Anthony M. Coniaris

“THE MAGIC OF LOVE

The magic of personal love works miracles as this true story testifies:

Even one person’s intimate love can deeply heal another. For example,Tom, a simple person without training in psychotherapy, worked as an orderly in a mental hospital. One of the sickest patients in the hospital, a deeply psychotic woman, had been there for eighteen years. She never spoke to anyone, or even looked in another’s eyes. She sat alone all day in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth. One day during his dinner break, Tom found another rocking chair, pulled it over, and rocked along beside her as he ate his dinner. He returned the next day, and the next. Tom worked only five days per week, but he asked for special permission to come in on his days off so he could rock with the psychotic woman. Tom did this every day for six months. Then one evening as he got up to leave, the woman said, “Good night.”
It was the first time she had spoken in eighteen years. After that, she began to get well. Tom still came to rock with her every day, and eventually she was healed of her psychosis.*

*Healing the Eight Stages of Life. M. Linn, S. Fabricant, D. Linn. Paulist Press. 1988.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person

“Father Matta El-Maskeen, a Coptic Orthodox priest, has written, So we receive the power of the resurrection in baptism when we undergo burial in the water, but it remains an invisible and unsubstantiated resurrection power until it is put into effect in earnest spiritual living. It is like the case of a child who is born with the natural ability to stand on his feet and walk, but remains unable to do either before he develops and grows strong.”
― Anthony M. Coniaris, God and You: Person to Person