212. The Trip to Greece that wasn’t and the Miracle that was

Saint Nektarios the Mischievous

Beginning in 2002, Saint Nektarios of Silivria, the Wonderworker of Aegina, started doing mischievous things for me – some startling, some subtle. At first I might have attributed them to coincidence, but as they continued, I felt sure they were not.

What in the world was he up to? I couldn’t figure it out. Ever since his death in 1920, he has been busy healing people, especially of cancer – either that or giving them peaceful deaths. But never, so far as I could discover, for doing “magic tricks”. Except for me.

If you want, you can read the full stories by Googling the bold print italicized words below. A short account of his life is in “Post 91 – Saint Nektarios”.

1  2002, Post 7, Part 4 Saint Nektarios – guided tour. For reasons explained in the Post, I felt strongly drawn to visit Saint Nektarios whose major relics are at his monastery on the island of Aegina. I had missed the 9 o’clock ferry, and didn’t know how to find the monastery once I got there, even though I had been told everything would be in Greek. (I can’t explain this. I almost always make precise travel plans.) Now the 10 o’clock had been cancelled, and I sat there at the port of Piraeus, desperately hoping the 11 o’clock would sail, because I had to get back to Athens. I reservations on an early evening ferry to Crete. I said: “Saint Nektarios, Agios Nektarios, help. I want to visit you.”

I should mention that I wasn’t wearing clerics. I love being inconspicuous.

Well… I got on the boat and the first seat available was next to a young monk who spoke English! He was going to Saint Nektarios, and had a ride waiting, and said Come along. I’ll show you everything. And he did.

After a while I realized I didn’t know how to get back to the port, so I went to where maybe I could catch a bus. (It was the wrong place.) But there stood a Greek-Canadian family. The man said, in English, Let’s get a taxi. So we did, and he wouldn’t let me pay. There’s more to the story… but to be brief, I got back to Athens with about four hours to spare, and with a big smile. Well, I had asked for his help, hadn’t I? I kept saying Thank you, Saint Nektarios.

That was how it all started.

I’ll be quicker now. I should explain that Khouria Dianna and I usually traveled together, but not always for the whole trip. She also came to love Greece, but I always needed more Greece. And naturally she didn’t understand my peculiar compulsion to visit Saint Nektarios every year (neither did I!), so at first I went there by myself.

2  “Post 12, 2004, Did Saint Nektarios do it again? This time he was subtle. From my hotel in Athens, I needed to make two Metro connections and then catch the ferry. This time I started early, hoping maybe to catch the 9 o’clock. At the first stop, the connection was sitting there waiting. At the second stop, the connection was sitting there waiting. I got to Piraeus at 8 o’clock, figured had missed that boat, and ambled slowly over to the dock. The ferrbyboat φέρυ-μπώτ was still there! The ticket agent said, “Hurry, mister, they’re closing the gate.” So I did, and at 8:07 we were off to Aegina. “Coincidences?” All day I wondered about it.

3  Post 19, 2005 The Big Trip Part 3, Did Saint Nektarios do it again? This time I visited in the evening. There was lightning over the sea in the north, so I caught a “Flying Dolphin” to the mainland, and instead of taking the Tram, got a taxi back to my hotel just as an awful storm hit. I mean, right that minute. The streets flooded. Traffic stopped. Rain was streaming into the hotel lobby before I could get to the elevator. If the storm had struck only a few minutes earlier I would have been stranded somewhere. Again I wondered, but this time the words “Thank you, Saint Nektarios” came automatically to my lips.

4 Post 26, 2006 Trip Part One Saint Nektarios Strikes Again  Now I had no doubt. I had said my prayers in the shrine and was now sitting on a bench outside watching the pilgrims come and go. A woman’s voice next to me asked Are you an American? The sweet voice of a good friend I had worked with when we were both Episcopalians in Milwaukee more than twenty years before! We had lost touch. And there she sat beside me, with her husband and their son – all three now Orthodox!  Now, how infinitesimally small were the chances of that happening… …? Are you getting the picture?

5  Post 33, 2007 Trip Part Two, Patmos – Revelation, Nektarios  If you’ve ever wanted to visit Patmos, the island of the Apostle John the Evangelist, I think these Posts are worth reading. Besides visiting the Holy Sites, my plan while I was there was to read the writings of Saint John, especially the Apocalypse (Revelation), and see if I could understand them better. So I grabbed my Bible and found a little beach (this is actually the one) all to myself several miles out of town. I packed everything carefully – three bags, one of which was only for keys and the like. So in late afternoon, I walked back up to the car and reached into the key bag. No keys! I searched everywhere several times. No keys! Without planning to do so, I heard myself say “Nektarios! Help!” Not so much as “please”. I opened the bag again, and there on top in plain sight were the keys.

6  Post 47, 2008 Trip Part One Back to Greece  This one had two parts: 1) The first was very subtle. Changing planes in Toronto, our suitcases disappeared. I finally remembered to ask Saint Nektarios, and then tried to relax. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes before departure our luggage arrived. 2) This one was spectacular. I was on Crete alone and decided to visit Fairhavens, a place where Saint Paul’s ship put up on the way west. Then a large city, it is now a tiny village way out and away. Demonstrating my continuing propensity for doing stupid things, I forgot to get petrol (gas). When I arrived, I looked: The tank was about 1/16 full, with no petrol station in nearly twenty kilometers. I sat there for a while wondering what ever to do. Then I remembered: I said “Saint Nektarios, help!”, got out and explored, then went to the beach and read for a while. And then… when I got back to the car the gas gauge read 1/3 full. I checked my journal to make sure this story hasn’t got exaggerated in my mind over the years. No. It has not

The next three years nothing special happened. I figured he didn’t need to. He had caught my attention. Why in those funny ways? I didn’t know. Probably because I’m so shallow it was the only way he could reach me.

Well, it had worked. “Saint Nektarios, pray for me” was part of my regular devotions. I had shared my love for him with the people at home. His icon hung on the wall at Saint Nicholas, Cedarburg, and they lit candles before him. When I went to visit him, my people were giving me over a thousand names of folks to be prayed for. Then in 2011 and 2012 Khouria Dianna visited Saint Nektarios with me.

I figured that was it: he had accomplished what he wanted.

Wrong.

The Trip that wasn’t

In the summer of 2013, my Khouria Dianna had her annual physical. Her very capable and completent internist pronounced her well, and indeed she felt fine. But Dianna, who doesn’t miss much (believe me!), took a close look at the printout of her blood tests and found something that she thought seemed a little “off”. She went back to her internist who said it was likely nothing, but they did some tests just to be sure. I can remember the moment so clearly: “Bill, it’s cancer.”

The first thing we did, of course, was cancel the trip to Greece.

I won’t give you details. It’s enough to say that it was an aggressive malignancy, of the sort that shows no symptoms till it’s well along. But this was in its early stages, discovered by the wisdom of my wife and the grace of God – and I couldn’t help but think also by someone else, a good friend of mine, a certain saint who specializes in cancer cases. Dianna found a good oncologist who said he felt confident he could get it, which is the best we could hope for. Of course what we all want to hear then is “I know I can get it”, but how could doctors know that?

Those of you who have dealt with major cancer know how we felt. We were very afraid. There was cancer in both our families. Dianna’s mother had died from her last bout with it. My mother had barely survived her two bouts with it. The first time she was young, and I was at the vulnerable age of eleven, and of course it would have been worse if she had died, but it left permanent scars, fears in my psyche. I knew that at times like this faithful Christians should put our trust in God and be calm. Well, I tried to appear calm, but I definitely was not. Dianna handled it better than me.

Some words to the wise here: We had been warned not to go on the internet and search for what might happen. Nevertheless, one afternoon while Dianna was out, I yielded to temptation. I looked up all possibilities, and I fell apart. I was crying and shaking. I tried to get myself under control, but when she came home she saw that something was wrong. I was too ashamed to tell her what I had done, which I think left her afraid that I knew something she didn’t. Brothers and sisters, if you ever face a life threatening illness and have a competent doctor, get a second opinion if you feel you need to, but do not research it on the internet!

The Miracle 

Or at least it seemed a miracle to me, and it still does.

Now, whether something is a miracle is often a matter of judgment. Unless it takes place immediately on the spot for reasons completely inexplicable, we can’t be sure. But the chances of having caught this malignancy in time also seemed so very remote… but I’m getting ahead of the story.

Here’s what I did do right. Not really me. It’s what Saint Nektarios had taught me. This blessed saint had already shown me he can do amazing things, and I knew cancer was his specialty. So immediately I knew where to turn. I don’t even remember deciding to do this, but each day I said the Paraklesis to Saint Nektarios. I didn’t tell Dianna about this till it was all over. I don’t know why.

 

Before she went into surgery I anointed her, both with Holy Unction and with oil from the lamps of Saint Nektarios, and she was surrounded with the prayers of family, friends and church members.

The happy result, after a few hours of worrying and fretting and praying, was that the surgeon indeed got it all. This was followed by some very unpleasant chemotherapy. But now seven years have passed cancer free. Dianna now has an icon of Saint Nektarios hanging on the wall above her bedstand.

Was it a miracle? If you mean, can I prove that the surgeon wouldn’t have got it without the help of Saint Nektarios? No, of course not. Nor can I prove that all those strange things that happened to me in Greece weren’t just coincidences. Life isn’t like that.

But you know my skeptical, scientific, “give me evidence” tendencies – and somehow this is different. There are other ways of knowing, and I just know that Saint Nektarios has done all this.

Furthermore, the miracle wasn’t over. It’s the better part of wisdom not to share this in detail. But something else came out of this that was startling, scary, immensely beneficial, and equally unlikely of being discovered… and I think that’s as far as I should go.

So… None of his tricks in Greece had been for my entertainment. They were all to prepare me, prepare us for 2013, and Khouria Dianna’s bout with cancer, and more. So, looking back… Oh, thank you for it all! Thank you, Saint Nektarios! I love you so dearly.

In 2014 Khouria Dianna and I went to Greece and visited Saint Nektarios together with great gratitude.

O faithful, let us honor Nektarios, divine servant of Christ, offspring of Silivria and guardian of Aegina, who in these latter years was manifested as the true friend of virtue. All manner of healing wells forth for those who in piety cry out, “Glory to Christ who glorified you; Glory to Him who, through you, worked wonders; Glory to Him who, through you, works healing for all.

Did Saint Nektarios get involved with me after this? Just once in 2015. I’ll get to that story in due time.

That’s all I have to tell you. Except to say that right now, almost exactly seven years later, Khouria Dianna and I are sitting in our living room watching an old Alfred Hitchcock movie on The Movie Channel. I know we won’t sit here like this forever. But we have had these years which we so easily might not have had. And our grandchildren have grown old enough now to know their “great” grandmother.

This icon was written by an iconographer at our church, was an anonymous gift to me, and hangs near the Bishop’s throne at Saint Nicholas Church, Cedarburg.

Holy Nektarios, pray to Christ our God to save our souls.

Next Week: Happy New Year!

Week after next: begin Four Days on Mount Athos