Читать книгу Дорога в Эммаус - Александр Веселков - Страница 3

Diveevo. It was late, cold autumn. Morning. Rain was mixing up with sleet.

After breakfast, we decided to go to the Cathedral. It was a little chilly, if not to say – cold.

My wife Olga was walking a bit behind, and my daughter Polina and I were slowly walking ahead. An ordinary village street led us to the monastery.

In a few meters I saw a small wooden bridge, behind which I saw a path going from left to right, perpendicular to ours.

When I crossed the bridge, two or three steps behind it, I gradually, but somehow clearly felt myself getting warmer and warmer (we had been walking slowly and not for very long, so I don't think our movement could have warmed us up).

Our surroundings began to change: in the same scenery, in few meters from me (3–4 meters to the left), behind the ditch (we had already crossed the bridge), I clearly saw a bush (which looked like a big cade tree) either up in flames, or shining, blazing, but not fading away. It also wasn’t giving off any hear (the distance was small, but the flaming bush was quite big – heat from an ordinary burning bush would have easily reached us).

And one more “flaming” bush, similar to that one, but a bit smaller, was twelve – fifteen meters away from us, on the left from the ditch, if you walk along it to the left.

I also felt that something new appearing around us in the scenery – I can only recall a sensation of it in my memory.

But the strongest and most unusual feeling came later. I got very warm and gradually began to feel a growing sensation of love, in the area a little to the right of my heart, entering from the ray, which I could hardly see on the side of the cross of the main cathedral (the one we were actually going to) and just above it.

Another feeling came just as unexpected as the last because I, filled with that sensation of love, myself responded or directed the flow of love towards the cross.

A usually vaguely remembered feeling of first love – was suddenly hugely amplified and felt by me, intensified the ray. And the feeling that you are loved, which is usually weak and unstable in our lives (if it happens at all) – suddenly overwhelmed me and became very strong and filled my entire essence. Moreover, the combination of these two feelings fills you up with a great sense of love – warmth and joy from everything you are perceiving around you.

The epitome of what I was feeling was that ray of pure love, going from back and forth (I can't put it into words). I had felt something similar from some icons, but quite rarely, not so strongly and as if it would be only in one “direction” – towards me.

Unexpectedly to myself, I began to try to see the image of Virgin Mary, somewhere at the level of the cross, I felt that it was necessary for me to do, but it was not realized at all as I did not see anything.

Meanwhile, my daughter was standing beside me, I leaned toward her and enthusiastically asked: «Did you feel anything special?» But she looked at me and shook her head. Apparently not. Not knowing why, we walked right along the path. A nun overtook us with two other women – we were walking slowly, and they were a bit faster.

Overwhelmed by the sensation in my chest, unconsciously, I turned back (the nun looked at us disapprovingly) and walked to the same place (we moved only 15–20 meters), as I wanted to experience this “special” feeling again.