today, it s Saint's Paisios day!

Orthodoxy never stoped 
producing
Saints.

last time i saw my spiritual Father Priest to confess,

a few days ago,

his last words on me have been stuck to my mind,

often contemplating them and realising,

how ungrateful i am,

for he said:

"don't you see, with how many blessings you 've been gifted with?"

so true,

i exist, i m alive, i m healthy,

within a perfect family,

thank God i am poor,

and yet, i am surrounded by diamonds,

people that still wear human faces

and have kindness and love in their hearts

and then again,

i have been blessed to live for a few years,

in Holy Mountain,

with no electricity, in the forest,

watching all seasons passing by and changing

and coming back again

and all too close to a small house,

where He was living, a single, simple Monk,

humble, smart, wise,

short, skinny, with pains from sickness,

with the most peaceful and so truly happy smile,

and with burning eyes

-i have never seen anyone else eyes moving like his around,

left and right and left and right, like a constant radar,

through you and behind you,

knowing, he must been seeing things invisible to my eyes,

fearing, what he may be actually seeing

and then he d call you,

with your name,

without even spoken a single word,

he knew what your name was,

who you were, why you came there,

what your past had been,

what your future would be,

what problems you had in your mind,

what problems you had in your soul,

that were actually the ones

producing the problems in your mind,

what the key, the solution, 

for every different person he had met,

would be, to cure him, bring peace to him,

like a soft breeze lifting away all your heavy burdens,

literally curing other people diseases as well,

but mainly, easing the pains from the heart,

i saw it again and again happening,

with so many different people i 've been with visiting him

he had humour and made word jokes,

or would say funny stories,

he explained me once how one of the many Gifts he had,

was actually working saying:

"yeah, Good God has gifted me a tv set,

like the ones you see in the airports?

you pass a suitcase in front of those,

and you see what is inside them?

well, my tv works kind the same,

scanning people coming to me,

and showing me what s inside them.

but you know? my tv is not so clear yet,

it s still in ...black and white,

now the tv Gherondas Porfyrios* has,

that tv is better than mine,

his is even in colour!"

*(another one Saint of the so many recent ones we had,

so, so many, just in the last 100 years)

He Is A Saint,

and today it is His Name Day!