Blessed Matrona of Moscow
The saint’s appearance
Not long ago an acquaintance of mine told me about the help of St. Matrona of Moscow in her life. One day, when she was still unbaptized, she and her friends got together in a big noisy group. Everyone was having a lot of fun except her. She was in low spirits, and her soul was filled with such a strong, incomprehensible sadness, the reason for which she herself could not explain. She didn’t want to stay with the others anymore, so she went into another room. There she lay down to rest for a while and suddenly, in the semi-darkness, to her great astonishment, she saw St. Matrona of Moscow’s image approaching her. The image was exactly as she had seen in her icon. Blessed Matrona said to her three times, “Rejoice!” and disappeared. Dumbfounded, my acquaintance could not come to her senses for a long time.
After that she began to attend church and decided to get baptized, and one of the reasons for this was the appearance of St. Matrona of Moscow.
Healing at the Holy Protection Convent
Before her Baptism, the saint had helped her one more time. Once the same acquaintance of mine was very ill and could not recover for a long time—she had a fever, coughed and was very weak. Keeping that wonderful appearance of St. Matrona of Moscow in mind, she thought that she must definitely go to the Holy Protection Convent in Moscow and ask the saint for help. She was living in the Moscow region then and decided to wake up early in the morning to get there by the time the convent opened. When she woke up in the morning, she felt so bad that she had to take medicine to be able to make this journey. Her temperature dropped after the medicine, but she didn’t get much better.
Arriving at the convent at half past six, when the gate was still closed, she saw huge queues. She waited for the convent to open and stood in line with her last strength, first venerating the saint’s icon, and then her relics, and all this time she prayed hard and implored for help. Amazingly, when my acquaintance left the convent at noon, she felt absolutely fine. All her complaints disappeared without a trace and never returned.
Oil from Matronushka
And here is another story of Blessed Matrona’s help. A friend of mine recently told me about how some oil blessed on St. Matrona of Moscow’s relics had helped her. It was 1998—the year of the uncovering of the saint’s relics. Her friend from Moscow brought her some holy oil. The man who gave her this oil had received it from his acquaintances and could not say for sure on whose relics it had been blessed. The oil lay unused for some time, and the woman remembered about it only when her child fell very ill. The boy was suffering from a severe cough, and nothing helped him. Then the woman decided to resort to the aid of the holy oil. After anointing the child’s chest with prayer, she was astonished to find that the cough had gone away completely. From that time on my friend started to use the oil whenever she or her son had health problems, and each time it soon went away.
One day her acquaintance’s child contracted whooping cough. The boy was almost out of breath from coughing, and my friend gave them this oil. The next day after anointing the child with prayer, his mother saw that the cough had completely gone away.
Then my friend decided to find out what kind of wonderworking oil it was that helped so much. The woman started asking the people who had given it to her friend, and it turned out that the oil was from St. Matrona of Moscow’s relics. My friend used it to the last drop. Although at the end the oil had thickened, it did not lose its miraculous properties.
Taxi
Last November, on the feast-day of St. Matrona of Constantinople, which is considered the birthday of St. Matrona of Moscow, my son and I decided to go and venerate particles of Blessed Matrona’s relics, which are kept in a large church in the center of our city of Tbilisi.
We managed to buy a large bunch of very beautiful white roses at a small market near our house. After a few stops our bus got into a huge traffic jam, which had formed due to road work. We decided to get off and take another bus to a different, roundabout route, which also led to the church we needed. Not seeing any bus, we decided to walk a few bus stops until we came across an indicator board showing when the bus would come. We had to go uphill, because this neighborhood of Vashlijvari, which means the “apple cross” in Georgian, is in the hilly part of Tbilisi. We walked quite a few bus stops until we saw an indicator board showing that there was half an hour to go till the next bus. Deciding not to wait, we walked three more bus stops until we saw a new board indicating that the bus was still half an hour away. It became clear that that bus was in a traffic jam as well. It would have been a shame to go home without venerating St. Matrona’s relics and placing the flowers, so we resolved to go on.
The houses ended, the footpath too, and we had to walk right along the roadway. We hoped to get a taxi and take it to the church, but taxis were rare on this road, and those that did pass us did not want to stop. We began to pray intensively to Blessed Matrona, asking her to help us get to the church at last. And when we were almost completely desperate, a taxi stopped beside us. The taxi driver started asking us how we had gotten here, since pedestrians don’t usually walk along this road. When he heard how far we had walked, and even uphill, he had such amazement on his face that he didn’t even try to conceal it. I myself was surprised that at my age I had been able to cover such a complicated route, and even at a fast pace, since I had to rush in order to return to my sick mother.
But my beloved saint knew how important it was for me to come to Her relics on that particular day, and she gave me the energy to cover such a difficult road—so much so that I did not even feel tired! Arriving at the church, we laid flowers at the relics and read the akathist hymn to this marvelous saint.
Cakes
Matronushka also helped me with one more thing. Seven years ago, I stumbled across photos of some unusual cakes on the net. There were extremely beautiful cream flowers “drawn” in jelly. I’ve always loved baking, but I had never seen cakes like these anywhere. There was a video online showing how to make such cakes, but it was not in Russian and I could not translate and understand it.
As a result, I had to guess myself which ingredients were needed and what quantities. I so wanted to learn how to make such cakes that I asked my beloved saint to help me. And Matronushka helped me—by trial and error the saint enlightened me, suggesting the required ingredients to me. Despite the fact that I had never had the talent to draw, St. Matrona taught me how to “draw” a wide variety of flowers in gelatin with an ordinary needle with a syringe filled with cream. As a result, I started making these amazing cakes and even taking orders to prepare them. And my favorite saint, Matrona of Moscow, helped me in all this.
Blessed Matrona of Moscow, pray to God for us!
