The Lord God at all times sent special people to earth - prophets who saw the future as the present.
Before the birth of Christ, prophets lived among God's chosen people of Israel. Early Christian times were replete with prophecies, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
But even subsequently, from time to time, saints of God appeared on earth with obvious signs of prophetic service. In general, we can say that any saint is a prophet, only in different saints this property and function was manifested to varying degrees. After all, the gift of prophecy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with which the saints abound.
One of the aspects of prophetic ministry is clairvoyance, prediction of the future. This matter is far from being the most important task of the prophet. Rather, the most noticeable and spectacular, attracting attention and proving the inspiration of the prophet.
The main thing in prophetic ministry is the fearless and impartial proclamation of the Will of God. The God-sent status of the prophet, his correctness and the importance of his preaching are precisely confirmed by miracles, including predictions of the future.
One of our contemporary saints who possessed the prophetic gift in abundance was Saint Matrona of Moscow.
Icon of St. blzh. Matrona of Moscow
Life of Blessed Matronushka
November 22, 1881 In the village of Sebino, Epifansky district (now Kimovsky district) of the Tula province, a child was born into the family of Christians Dmitry and Natalya Nikonov who had no eyes at all. At first, the father and mother thought of leaving their daughter in an orphanage, fearing that they would not be able to feed a large family with a disabled child.
But the mother of the future old woman saw in a dream a beautiful white bird that was blind. The mother realized that this dream was about her daughter and left Matrona. From birth, a cross-shaped dent was visible on the girl’s chest - a sign of her being chosen by God.
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From the age of seven, Matrona developed unusual abilities. Through her fervent prayers, the sick recovered unusually quickly, the grieving received consolation, the despondent regained the desire to live, and sometimes even unbelievers became Christians.
Having learned about this, endless crowds of sick, unfortunate, and disadvantaged people flocked to Sebino. The blind girl prayed to God for them, and the people left comforted, encouraged and healed. People generously thanked the saint, who thus turned from a punishment and burden into the breadwinner of her entire family, beyond her years
Matrona ordered one paralyzed man who lived 4 kilometers from Sebino to convey:
“Let him come to me in the morning, crawl. He’ll crawl by three o’clock.”
The sick man, with faith in the supernatural abilities of the blessed one, crawled to Sebino, and went home on his own feet, completely healed.
The holy righteous John of Kronstadt spoke about the fourteen-year-old Matrona, who came to Kronstadt and approached him with a blessing: “Here comes my shift - the eighth pillar of Russia.”
icon of the saint Matrona of Moscow, in which she is depicted as sighted, which symbolically reflects the gift of spiritual insight of the old woman.
At the age of seventeen, the saint was overtaken by another illness - she stopped walking and was sedentary for all the years until her death. The saint accepted this test with meekness and humility and never grumbled about her unfortunate lot.
From 1925 until her death, Saint Matrona lived in Moscow: in different apartments with friends and relatives. In conditions of state atheism and open persecution of the Church, the saint had to frequently move from place to place, often miraculously avoiding arrest.
The blessed one constantly received people coming to her (up to forty people a day). She listened, talked, prayed, and instructed. And then, at night, she prayed for everyone, asking God for forgiveness of sins, healing and grace-filled help.
I never took payment for help. She always called human sins and godless life the cause of all troubles and misfortunes. After communicating with the blessed one, many people began to believe in God and go to church.
Communicating with people who came to her, Saint Matrona quite often revealed the gift of insight and knowledge. Sitting in her room, the blind saint described in detail many things and places, talked about people she had never seen, predicted the future down to the smallest detail, and foresaw what was about to happen in the near future.
Spiritual commandments of the blessed mentor
When communicating with pilgrims, Mother Matrona placed the main emphasis on the fact that man is the temple of the Living God, therefore he needs to protect the image of the Creator in himself.
Matronushka made an interesting and clear comparison when talking about condemnation. She herself did not judge anyone and asked others not to do so, saying that each lamb has a personal tail by which it will be hung. Take care of your own ponytails, why do you need someone else's?
The saint treated prayer and the sign of the cross with reverence and reverence.
Advice! In any situation, Mother encouraged people to read prayers and be baptized, comparing the sign of the cross to a door lock.
Having lived in deprivation for a long time, Matronushka treated food with respect, taught to thank God every time she took food, the remaining food should be covered or removed from the table away from evil forces.
Instructions of the Holy Elder Matrona of Moscow
Often the blessed healer urged pilgrims to learn to surrender to the will of the great Creator like a child sitting in a sleigh. Where God takes it, there it goes, completely submitting to the will of God. The perspicacious Matronushka saw all the troubles in her sins, so she called for frequent repentance.
According to Matrona of Moscow, forgiveness and love are a great power in acquiring God’s grace.
The saint treated people with particular favor who decided to devote their lives to serving the Almighty, but at the same time she urged them not to wear black clothes, so as not to attract attention to themselves and not to exalt themselves above other believers.
Matrona especially revered Epiphany water. She advised diluting Epiphany water with ordinary water and watering yourself from head to toe. This symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, mother emphasized that we are God’s temple, and water sanctifies it. At the same time, the saint warned that the Epiphany water, consecrated on January 19, should be treated with reverence and veneration, praying and repenting before pouring.
Matrona of Moscow bequeathed to constantly remember the dead, so that, having come to the judgment of God, she would receive their prayers for pardon. Memorial notes emphasize our love for departed people, love for our neighbor.
Prophecies about the future
St. Matrona of Moscow, icon
One of the first prophecies Saint Matrona uttered was about the beginning of her grace-filled, truly senile ministry. “Mom, get ready, I’m going to have a wedding soon,” a girl once said to her mother. This happened just after several random, as it seemed to everyone then, healings. The mother did not attach any importance to this. However, after a few days, carts began to arrive in Sebino. People, having found out about the new healer and prayer book, walked and drove to the Nikonovs’ house, and everyone asked Matronushka... “Matryushenka, what is this?” – the mother asks in bewilderment. And she replies: “I told you there will be a wedding.”
One day Matrona predicted to her mother a fire in their village:
“Tomorrow there will be a fire, but you won’t burn.”
And sure enough, the next day, early in the morning, one house caught fire, then another, a third... Almost the entire village burned out. Literally one house before the blessed hut, the wind began to blow in the other direction, and the mother’s house remained intact.
Many times, already living in Moscow, the saint foresaw the arrival of the police to arrest her and saved both herself and her relatives from persecution.
One day, her nephew, who lived in Sergiev Posad, felt that he absolutely had to come to his aunt in Moscow. He asked for time off from work, rushed to the saint, and she said:
“Come on, come on, take me quickly to Zagorsk, to your mother-in-law.”
. As soon as they left, the police burst into the apartment, but they didn’t find anyone.
Another time, when a policeman finally came to arrest the saint and take her to the isolation ward, the blessed one said to him: “Go, go quickly, there is misfortune in your house! But the blind woman can’t get away from you, I sit on the bed, I don’t go anywhere.” It turned out that the policeman’s wife was burned from the kerosene gas, and her husband barely had time to take her to the hospital. When asked by his superiors where the blind woman was, the employee, amazed by the old woman’s foresight and grateful to God for saving his wife, firmly and resolutely answered: “I will never take the blind woman. If the blind woman hadn’t told me, I would have lost my wife, but I still managed to take her to the hospital.”
The clarity with which the blessed one saw what was about to happen is confirmed by the following incident.
One day, a high-ranking lady approached the saint with a request to heal her son, who had gone crazy and was kept in a psychiatric hospital. “If the Lord cures your son, will you believe in God?” — the saint asked the poor mother and, without waiting for an answer, began to read prayers over the water. Handing the blessed water to the official, the blessed one predicted: “Go to the hospital now, arrange with the orderlies so that they hold him tightly when they take him out. He will fight, and you try to splash this water in his eyes and be sure to get it in his mouth.” The young man turned out to be not sick, but possessed. Seeing his mother approaching, he began to frantically yell, kick, struggle and beg his mother not to approach him with holy water:
“Mom, throw away what you have in your pocket, don’t torture me!” When the amazed woman sprinkled her son with holy water, he immediately calmed down and said: “How good!” Soon the young man was completely healed of mental illness, and he was discharged from the hospital as completely healthy.
What will happen in Europe
Ordinary citizens will become significantly poorer. The trends are already visible to the naked eye. Old Europe failed to escape from America's heel. People will have to disentangle the cowardice of the authorities, who chose calm rather than struggle.
For individual states:
- Germany will lose some of its economic power. The situation will be aggravated by the migration flow, which will be difficult to cope with. Budget deficits loom on the horizon of this once strong power.
- England will not be able to find a way out of the crisis. The United States will not lend a helping hand, but, on the contrary, will try to drown its former ally deeper. UK instruments (courts and banking structures) will remain unclaimed in the new world.
- The rest of Europe depends on the giant economies. Therefore, they will feel poverty even more clearly than their leaders. Tariffs will go up by leaps and bounds. And wages will fall to the bottom. Some states will declare bankruptcy. And the World Bank will not contribute to their recovery.
Mother promised that Europe would be restored only when the Union was led by a military man. The new leader will establish ironclad rules and deprive people of privileges. But the EU, under his wise leadership, will begin its revival.
What did the old lady predict about the fate of Russia?
Many of the elder's prophecies concerned the future of Russia.
In 1894 Twenty-four years before the murder of the passion-bearing Tsar Nicholas II and his family, the saint showed everyone a tattered chicken feather, saying:
“This is how they will fleece our Tsar-Father.”
The saint made another prophecy in 1899:
“They will rob, destroy churches and drive everyone away.”
At the same time, she showed with gestures how she would stretch her arms in all directions, greedily grabbing everything she could, just to get more for herself.
“And then they’ll leave everything and run in all directions. Nobody will need the land."
“They will strip our Church of the Assumption. They will take down the icons and peel off the entire Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God,” the saint prophesied about the destruction of her beloved church in her native village since childhood.
Long before the revolution, back in 1903, the blessed one predicted the destruction of churches and monasteries. Moreover, she connected this not with the persecution and repression of the godless atheistic authorities, who were taking away their churches, priests, and faith from the people, but with the secularization and de-churching of the people themselves:
“There will be few believers, there will be no one to serve.”
“The people are under hypnosis,” the saint said in the first post-revolutionary years, “they are not themselves, a terrible force has come into action, this force exists in the air, penetrates everywhere, before swamps and dense forests were the habitat of this force, since people went to church, they wore a cross, and the houses were protected by images, lamps and consecration, and demons flew past such houses, and now people are also inhabited by demons due to unbelief and rejection of God.”
The blessed one predicted the Great Patriotic War five years in advance
. “Of course, many people will die, but our Russian people will win.”
There is a legend that Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself came to the blessed one during the war, when the issue of the need to evacuate Moscow was being decided. The saint encouraged him and said:
“You don’t need to run away from Moscow. The red rooster will win over the black rooster.”
After the war, the old woman assured those who came to her:
“Don't be afraid, there will be no more war. Life will be good, we have not yet seen such times. You will see all this again."
The saint also prophesied about the further history of Russia at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st centuries:
“First Stalin will be removed, then after him there will be rulers - one worse than the other. They will destroy Russia. After the war, “comrades” will travel abroad, “break” their teeth and return to their homeland. And at that time Mikhail will appear (she raised her hands high, put them to her heart and head) - that’s what he will be like! He will want to help, change everything, turn it over, but if he knew that he would not change anything... Troubles, strife, massacres will begin, one party will go against another. This will happen for a short time. You will sigh, but not much...
“Everything will happen – a prayer service on Red Square, and a memorial service for the murdered Anointed of God and his family.”
At the icon of Mother Matrona of Moscow
Anticipating the revival of the Church, the saint also warned about some dangers that would arise with an abundance of freedom and availability of priests, elders, and confessors:
“The world lies in evil and delusion, and delusion - the deception of souls - will be obvious, beware. If you go to an elder or priest for advice, pray that the Lord will make him wise to give the right advice.”
Blessed Matrona’s predictions about the future fate of our homeland are twofold. On the one hand, the saint predicts great glory and prosperity for Russia.
“How many peoples have disappeared, but Russia existed and will exist. Pray, ask, repent! The Lord will not leave you and will preserve our land!”
On the other hand, the saint assured that this would not happen if, in her words, “the people succumb to provocations and believe liars.” The blessed old lady spoke about the great upheavals and internal conflicts in Russia.
In the worst case scenario, the current Russian land will be divided by Europeans, Chinese and Indians. But long before that, the rulers of Russia will rob and ruin it for decades...
Saint's Fulfilled Predictions
People tend to exaggerate the achievements of their pets. But not in our case. Mother surprisingly accurately sensed the coming suffering. It was not the rulers who worried her noble heart, but ordinary people. Keep in mind that Matronushka passed through her earthly path at the border of the 19th and 20th centuries. Very turbulent revolutionary times.
The following has already happened:
- Murder of Tsar Nicholas II. She prophesied the martyrdom of the entire family with tears in her blind eyes.
- Revolution and subsequent Civil War. Pictures of devastated lands, fratricidal battles, starvation and death plunged into horror. And everything came true. The seer does not have the power to undo what is destined to happen.
- The Second World War brought down a country that managed to overcome fraternal discord. And the Saint saw through her lethality. She promised a long struggle at the end of her strength, but a resounding victory. And so it happened.
The soothsayer died in 1952. And this is what she promised her contemporaries:
Joseph (Stalin - ed.) will be gone soon, and the new ones will be even worse. They will suck everything out of Russia, rip it off to the skin, whoever goes abroad will be disappointed... And then the turmoil will begin... the people will remember the emperor... I feel sorry for you all.
The current generations hardly remember, and the old people are not heard. But blessed Matrona was not mistaken. The leaders who followed Stalin brought the people to complete poverty and the brink of patience, and put the wealth of the state “into their pockets.”
About the end of the world
The prophetic gaze of the blessed old woman stretched even further and saw the hardships and troubles that would befall humanity at the end of time.
“How I feel sorry for you,” the saint mourned in conversations with her family and friends, “you will live to see the last times. Life will get worse and worse. Heavy. The time will come when they will put a cross and bread in front of you, and they will say - choose!”
The prophecy of the blessed one about the very end of the world is very vague, however, like the stories of the Apocalypse, and all the predictions of these terrible days in general.
“There will be no war, without war you will all die,” the saint said verbatim. “There will be many victims, everyone will lie dead on the ground.” And I’ll also tell you: in the evening everything will be on the earth, and in the morning you will rise - everything will go into the ground. Without war, war goes on."
Prayer to Matrona for good luck in business
“Blessed Elder Matrona, intercessor and protector of all living on Earth. Ask the Lord God for mercy and forgive me all my bad deeds. I tearfully pray and promise not to kill my soul with painful sinfulness. Help me find a job within my capabilities and do not deprive me of good luck in a good endeavor. Intercede for me before the all-seeing Lord and do not let my sinful soul perish. Amen".
