Making Angels Laugh

by Woods, Karen

  That pattern was followed for each additional item of the habit; the leather belt, the apostolnik — a combination of wimple/veil/short cape that has a hole cut for the face but covers the rest of the head/neck/shoulders/upper chest/upper back, the sandals that were a traditional part of the habit but which would be seldom worn by any of them in favor of more practical footwear, and finally the brimless cylindrical black hat with a veil attached that was placed on each of their heads over the apostolnik. The bishop returned to Rita/Mother Nina, with the mantiya, a flowing, floor length, many pleated, sleeveless coat that would be worn only in Church. He put it on her. And again, everyone sang a threefold “Lord have mercy”.

  Each of them were given a prayer rope.

  There were more prayers for their success in the life they had just entered. The three of them were escorted over to the left choir area. A section from the sixth chapter of Ephesians was read by Alexei. A section from the tenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel was read by Father Samuel. Each of the readings was done in the normal Orthodox way, with special prayers and psalms sung before, in between, and after the readings. Rita/Mother Nina, was handed a wooden hand cross, with a reminder that Christ said to take up one’s cross and follow Him. One day, she would be buried holding this cross in her hands. Until then, it would be in her monastic cell/bedroom. All three of them were handed lighted candles, with a reminder that they should let their lights shine in such a way that God would be glorified.

  Then the service continued largely as if it were a normal Divine Liturgy, with additional prayers for the new nuns. Philip, Em/Sister Elizabeth’s son-in-law, preached eloquently about monasticism and its’ essential role in the life of the church. Then, the celebration of the divine liturgy of St John Chrysostom continued in the richness and beauty that was uniquely its own.

  After the newly made nuns, and the rest of the people so disposed and prepared, to make their communions, had come forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and the regular post communion prayers had been sung, the bishop said, “Mother Nina, would you come forward?”

  Rita/Mother Nina went to stand before the bishop. She bowed low, three times, before him. Then she stood there with her head bowed.

  Vladika removed the hat, with its veil, from her head and handed it to Alexei. Then with his right hand, the bishop made the sign of the cross three times on her head over the apostolonik.

  “Let us pray to the Lord,” Boris chanted.

  Vladika prayed, placing his hand on her head, “O God, who ever exercises divine foresight concerning the salvation of men, and has gathered into one this reason-endowed flock: O Master of all, do through Your boundless love for mankind, preserve the same flock spotless, ever keeping Your commandments that not one sheep should perish or be devoured by the wolf. Make this Your servant, whom You have been graciously pleased to set over it as Abbess, worthy of Your goodness; and adorn her with all virtues, that through her own deeds she may offer a good example to those who are subject to her; that they, being moved to emulate her blameless life, may, with her, stand uncondemned before Your dread judgment seat. For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages.”

  Everyone sang out the Amen as Vladika removed his hand from her head.

  “Peace be with you all,” Vladika chanted.

  “And with your spirit,” the congregation all replied, although she heard a few people reply, “And with thy spirit”.

  “Bow your heads to the Lord.”

  Vladika prayed in a lower voice, “Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear our prayers; and cause this Your servant, the Abbess of this venerable habitation, to be a wise and faithful steward of the reason-endowed flock which, by Your grace, has been entrusted to her, working Your will in all things, and becoming worthy of Your heavenly kingdom. Through the grace and love towards mankind of Your Only-Begotten Son, with who You are blessed, together with Your all-holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.”

  “Command, Master,” Philip chanted, loudly.

  Vladika, in a loud voice, declared, “The grace of the all-holy Spirit, at the hands of our humble person, promotes you to be the Abbess of the honorable habitation of the Lord God, and our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of Saint Maria Skobtsova.”

  Then he laid his hand upon her head once more and sang out, “Axios! Axios! Axios!”, the Greek word for “worthy” repeated three times.

  The congregation sang in response, “Axios! Axios! Axios!”

  She only wished she felt worthy.

  Boris handed the bishop a gold pectoral cross on a heavy black silk cord. Vladika said, “Receive this cross, as an emblem of your responsibility and authority in this place among the sisterhood.” Then he blessed her with the cross, and presented it to her to kiss, before he placed the cord over her head.

  Alexei handed her hat and veil back to the bishop who replaced it on her head.

  She returned to the left choir to her sisters. The formal part of the service concluded with a blessing a few minutes later.

  The bishop instructed everyone as to how they were to greet the new nuns. Then he reminded everyone of the monastic tradition that those who are at the tonsuring of a nun will be gathered around her in heaven to bear witness as to how well she had lived her monastic life.

  “There is a luncheon buffet prepared in the dining hall. Please come and eat. We will sing grace for that meal together now, to let people eat as they get to the dining hall instead of waiting for everyone.”

  The receiving line for those who were in the congregation seemed to take forever with the nuns being asked repeatedly for their new names, telling their names and that they were sinners, and being repeatedly advised to work out their salvation and to pray for the person to whom they spoke. And yet, the line really only took a bit over forty-five minutes to speak to everyone in this formalized way.

  Their families, their chaplain, and the bishop were the last people through the line to greet them. When everyone had greeted them, and all the formal photographs of their tonsuring had been taken, Mother Nina took off the mantiya and hung it on the coat rack near the door of the chapel.

  Vladika said, “Matushka, I am granting economia for you to go to the luncheon. When the guests have gone, then you should return here and remain, day and night, until after Saturday Vespers in retreat, in prayer, reflection, spiritual reading, doing no work more strenuous than spiritual reading and singing during the scheduled services of worship held here in the chapel. I have pulled a selection of books profitable for you to read. I will give them to you when you return here after the luncheon. You shall spend these days and nights fasting using xerophagy, taking nutrition only from antidoron and water. You weren’t planning to do this. But this retreat is the traditional discipline for the rank you now hold.”

  “If I need to see a patient, I may leave the chapel to do so? This is our work, caring for people. Surely economia should extend that far.”

  “Yes, economia extends that far. Just remember, you are a nun first and a doctor second. Give yourself time to truly become a nun, not just a doctor wearing the habit. Now come and take a little hot food with your family and friends before you begin your retreat. I have left a closed container of antidoron for you, blessed at this liturgy. I have bagged the cut up pieces into daily portions for this evening and for the next two days and have left the labelled bags in the closed container, to keep them fresh for you. A bag of that blessed bread and several cups of holy water each day should sustain you during these few days of retreat. Father Samuel has filled a dispenser with filtered drinking water. That will available to you, along with a drinking cup. Formerly, this was a five-day retreat made in the church. But most monastics keep it as three days, now. Until Saturday following Vespers will suffice, then you may return to live with your sisters, in the relative comfort of your cell.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

&n
bsp; Upon leaving the chapel, Mother Nina saw the cause of her uneasiness for the last few days. There stood Greg Wilson, next to a bench about fifty feet from the chapel. His coloring was even more jaundiced than it had been the last time she had seen him, just weeks ago. He wore a nasal cannula hooked into a small oxygen concentrator worn in a bag slung over his left shoulder. He was definitely seriously ill, perhaps even terminal.

  She stopped walking, and the group with her, about ten feet from Greg.

  “Gregory,” Irina/Sister Olga greeted him, obviously trying to be kind, but her voice was cold and defensive.

  “Doctor, er… Sister….” Greg answered, clearly uneasy.

  His face looked as though he had been crying. And the way he stood told her that he was a broken man, far more in need of consolation and healing than of condemnation.

  “Pig…er…Margarita… may I speak to you alone?” he asked.

  “Mother Nina, do you know this man?” Father Samuel asked.

  “He and I were in high school together, Father. He was one of the three young men I spoke to you about before I went to the class reunion,” she replied. “The ones who I still struggled to forgive.”

  “I see,” Father Samuel said, too mildly. She knew that tone. He was trying to keep himself under control because he was angry. It was a good thing to have people who cared about you.

  “Greg, anything you can say to me, you can say in the presence of my bishop, my confessor, my sons and their wives, and the Sisterhood of this place and their families. For heaven’s sake, sit down on the bench behind you. You look like you are about to fall down,” Mother Nina said, her voice gentle. While she thought he was a changed man, she also did not wish to be alone with him, in case she was wrong and this was a well-executed ploy. “I have forgiven you.”

  He swallowed hard and tears came fresh, as he took a seat on the stone bench there, facing her. “That is more than I deserve. I have been watching you for days, sitting there under the trees, hidden, watching, waiting for a suitable moment,” Greg confessed. He swallowed hard once more, obviously screwing up his courage to say whatever would come next. “I came here fully intending to kill you. I planned to shoot you in the head while you were alone in Church…”

  Boris, Alexei, and Kiril all three moved towards Greg. This situation was not going to be pretty, if she couldn’t diffuse it.

  “No, my sons,” Mother Nina commanded gently but firmly. “Can you not see that this threat has turned to contrition?”

  As she spoke to her sons, Greg continued, “Then I planned to burn the church down around your dead body, just as the guys and I burned down Saint Konstantin’s so many years ago. I had the gas to start the fire stored just under the trees, all ready to use. I was going to do it. I was just waiting to catch you alone.”

  Yeah, you never were exactly the brightest, planning to burn down a church when you are wearing oxygen. That would have been such a safe and brilliant move, she thought, but did not say.

  Vladika asked, his voice gentle, “I take it that murder and arson are no longer your intent, my son?”

  “No. They are not,” Greg said, tears still falling freely.

  Mother Nina asked him, “What do you intend?”

  He shook his head and sighed. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Then talk. I’m listening,” Mother Nina said, keeping her voice gentle.

  “I went for my insurance physical the Tuesday after the class reunion. They found something, and it’s… bad. I have liver cancer. It’s spread everywhere in my gut and lungs and bones. I’m dying. I told myself that as long as I was dying, anyway, and clearly damned and going to burn in Hell as my mother and her pastor told me I was, so many years ago, I wasn’t going to let the people I’ve hated outlive me. If I was going to hell anyway, what difference would a few murders make?”

  The old pain in his voice when he spoke of his mother just about broke her heart. But before she could say anything, Sister Elizabeth asked, “What tests did they run?”

  “Liver enzymes, followed by scans, liver biopsy, more scans. I have an oncologist who tells me there is no treatment except to try to manage the pain. He wants me to go into a residential hospice program to die,” Greg said, his voice tight. “But, I had decided I wouldn’t do that. I planned not to let anyone I hated outlive me. After that, I was planning to kill myself rather than endure the worsening pain.”

  “What changed your mind about murder and suicide?” Vladika asked.

  The words just flowed out of Greg, and all Mother Nina could do was to stand there and listen in strange fascination, “I stood in that church this morning, at the back, listening to your prayers. That prayer near the beginning, ‘I am a sheep of your rational flock and I flee to you for refuge, O Good Savior. Search me out who has been lost and save me’, that prayer hit me hard the first time I heard it. When you sang it again, I prayed it myself. I don’t know how to describe what followed, except to say that God spoke to me, telling me that I was lost, but was now found and that I was loved. There is a large picture on the wall in there of Jesus carrying a sheep on his shoulders. I looked at that. Then it was me, not the sheep, on his shoulders, carried there, cradled so lovingly, so tenderly. I don’t think I’ve ever really been loved, not like I now know that God loves me. It is overwhelming. All the hate and anger that had filled me for as long as I can remember is gone. I don’t know what to do with any of this. But I knew I had to talk to you, that I had to tell you this. Help me, please? What do I do with any of this?”

  Well, Lord? What do I do with him? Mother prayed. And then she knew what she must do, even though every fiber of her being protested against it.

  “What you do with this overwhelming love that you have experienced, Greg,” Mother Nina said, her voice kind, “is you will go into the chapel with a priest, make a life confession, tell all, tell every evil thing you have ever done to anyone, including to yourself, everything you can remember, get it all off your soul, and then you will be baptized, and chrismated, anointed with oil for the sealing of the Holy Spirit in your life. Tomorrow morning, we will celebrate the Divine Liturgy, and you will commune. Immediately after your baptism and chrismation, today you will go to one of our guest houses and we will take care of you during your final days. Sister Elizabeth ran a hospice for many years. You are in good hands. You will give me your oncologists’ contact information, right now, and I will have your medical records sent to us, overnight, so that we can care for you, properly.”

  “Yes,” Vladika said, nodding in approval. “That sounds like a very good solution.”

  “You would do this for me?” Greg asked in stunned disbelief. “You would take care of me while I’m dying?”

  “Providing I can verify with your oncologist that what you have told me is true, then yes, we will care for you,” Mother Nina said. “Sister Elizabeth, will you, please, fetch my work phone from the residence? It is on the charger on the kitchen island.”

  Em/Sister Elizabeth went at a double time walk/run to the nun’s house.

  After a moment or two, Greg stood and moved his arm as if to retrieve something from behind himself.

  “Easy there,” Alexei warned, his voice fierce. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”

  “I’m just getting the oncologist’s card from my wallet,” Greg said. He brought his wallet from his back pocket and opened it. He found the card and held it out. Em/Sister Elizabeth returned with the smart phone. She took the doctor’s business card from Greg. Then she handed Mother Nina both the smart phone and the card.

  “I know the oncologist,” Sister Elizabeth said.

  Greg sat back down on the bench.

  Mother Nina dialed the office number from the card. “Hello. This is Doctor Nina Zornova. I am the chief medical officer of Saint Maria’s Clinic. We have a new patient applying for intake for end-of-life care, Greg Wilson, whom I have been told is your patient… Will you ask Doctor Clay to give me a return call, shortly, please? My work cell phone numb
er is,” she gave the staff member the number. “It is rather urgent, yes. I’ll be faxing you a medical records release form in short order. But I do need to talk to Doctor Clay, briefly about this patient, as soon as possible. Thank you.” She disconnected the phone call.

  Mother said, “Right now, we are expected in the dining hall for lunch. People are waiting for us, and I can’t keep them waiting much longer. I need to talk to Doctor Clay to confirm the diagnosis and prognosis. You, Greg, will go to the dining room and get something to eat. After lunch, we will see to your life confession and baptism. But before we do any of this, you must remove all the weapons, all the ammunition, you have on your person, leave them on the bench.”

  They all watched as Greg unstrapped a nasty looking large hunting knife in its sheath from about his right ankle, removed a small semiautomatic pistol in a holster from his waistband, then removed three other large folding knifes, two loaded magazines for the pistol, a pair of brass knuckles, a telescoping tactical baton, a canister of pepper spray, a tactical pen, and a wire garrote from his pockets.

  “Greg, please, step back from the weapons,” Mother Nina demanded, keeping her voice level and in control. The thought that he had come against her with that kind of weaponry chilled her anew. Her sons went to pick up weapons. Alexei took off his jacket and wrapped the weapons in that suit jacket. Kiril patted Greg down, looking for other weapons but he found none. Boris stood there looking intimidating, which as he was his father’s son, was not that difficult.