The Domestic Church

The incubator for a life of righteousness

Prior to electricity and central heating, most families gathered in parlors, spending evenings with reading, sewing, and family conversations. The notion that everyone would retreat to bedrooms, kitchens, or dens, separating themselves from other family members, was unthinkable. The communal nature of the family was natural. I can remember, as a child (this really dates me), sitting together with my brother and my parents, listening to radio dramas. Before the coming of television, families would gather for evenings in the living room, where children would play with Lincoln Logs, or play board games with their parents.

Evenings spent together as family is important, for these moments not only build a bond between parents and their children, but serve as important times in which to share family values. The old saying that “a family that prayers together, stays together” was a truism that is often forgotten. I remember, as a boy of six, a Catholic family living next to us who had a small family chapel, complete with altar, statues, and candles. Every evening they would all gather in that little chapel to pray the rosary. As a protestant boy, I remember wishing we had a chapel as well.

Family meals are also important times for building strong moral and spiritual foundations in children. Sitting around the dinner table is a great time for parents to develop strong bonds of trust with their children. Dinner is a perfect time for talking to your children about their friends, or school activities, or recounting the homily from the Sunday Liturgy. Family members dispersing throughout the house for the evening, can end up functioning as autonomous entities, and family bonds are unlikely to develop in a healthy manner.

The domestic church, which is such an important element of the Orthodox Christian tradition, can not be developed in a family where meals, prayers, and social life are all in separate parts of the house. Parents, in their capacity as shepherds and nurturers, have the God given responsibility to make sure the home is an incubator for a life of righteousness, and where the Orthodox faith can take root. It is in such households that these children, in turn, learn how to be good parents to their own future children.

Hebrews 10:24-25: “… and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another …”

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Monday October 5, 2015 / September 22, 2015

19th Week after Pentecost. Tone one.

Prophet Jonah (9th c. B.C.).
Hieromartyr Phocas, bishop of Sinope (117).
Venerable Jonah the Presbyter (9th c.), father of St. Theophanes the Hymnographer and St. Theodore Graptus.
Blessed Parasceve od Diveevo (1915).
New Martyr Benjamin bishop of Romanovsk (1930).
Venerable Jonah, abbot of Yash Lake (1589).
Venerable Macarius, abbot of Zhabyn (1623).
Synaxis of All Saints of Tula.
Martyr Phocas the Gardener of Sinope (320).
St. Peter the Tax-collector of Constantinople (6th c.).
Hieromartyr Theodosius of Brazsk (1694) (Romania).
The 26 Martyrs of Zographou Monastery, Mt. Athos, martyred by the Latins (1284) (Greek).
Martyrs Isaac and Martin.
Venerable Theophanes the Silent, recluse of the Kiev Caves.
Venerable Cosmas, desert-dweller of Zographou, Mt. Athos (1323) (Greek).
Hieromartyr Emmeram, bishop in Gaul, martyred at Regensburg (690) (Bavaria)..
Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “She Who is Quick to Hear” (14th C).

Scripture Readings

Philippians 1:1-7

Greeting

1 Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thankfulness and Prayer

3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; 7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.

Luke 3:19-22

19 But Herod the tetrarch, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,[a] and for all the evils which Herod had done, 20 also added this, above all, that he shut John up in prison.

John Baptizes Jesus

21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. 22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”