"Once, Fr. Thaddeus shared a meal at Vitovnica with a pious visitor from Belgrade. After the meal, the visitor noticed several bread crumbs in the elder's long beard. When they had both risen from the table, he gently told Fr. Thaddeus that he ought to shake the crumbs from his beard, so that the other visitors would not see them and wonder what kind of monk he was. However, the elder only smiled and said, 'It is a pity to throw these crumbs away, when the birds can feast on them!' Then he sat on a bench in the garden, leaned back in his seat, and called to a sparrow sitting on a nearby tree, 'Come, little sparrow, come and eat!' The visitor saw with his own eyes how the sparrow flew down and settled on Fr. Thaddeus' beard, pecking at it until it had eaten the last crumb.
