Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Natasha prepared for Holy Communion

Tomorrow, March 28, 2024, is Maundy Thursday - Thursday of the Holy Week. This day the Church is celebrating the institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion. I always had reverent attitude for Eucharist. So, it should not be a surprise that running across the following passage I decided to take it as a blog post. The picture of the Zion's altar and Holy Communion set. 


War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Antony Briggs)

Volume III, part 1, chapter 17

Context: Natasha Rostova was a bit depressed because of the breakup with Prince Andrey…

Text: Towards the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a country neighbour of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to worship at the shrines of the saints. She suggested to Natasha that she should fast and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha seized on the idea with some relish. In defiance of the doctors’ prohibition on going out in the early morning, Natasha insisted on keeping the fast and preparing for Communion not the way it was done in Rostovs’ household – by attending three services at home – but by following in the footsteps of Agrafena Ivanovna for a whole week, which meant not missing a single service, Matins, Vespers or Mass.

The countess was pleased to see this kind of zeal in Natasha. After all the unsuccessful medical treatment, deep down she was now hoping that prayer might do her daughter more good than medicine, so despite terrible misgivings she fell in with Natasha’s wishes, said nothing to the doctors and handed her into care of Madame Belova.

Agrafena Ivanovna used to come in to wake Natasha at three in the morning, and more often than not she found her already awake. Natasha was afraid of sleeping in and being late for Matins. After a quick wash she meekly pulled on her shabbiest dress and an old shawl before walking out into the deserted streets, shivering as she met the chill air and limpid half-light of early morning. On the advice of Agrafena Ivanovna Natasha was preparing for Communion not at her own parish church, but at a church where the priest was described by the devout Madame Belova as someone with a particular austere and religious way of living.

There were never many people in church. Natasha and Madame Belova stood side by side always in the same place before an icon of the Mother of God which formed part of the screen behind the left choir, and at this unusual morning hour Natasha was overwhelmed by a new sense of humility before the sublime mystery as she gazed up at the black face of the Blessed Virgin lit up by candles burning in front and morning light coming in through a window. She listened to the words of the service, trying hard to follow and understand. When she did understand, her personal emotions merged in every shade with her prayers; when she didn’t, she had an even sweeter sense that the desire to understand everything amounted to pride, no one could ever understand everything, and all she had to do was believe and give herself to God, and at moments like this she had a sense of Him guiding her soul. She crossed herself, bowed low, and when she didn’t understand she simply yielded in disgust to a sense of her own vileness and prayed for forgiveness, total forgiveness, and mercy. The prayers she said most of all were prayers of repentance. Walking home in the early morning, when the only people they encountered were bricklayers on their way to work or men cleaning streets, and the houses were full of sleeping people, Natasha glimpsed the first fresh possibility of redemption from sin and a new life of purity and happiness.

She spent the whole week leading this kind of life and the feeling grew stronger with each passing day. And the joy of Holy Communion (or holy communication, as Agrafena Ivanovna liked to call it, enjoying the pun) was so enormous she thought that blissful Sunday would never come.

But come it did, that happy, unforgettable Sunday when Natasha returned from Holy Communion dressed in her white muslin frock, experiencing peace of mind for the first time in many months and no longer oppressed by the life that lay ahead.

The doctor called to see Natasha the same day and his instructions were to keep on with the powders he had prescribed two weeks before. ‘Oh, keep taking them, yes definitely, morning and evening,’ he said, visibly and genuinely gratified by his own success.   

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The last paragraph is a funny comparison of the act of God with a self glorification of a doctor...  

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