he life, trials and teaching of the great Romanian elder ascetic Arsenius (Papaciok)

Many times in his life the Elder told the following parable. They once asked a leaf: "Are you a rose?" "No, I'm not," said the leaf. "Then why do you smell like a rose?" "I'm just a leaf, but I once stood next to a rose." All those people, whom the Elder mentioned so much in his prayers, were to preserve and transmit his "fragrance", because they too at some point, like the leaf, stood by the grace of God next to a rose.