hear and that the heart did not rise to the person, God prepared for those who love Him" ​​(1 Cor. 2: 9)..

What beauties does the Good God give to us, by the prayers of His Most Pure Mother and all His saints. Amen

Archimandrite Cleopas (Ilie)