The Lord gives us His Pure Body and Blood for free, which cleanses, heals, revives and resurrects us. Holy Communion is a Secret that helps people even in hopeless situations. This is the story of a woman whose Holy Communion saved a premature baby from imminent death.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man, and shall have drunk His blood, you do not have life in yourselves." (John 6:53)
This story about the miraculous help of the mystery of Holy Communion was told to me by a believing woman who was directly involved in saving her baby.
My younger sister had a very complicated first pregnancy, which resulted in the birth of her child in the eighth month, and the newborn was barely saved. She was born weighing 1.6 kg and immediately placed in an incubator. That happened in the 90s of the last century, and then there were no good conditions for premature babies. Lawlessness reigned everywhere in Georgia, and maternity hospitals were no exception. They demanded a lot of money for each day of the baby’s stay in the hospital, and my sister simply didn’t have it.
The baby was born very weak, with health problems. We decided to invite the priest to baptize the newborn in the hospital, but the doctors did not let him inside. We finally managed to convince the doctor on duty to allow the priest to see the child. He baptized a baby named Sava (Sabbas) in honor of the Venerable Sava from Storoževo.
But the child was disappearing. He did not gain weight, he was very weak and could hardly react to anything. The doctors rolled their eyes when we asked them about his condition. It was clear that he was not expected to survive.
We wanted to call the priest again – for the infant to receive Holy Communion and rely completely on God. But this was out of the question – it took us a lot of effort to convince the hospital staff to allow us to baptize the baby. Then, firmly believing in the life-giving power of Holy Communion, I decided to take a desperate step: wrapping the child in a headscarf (he was very small), I “stole” him from the hospital and took him to church. The liturgy was in progress. Parishioners who knew me began to wonder whose child it was. I told them everything, and soon the whole church was praying for the baby. The newborn received the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, and I returned safely to the hospital. They did not even notice the absence of the baby, because in those years, newborns in hospitals were usually neglected.
Our Sava survived! He is now an adult; he knows the whole story of his birth and who saved his life!
Our family also knows about the life-giving power of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. This Holy Mystery saved my mother-in-law from death, when she was a child and when she became seriously ill. Seeing that the girl was getting worse and that the doctors did not help her, her mother (a pious woman who went to church in the Soviet era) brought a dying child in front of the Holy chalice. After taking communion, the girl recovered quickly. And since then, my mother-in-law has never suffered from any disease in her entire life, almost until her death.
The power of Holy Communion has a beneficial effect, especially on infants, and I have seen evidence of that many times in my life. When my son (who regularly received communion at the age of three months) was an infant, after Communion he slept until lunch without waking up or looking for food and was very calm. Indeed, the Holy Mysteries of Christ fed him better than any food!
This Holy Mystery also helps people in hopeless situations. My friend’s mother became seriously ill. Doctors discovered a blood clot in her heart. My friend and her four sisters went to church, prayed for her and decided to invite a priest to take communion. Their mother received communion in the hospital ward. Two weeks later, another test revealed that she did not have a blood clot!
Indeed, for the Holy Spirit, through the holy Mysteries of Christ, there is nothing that is impossible!
Irina Krikheli