He called all of us together—me and my little brother Serge, who was still a babe in arms. With my mother totally naked, he brought in the wonderful oil he had brought from the Garden of Gethsemane and started anointing her from head to foot. First the hair, then the face, then the neck, then the breasts, right down to her toes.

Then he turned her over and anointed her again in the same way. During all this time he asked us to pray, “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” I still get gooseflesh when I think of this scene.

After he finished, he covered her up and we all joined hands. He held the hand of the little baby and mine and my mother’s. My mother, as far as I was concerned, was already dead. Then he blessed us all and said, “You can go to sleep now.”

The nurse told us later that he kept vigil all night by my mother’s side. He brought out an icon of the Blessed Mother and kept blessing our mother with it and saying, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. Save my wife.”

In the morning we were brought in, about eleven o’clock, and mother was awake. She put her hands on my head and on my brother’s head, blessed us, then fell asleep. Within a few days, she was up and around. She got well.

Meeting St. Francis

Let’s go back to where I was a small child in kindergarten. Egypt, palm trees, nuns belonging to the order of Our Lady of Zion and a big school at Ramleh, a suburb of Alexandria, Egypt. A statue of St. Francis in some kind of shrine, surrounded by bougainvillea or some other vivid red flowers.

The sun was shining on his face. He was smiling a warm smile that went straight to my heart like an arrow. All about him were birds. I noticed he was barefooted. The red ball with which I had been playing rolled to his feet and nestled against them. He was not tall, but to my five years he seemed so.

I devoured everything the nuns told me about St. Francis. One day I announced, “I will be like you. I will be very poor, and the birds will eat out of my hands. And if anyone gives me bread, I will share it with the first poor child that I see on the road.”

Yes, that is how I met and fell in love with St. Francis of Assisi—in a convent garden in Egypt.

Revolt in the Garden

In Finland we had a beautiful half-acre garden with all kinds of flowers. The tragedy was that it had to be watered by hand! Even in the lovely Russian and Finnish summers, we had dry spells. We filled pails with water, then poured the water into sprinkling cans. My brother helped with his little pails until he was big enough to do the job. Mother said it was good for the muscles.

Another half-acre was in strawberries, raspberries and other small berries. We also had nut trees. Thanks be to God, some of the nuts grew without water, or I would have gone nuts myself!

We also had a vegetable garden. I learned how to look after vegetables from the planting and preparation, to the hoeing and harvesting. Mother’s idea was that I had to know all these things, otherwise I would not be competent to run an estate and be a gentleman farmer’s wife.

She was most exacting! I learned all the fine arts of being a woman, and I learned them with a certain amount of discipline because, periodically, I would rebel!

Unfinished Pilgrimage

I was a very mischievous child and always in hot water.

One day, I read a story of a young woman going on a pilgrimage; I decided to go on a pilgrimage myself. So I collected a long black skirt some place, a big black shawl, and an icon, and off I went through the streets of Petrograd, looking devout, I suppose, and funny, for quite a few people turned around and looked at me.

I reached the outskirts of Petrograd and was on my way to a country road when the police found me. I must have been conspicuous. Anyhow, I was returned to my parents.

Nobody upbraided me. Father only said, “You should have asked permission of your mother and me, or at least you should have had the charity to leave a little note as to where you were going.” That ended the episode.

But in my mind it remained an unfinished business. Later, in my early twenties, the picture kept coming back, with the title, “Unfinished Pilgrimage.”

Bearing the Pain of Christ

As regards health, I certainly was never pampered. Disease was taken in stride, and so was pain.

I remember when I was a little girl of about seven. I was walking along the Mediterranean beach with my father. I fell and slashed my knee on a stone and started to yell like a banshee. My Father dipped my knee into the saltwater of the sea and I yelled some more.

He said to me, “You don’t like Jesus Christ very much, do you? He was crucified for you and endured a lot of pain. You just have a little scratch and you yell like nobody’s business. If you can’t bear physical pain, child, how will you bear the pain of the heart and of the mind that will certainly come to you?”

I didn’t understand what he said at the time, but I understand it now.

From Fragments of My Life, pp.15, 22, 43-45 (1996), My Russian Yesterdays, p. 71 (1990), The Little Mandate: How It Came to Be (unpublished manuscript), Friendship House, p. 147, Sheed & Ward (1947), Journey to the Heart of Christ, p. 28 (2002).

to be continued