Orthodox Parables and Stories "Mrs. Maroula in Limassol"

 

I don't know if you met Mrs. Maroula in Limassol . Mrs. Maroula, that's what she was called - Sister Mariam later, she became a nun - was a woman [who lived] a few houses above the Metropolis. I knew her long before I went to the Metropolis but she happened to be there near us. She was a woman who had been paralyzed in bed since she was 18 years old.

35 years plus in bed all the time, locked in a room. For a while, the floor of her house was so rotten that one day she sank her bed into the floor. She had no man in the world. She was married and some ten years ago her husband died and she was completely alone. She had no one in the world! She had some very distant relatives who wanted nothing to do with her. Her brother was in Australia, also old. This woman was completely alone, in the true sense of the word. Completely helpless, paralyzed in bed unable to do anything. She had been in her room for years. Her husband died and she couldn't go to his funeral because the condition she had was such that she couldn't even sit in a wheelchair.

Once she was a victim of a girl who was mentally ill. She had psychiatric problems. She came inside the house and beat Ms. Maroula so much, she was hitting her with an iron, ready to kill her and she could not defend herself. The girl was beating her for thinking she was lying about being paralyzed. She kept saying: "Get up, get up." " I can't, I'm paralyzed." "No, you're lying! And she beat her with a board, blackened her eyes, punched her, and then took an iron to kill her. So this person who was completely alone - had 18-20 operations, her blood sugar was at 800, pains, was in terrible pain all the time. Imagine a person in bed for 35 years immobile.. Pains and sufferings and diseases and alone and abandoned and without anyone.

But really this person was so complete, so complete a person that it was impossible to go to her room and see her and find her alone. There was a parade around her bed. A multitude of people went daily to see her and she comforted all people. There were so many people. And she listened to everyone, comforted them. Whenever you went and asked her: "How are you Mrs. Maroula? " she woul say: "Glory to God!". Her face shone..And I confess, later when we took her to Melathron - when she was in her last days she was also affected by cancer and she was in terrible pain, she died in excruciating pain. The whole torture of her life was not enough for her!
One day when they were taking her to have some tumors removed and she was being carried in a cart, her face really lit up! What can I say! This whole woman shone because she had absolutely nothing of all these good things that we have but she had the One and Only!

People who have everything - houses, money, health, children, a good wife, cars, they have all the good things - and yet they are not well, they do not rest. They are missing something! And people, they can have many evils and many problems and be sick, be poor, suffer, thrown away, abandoned, have all the evils on them and yet they have God in them and one sees these people being full of joy, full of happiness, full of fulfillment. These people are complete.