Midterm

John Moschos, The Spiritual Meadow (Pratum Spirituale), trans. John Wortley (Minnesota: Cistercian Publications, 2008): 44-45.

56. The life of John, the Disciple of a Great Elder who Lived in the Village of Parasêma. Ptolemaïs is a city of Phoenicia. There is a village nearby called Parasêma in which there resided a great elder. He had a disciple named John who was also great and excelled in obedience. One day the elder sent the disciple to perform a task for him, giving him a little bread to sustain him on the way. The disciple went and completed the task and then came back, bringing the bread with him, untouched. When the elder saw the bread, he said to him, ‘Why did you not eat any of the bread I gave you, my child?’ Making an act of obeisance, the disciple said to the elder: ‘Forgive me, father, but when you blessed me and dismissed me, you did not say I was to eat of the bread, and that is why I did not eat it.’ Amazed at the disciple’s discernment, the elder gave him a blessing. After the death of this elder, a vision of God appeared to the brother (who had just concluded a forty-day fast) which said to him: ‘Whatever <disorder> you lay your hand on, it shall be healed.’ When morning came, by the providence of God, a man arrived, bringing his wife who had a cancer of the breast. The man besought <the brother> to heal his wife. The brother replied: ‘I am a sinful man and unworthy of such an undertaking.’ The woman’s husband continued to beg him to accede to his request and to have pity on his wife. So <the brother> laid his hand <on the diseased part> and sealed <it with the sign of the cross> and she was immediately healed. From that time on God performed many signs through him, not only in his lifetime but also after his death.