Orthodox Parables and Stories: "Vladimir image of Our Lady"

My mother was a pious woman and took in strangers and wanderers. I remember an old man, an elder with long gray hair, dressed in a white linen cassock. Behind his back he carried a heavy bag full of sand and in his hand an iron staff, so heavy that we children could not lift it.

My father died, leaving my mother with six small children. My mother decided to open a sewing workshop to feed her children. She borrowed money, bought materials, hired seamstresses, and hung a plaque at the front door, a sign for accepting orders. She waited for customers, but they were not coming. The month was coming to an end, the wages of the seamstresses had to be paid, but there was no money. My mother got desperate.

Suddenly a stranger came to her. Mother tearfully tells him her grief. "Do not grieve, Ulyanushka," says the wanderer, "I will give you a great helper, there will be no shortage of orders. Send someone to help me"

Mother sent our nanny, and they brought a large Vladimir image of Our Lady from the cell of the wanderer. He spent little time in his cell, and all the more he wandered about the holy places.

The elder ordered the image to be hung in the workshop and an unquenchable lamp to be lit before it.

When they hung the image and lit the lamp, my mother gathered all of us children together. The elder read prayers, and we prayed with him for a long time. Mother prayed with tears. Then the father blessed all of us, told mom not to despair, and left.

Suddenly the calls from customers began. Call after call, twelve orders were taken before noon. And the next day they temporarily stopped taking orders: they piled up in one day for a whole month. Then she even had to expand the workshop.