Maria (this was Mother Makrina’s name before she became a nun)lost her parents and was orphaned when she was nine years old. When she was twelve years old, she found work at a tobacco factory in Volos.
She used the first money she earned from this job to have a forty-day Liturgy for the souls of her parents. Her spiritual father began the Liturgies
for forty consecutive days, and she would attend the service daily. She would wake up at 3:00 am, and walk for approximately one hour from her
home to the chapel of Saint Apostle the New Martyr.
At the conclusion of the Liturgy, she would immediately leave for her work. During the forty-day period that the Liturgies were being served, she would pray in private in her home as well, for God to rest the souls of her parents.
On the fortieth day, when the final Liturgy was to
beheld, a little before she woke up, in a state
half-way between sleep and vigilance, she found herself in a green pasture with flowering trees,
similar to almond trees when their branches of are in bloom in the spring. She heard a voice telling her that this place belonged to her parents. Deeply moved, she began to call out to them, and they appeared to her, at which time she asked them anxiously if they are in a place of rest. They joyfully replied, “It was nice where we were before, but now we are even better.”
After this, she prepared to go to the final Liturgy.
At the conclusion of the service, as her spiritual father was handing out the antidoron, he asked
her to stay behind for a while because he wanted to speak to her.
Maria waited and shortly thereafter her spiritual father came to ask her how she felt while praying for her parents. Before Maria was able to respond, he told her that he also had seen them the night before just as she had seen them.
Maria then comprehended the immense value of the forty-day Liturgies, and when she later became an abbess, she always recommended to people to perform liturgies for both the deceased, as well
as for health and support of the living during life’s various difficulties.
from the life of Nun Makrina (†1995)
http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2014/03/our-prayers-help-departed-part-2-nun.html
