Father Sofian and Psalm 51
Wednesday, 11 August 1999, the day of the solar eclipse. In the morning I received a telephone call. They told me that the priest has had a concussion since last night, that he didn’t recognise anyone, he didn’t answer questions, he didn’t eat, he didn’t drink, he didn’t know anything, he kept saying Psalm 51.
Twelve hours had passed since the priest had been in this state.
After the doctors had left, Father sat at his bedside again, as he had done the day before, and said Psalm 50 again. He said it without stopping, softly but with determination. He skipped some verses and repeated others several times. Mostly he came back to it: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.“ He would repeat this several times in a row and then, still with his eyes closed, his mind as if completely absorbed in it: “Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”
The prayer sounded so coherent! Father’s face was so peaceful and serene, and not even his eyes, which seemed to be closed more tightly, betrayed the “darkness” – as he would later call it, “personal darkness” – that he was going through. It was in fact an unceasing prayer to which he seemed to cling with all his being, with all his strength. The eyes closed on the outside awakened the spirit on the inside, and the prayer was the only thing that worked.
The hospital people said he wouldn’t get any food. We insisted on feeding him because he had diabetes and things could get complicated. Between two verses of the Psalm, Father would accept a spoonful of soup, then honey and orange juice. But he would never give up saying the Psalm, he would restart it again immediately, even before he breathed: it was in fact the real food, and between these large drops of Psalm he would also swallow a teaspoon of honey or juice.
After a while he went to bed and opened it without recognising anyone. His face was open, bright and happy. After a few hours he was in his own bed in his cell, by the light of the lamp that watched over him.
That night he kept saying Psalm 51, more or less loudly, but all the time, absolutely all the time, without stopping. There was a strong will in this “saying”, a will that would not be defeated. It seemed to me that the antennae of the soul (that “something” of the soul) seemed to know that in this continuous saying, in this psalm, lay all salvation.
I began to recite it myself, quietly, slowly. Father wanted it, I wanted it to be heard. Father’s whispered cry had the power of perseverance. Although he seemed to be absent from everything around him, Father was very present when he recited the Psalm: the word was spoken, sometimes clearly, sometimes with a stammer, but with courage, with confidence, with conviction.
He also shared with me his confidence in the power of this Psalm. That night I received as a gift Psalm 51 with its saving power and I am convinced that it helped and saved Father Sofian in this impasse.
The next day, 12 August, Father stood up at his bedside. He was like a newborn – reborn. He looked around, spoke, and recognised everyone.
I asked him why Psalm 51. He replied that it is the psalm that is most involved in the Orthodox Church service: we find it in morning prayer, in vespers, and in many other moments of the service… and at the Holy Mass, at the very moment of the consecration, when the priest says in silence: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me“.
After only a few months, I accompanied Father Sofian to Bad Rapennau in Germany, where he was offered a course of treatment.
There, two days after our arrival, Father was able to make a service with the consecration of water. It was Sunday afternoon, 10 October 1999. I lit the candle. During the lighting of the candle, Father remembered his loved ones in Romania and Germany. He prayed for the Romanian and German people. The candle burned all night without going out, it burned in the morning until 1 pm, when we had to move to another house…
I was leaving and I couldn’t bear to blow out the candle that had been burning for 20 hours. I picked it up in the car. I held it against the wind, carried it around carelessly, thinking it would go out. But it didn’t. It burned for 70 hours straight. I was astonished, delighted and amazed at this unusual thing. But Father was unperturbed, as calm as ever.
(Mariana Macri – Father Sofian, 2nd edition revised and added by Constanța Costea and Ioana Iancovescu, Byzantine Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012, pp. 258-260)