Mother Maria Vulcu: "Lord, I'm in Front of a Saint!"
I was in such a state of well-being and joy that I can’t translate it into words. Later I realized that I had read about these things in the life of Saint Seraphim of Sarov...
Abbess Maria Vulcu of St. Basil the Great Monastery (Cluj, Romania):
I arrived at [Elder Proclu’s hermitage] with my nuns, yet there was a sign on the door that said he was old and was not receiving people. I told myself: “I can’t have come for nothing!” We went to his sister, Mother Filotheia, who helped us enter his house. She impressed me very much. I was expecting to find another setting–I’m referring to father’s place where he received people. It was so humble and simple that it took me completely by surprise. After we entered, he blessed each of us, and I realized on the spot that father has something special. I, being the Gerondissa, knew each of the nun’s problems, both the ones on the surface and the ones that were deeper. Elder Proclu, while he was blessing, told each nun certain things that were very much fitting to her personal problems. I don’t know how much they understood, but I immediately understood father’s message for me and all the sisterhood because the message fit each person’s problems very well.
We kneeled around Elder Proclu, and the spiritual father [who had come with us] began to ask him questions related to the Church. He answered, but beyond the answers, he transmitted some grace-filled messages.
I stayed in the corner and looked at the icons. I began to pray and stopped listening to the questions addressed to father. I began to concentrate on my problems, and at a certain moment I realized that what I had been told was true: Elder Proclu was not just any man, but he was full of the Holy Spirit. While I was looking at the icons, I had the feeling that all the icons there had something special. Father had blue eyes and when he looked at you he transmitted something through them–a joy, a state of well-being.
He looked at each individually and said something, especially stories from his life, and it was as if he had a message for me in these stories, that is, through his stories, I received an instructive message for me as a Gerondissa, and also as a human. I felt that he gave me answers. Tears begin to pour without me wanting them to, tears that I couldn’t control. I felt them all of a sudden and I didn’t know how to hide them. I let everyone say what they had on their soul, and father answered each one of them. He blessed us and I approached him with the request to remain for five more minutes with him in order for him to clarify the problems I had. I was going through a very difficult period in which I had great trials. I was accused of certain things in a situation, yet I followed the voice of my conscience. The moment I remained behind with father, I couldn’t speak, because I felt like crying without wanting to. I didn’t get to start telling father about my problem, I didn’t get to open my mouth, that father answered my question. He knew my problem. He told me: “The accusations that were brought against you are not true, and it is good that you listened to your conscience in the respective situation.” Then he took my head in his hands and said: “Oh, my child…” and he began to pray. He had a very great devotion to the Mother of God, because when he said the words Mother of God, there was a fire in his voice that pierced you from head to toe. He took my head in his hands and began to pray to the Mother of God, after to the Archangels Michael and Gabriel.
I don’t know what prayers he said, but I, at a given moment, felt the need to confess because I saw myself as so sinful. My mind became extraordinarily clear, I felt a light, a clarity of thought, and without wanting to, spontaneously, I felt the need to confess: “Yes, father, but I am a sinner…” and I began to list everything I had done from when I was little, I began to tell him all the sins and mistakes of my life, beginning in childhood. While I said that I am so and so, he prayed even more deeply. Tears poured from my eyes without unintentionally.
Then he told me: “You know, I’m not a priest. Only priests hear confessions. You shouldn’t tell me your sins.” I told him: “Father, I can’t help it. I don’t know if it’s from me, but I feel the need to say it.”
He prayed even more deeply. At a certain point, I felt myself begin to become lighter both literally and figuratively, that is, my body became lighter, I didn’t even feel it, and my soul was the same, light. All of a sudden, instead of sorrow and such thoughts, I felt something enter me like a gentle breeze, that pierced me from top to bottom and brought me joy without me wanting it to. The tears began to dry and then I thought: “Lord, this is a miracle! I’m in front of an actual saint!” I couldn’t believe it, because they were experiences I hadn’t had before in my life, I physically felt things that I’d never felt before. When you commune you have a feeling of lightness, well-being, of joy. I felt the same way in those moments.
Then I told myself: “Lord, I’m next to a saint and I don’t know how to react, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to humble myself, I don’t know how to do anything…” Father continued his prayer, I stayed with my head bowed. At a given moment, I lifted my chin and it was as if I were at the doctor's: “Stay, stat,” he said, “I have a little more.” It was as if he somehow cured my wounds. He touched my cheek and said: “I have a little more, it seems like there’s a little more…” The moment he lifted my head and I saw his face, there was a very great light in his face, and that light came toward me. Then I felt like a light was coming out of me toward him. It was a state that is difficult to describe in words. I regret that I didn’t write it down then. It was like the drunkenness of the Holy Spirit, it was something otherworldly. I think father was no longer on earth, I felt him like that somehow, and that state captured me too. At a certain point, I thought I heard a noise somewhere, far away, and father said: “You’re staying here?” Father had deepened so much into prayer that we both had forgotten the notion of time. I told him: “No, I came with the priest and nuns.” “You came with them? Well, aren’t they waiting for you?” “I don’t know, but I don’t feel like leaving here!”
I was in a state of such well-being and joy that I can’t translate it into words. Later I realized that I had read about these things in the life of Saint Seraphim of Sarov, in his encounter with his disciple, Motovilov. Then father told me: “Go because you’ll come here again.” I told him: “But Father, I can’t leave, I don’t want to leave.” Like the Apostle Peter said: “Lord, it is good for us to be here, let us make three tabernacles…”
Then Father’s sister came because someone was waiting for him, and I had to leave. I went to the car where the priest and the nuns were. He was a bit upset and told me: “Well, Mother, you said you’d stay five-ten minutes, but you forgot! What did you have so much to say? Look, an hour, actually two, passed by! “It’s not true, father,” I answered, “I stayed only ten minutes.” “Mother, look at the time, you stayed almost two hours,” the priest said decisively.
I didn’t say anything else to him, because I realized that it had been something from God and a work of the Holy Spirit in me. That’s what happens when you talk to saints, you lose the notion of time. When I left, both nature and the people around me were transformed. A miracle had taken place. I went silent, I didn’t say anything else, and I entered the car.
Since we were in Moldova, we took a longer route and went from Elder Proclu to [venerate the relics of] Saint Parascheva of Iasi. I was full of the spirit of father’s prayers. I didn’t know how to act. I told myself: “Lord, You give to me, but I don’t know what to do with this grace that You gave me.” I no longer had bad thoughts about anyone, it was as if I was no longer on earth. I was afraid of this state, because I didn’t know how to digest it, I didn’t know what to do with it.
I reached the Saint, and since it was morning, I went to take holy water. A man, he seemed like a holy fool, approached me and said: “Now God showed you the path. Don’t go back to the path from which you turned!” I felt like what that man told me was from God. He gave me an icon of the Crucifixion on Golgotha, where the Mother of God stands with head bent and seems to be weeping. He said: “God had mercy on you, He let you experience eternity. From now on always keep this alive, that is, follow the example of the Mother of God, remain humble and bent under the cross that God gives you.”
That state did not leave me for a month. I returned home and my physical needs disappeared for a week: I didn’t feel hunger, thirst, or sleepiness. I ate a little so that others would see me. I understood the words of prayers, and especially those of the Divine Liturgy, differently. Everything was full of the Spirit, only the Holy Spirit could be like that. The state lasted until I told a priest that I had gone to see Elder Proclu and how I had felt. The respective priest told me: “Mother, he is deluded, the elder is deluded! What you’re telling me is a temptation!” And then I argued with the respective person, I was saddened, I tried to defend Elder Proclu: “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe this! I feel that it was all from the Holy Spirit and it is not a delusion at all!” At that moment when I argued with the respective person, all the joy left, it left completely.
Source:
Stavrofora Maria Vulcu, “Doamne, eu stau chair in fata unui sfant!” in File de Pateric: Paritele Proclu (Man. Sihastria Putnei: 2018), pp. 71-76.