Prayer dissolves anger

A woman who worked as schoolteacher came home full of anger. She has had a quarrel with the headmistress. When she came home, she started to pour her fury on her husband. He kept calm and didn’t contradict her. At a given moment the woman started scolding him for not having bought fruits for the children. The husband felt blood raising to his head. His wife had told him in the morning she would buy fruits, but because of anger, she had forgotten about this. He felt an impulse to shout at her, but remembered his confessor’s advise to utter a small prayer, “Lord have mercy”, as many times as would be necessary when he felt tempted by fury. He pronounced the prayer once in his mind, but didn’t feel any relief. Then he repeated it several times in his thoughts, until he went calm.

His wife also calmed down, and then she remembered about their morning discussion. She came up to her husband and hugged him:

–         Oh, dear, please forgive me. It was me who said I would buy the fruits.

–         Of course, darling, said her husband.

At night the woman had a dream of her angry discussion with her husband. She dreamt that when she had been yelling at him, a devil had been approaching her husband. Then she saw her husband praying, and the devil disappeared immediately.

She told her husband in the morning:

–         I didn’t know you were praying when I was shouting at you. I will also try to pray anytime I am tempted by anger.

Fragment from Danion Vasile, Patericul Mirenilor, Pilde pentru secolul XXI, (Paterikon for laity, Proverbs for the 21^st century)

Egumenita printing house.

Galati 2004.