(Source)
When people met Anastasios [i.e., Fr. Arsenios] on his way to Jerusalem, they asked him: “Where are you going?”
“To the Holy Land,” he replied.
With great surprise they asked, “But which road are you going to take?”
“It doesn’t matter; all roads lead to Jerusalem!” he responded with his typical simplicity.
Even after he left home, his mother still prayed intensely for his salvation. She told his little sister, “Let’s go out to our garden.” When they got there, she said to her: “I didn’t want to come out to the garden to check on it but to pray for your brother.”
“Why? He went to become a monk.”
“Yes, he has gone to become a monk, but has he secured his salvation? He’s still just a youngster. Who knows what kind of people are down there. That is why I beseech Christ and the Panagia day and night to help him.”
What a diligent mother! It was her prayers and tears that helped him and protected him from evil. After all, he was so simple that he would do whatever people told him.
Simplicity
When Fr. Anatolios [i.e., Fr. Arsenios] arrived at the train station in Alexandria, the porters saw his silken cassock and assumed he was rich, so they cordially offered to carry his baggage for him. Seeing such kindness, Fr. Anatolios said to himself with amazement: “Just look at what good Christians these people are! Not even we monks are so helpful!”
As soon as they had arrived to where they were going, the porters said to him: “Hand it over.”
“Hand what over?”
“The money!”
“You mean you take money for carrying my things?”
“Hmph! What do you think? We’d do it for free?”
“You mean you don’t do it out of love for Christ?”
“No, Father. How else are we going to make a living?”
So he paid them.
Later when he went to eat, the same thing happened. A waiter said to him,
“What would you like to eat? We have this, this, this, this, and that.”
“My, my! What gluttony!” he answered. He was so simple that he thought he was expected to eat everything. While he was eating, he was thinking to himself, “How hospitable the people are around here!” But then when they unexpectedly asked him to pay…
matushka constantina
lessons from a monastery 
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