Don't you have a church, consecrated icon? It's not scary. Here, in the book, we have placed an image of the saint – perhaps, looking at it, it will be easier for you to turn to Xenia?

You don't know how to pray, you just haven't tried it yet? Not a problem either. The road begins with the first step. Ask in your own words, in any words, as long as they come from the heart. In addition, on the last page there is a church prayer to this saint. You can read only it, you can supplement your own words with it.

So, this book contains everything you need to help you turn to St. Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg.

Go ahead.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Gospel of Matthew, 7:7-8)

THE GRAVE OF A BEGGAR

End of September. I am walking through the Smolensk cemetery to the chapel of St. Xenia. It's warm, quiet, windless. Graves, graves, graves with crosses. Old ones, from the end of the XVIII century, are interspersed with later ones. Marble crosses are adjacent to cast-iron and granite, here they are modern, painted with bright silver.

Yellow and red leaves slowly fly off the maples. They fall on the mutilated crosses of abandoned graves, where instead of garden flowers planted by a loving hand, there are yellow untouchable flowers, goutweed and nettles. No one remembers these people for a long time, no one loves them, the memory has been interrupted.

And here is a sandy mound, completely filled with wreaths: "To the beloved son", "Dear grandson", "Daughter" - three faces look from the photos: mom, dad, a twelve-year-old boy. They have just been buried. Here is another fresh grave: a mother with a one-year-old daughter, a celluloid purple elephant with a raised trunk peeks out from under the wreaths and flowers, causing shivering. What will remain of these graves in ten, fifty, a hundred, two hundred years? Will the memory of these people be preserved, the one that is asked for in the funeral service: "... and their memory for generations and generations"?

At last I come to the chapel. It is placed over the grave where the St. Petersburg tramp Ksenia Petrova lies. When was she born? Unknown. The date is set more than approximately, between 1719 and 1730. When did she die? Unknown. Either in 1780, or in 1806, or between these dates. Who buried her? How? No records in church books, no accurate testimonies.