My Joy! Christ Is Risen!: the Hermit, Stone, Open Door, and Light That Covered Snow: 2

Saint Seraphim of Sarov was a Russian Orthodox monk and forest hermit who opened his door to thousands after decades of silence. How did a monk who withdrew into the deep forest, praying for a thousand nights on a granite rock and enduring a brutal beating by robbers, become the elder who greeted every visitor with the news of the resurrection?In 1794, a monk leaves his monastery to build a small log hermitage in the wilderness outside Sarov. There, he subsists on wild herbs and feeds the wild bears that lumber out of the birch trees to eat bread from his hand. When three peasants beat him nearly to death with his own axe, he recovers only to beg the court for their release, returning to the woods for years of strict silence. Directed by the Theotokos, he finally emerges in 1825 to receive all who come to his cell, reading the hearts of peasants and officers alike. Nicholas Motovilov sits with him in the November snow to witness the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, before the elder finishes his earthly course on his knees before his icon.A thousand nights: the long vigil on a granite rock where a solitary ascetic prayed with raised arms.The open door: the emergence from silence to shepherd the sisters of the Seraphim Diveyevo Convent and greet every weeping mother or illiterate fisherman.Uncreated light revealed: the conversation with Nicholas Motovilov in the winter forest that demonstrated the true aim of the Christian life.Book Two of The Wonderworker of Sarov: A Life in Three Books. This volume hands the story of the elder over to Acquire a Peaceful Spirit, which traces his instructions on grace and the preservation of his relics through decades of persecution. The years of isolation recorded here build upon what He Is of Our Lineage left behind following his youth in Kursk and his monastic testing.Readers seeking a reliable guide to his years of strict silence in the wilderness, the world around his small log hermitage, and the acquisition of the Holy Spirit witnessed in the November snow.