Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Miracle of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco

Here’s my translation of an excerpt from a sermon given by Bishop Basil (Rodzianko) of San Francisco (+1999) concerning St John of Shanghai and San Francisco:
My matushka, my late wife, fell ill. What happened was unclear, but she had a terrible pain in her hip, and could not take a step, could not move, and we only barely got her to the school where we were living in Versailles, and we immediately called for a French doctor. The French doctor examined her for a long time, shook his head, and called me aside to say: “You need to get used to the thought that she will never be able to walk again. You will need to buy her a special chair with wheels. This will be for the rest of her life. Nonetheless, we will send her to the hospital for a final and full examination.” You can just imagine: after all the afflictions we had already been through… Vladyka John was away at the time. He arrived, heard about this, and immediately called me to him, and said: “Do not worry. I will come tomorrow and give her Communion”… After the Liturgy (this was in the school’s house-church) he came, fully vested, with the Chalice… He stopped at the door and said: “Maria, get up! Come receive Communion!” She immediately got up and came. He asked: “Does it hurt?” “No.” “Well, now receive Communion. You’ve Communed? Now go lay down again.” This was like in a dream. She told me: “The pain is gone, I don’t feel anything.” Nonetheless, the ambulance came in the afternoon and took her to the hospital. She was there for a few days, and a few days later came home with a note from the doctor: “Why did you send her here? She’s in perfectly good health, there’s nothing wrong with her!”
Photograph: St John in Belgrade, 1934, flanked by the brothers Bartoshevich (the future Bishop Leonid and Archbishop Anthony).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You beat me to the punch! I have been planning on translating Bishop Basil's remembrances etc. of St. John for months...but there are still more.

Felix Culpa said...

Actually, this is the only bit I have by Vladyka Basil about St John. Is there more online?

Anonymous said...

There's a little book of his remembrances and some sermons. He tells some very interesting stories about Russian refugees in Serbia, including Metropolitan Anthony and one of the sermons is on St. John.

Felix Culpa said...

Thanks for the link. Is that as much of it as exists online?

This site has recordings of some of his sermons in English:

http://bishop-basil.org/english/

Anonymous said...

That's about as much as I've found online, and I did try to search as much as possible in order to find a text easier to deal with for translating. I had found that site you found as well but was rather disappointed as it seems quite defunct. There's another page here: http://www.episkopvasily.ru/# but it doesn't have much either. There are quite a few sermons in Russian here: http://www.predanie.ru/mp3/episkop_Vasilii_Rodzjanko//