Children learn to love God by the example of their parents
Every Orthodox parent wants their children to grow up attending Sunday Liturgies and staying active in the life of the Church throughout their lives. Yet many parents don’t demonstrate the importance of having a relationship with God in front of their children. If you do not make God important, neither will your child. Children observe their parents. They see hypocrisy and know when you are not following through with the teachings of the Church during the week. They hear when you take the Lord’s name in vain. They observe when you don’t make prayer central to your day. They notice if you only speak of God on a Sunday morning.
Making the sign of the cross, lighting candles and burning incense only on Sundays teaches your children to compartmentalize their own faith, thus leaving them defenseless in a world fulled with temptations and distractions from things that are of a spiritual nature. If you do not demonstrate the importance of prayer before your children, you will leave them defenseless in a world that hates Christ. Your children need to pray with you, read the scriptures with you, be taught the faith by you.
If you do not make your home a domestic church, your children will be lost to Christ, and Orthodoxy will not be lived out beyond your own grave, in the life of future members of your family.
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Thursday November 12, 2015 / October 30, 2015
24th Week after Pentecost. Tone six.
Hieromartyr Zenobius and his sister Zenobia of Aegae, Cilicia (285).
New Hieromartyr Eugene (Zernov), metropolitan of Nizhni Novgorod (1935).
New Hieromartyr Leonid priest (1941).
New Hieromartyr Mathew priest (1942).
New Hiero-confessor Varnava (Nastic) of Bosnia (1964).
Apostles Tertius, Mark, Justus, and Artemas of the Seventy (1st c.).
Hieromartyr Marcian, bishop of Syracuse (2nd c).
Martyr Eutropia of Alexandria (220).
Martyr Anastasia of Thessalonica (3rd C).
St. Stephen Milutin (1320), his brother St. Dragutin (monk Theoctistus) (1316), and their mother St. Helen (1306), wife of Urosh I of Serbia (Serbia).
“Ozeryansk” (16th C) Icon of the Mother of God.
Martyrs Alexander, Cronion, Julian, Macarius, and 13 companions at Alexandria (250).
Martyr Dometius of Phrygia.
Apostle Cleopas (1st c.) (Greek).
St. Joseph I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1283) (Greek).
New Hieromartyr Nicanor (Kudriavtsev) bishop of Bogoroditsk.
Finding of the relics of Great-martyr Stephen-Urosh III of Dechani, Serbia (1331).
Martyr Jotham Zedgenidze, Paravani (1465) (Georgia).
Scripture Readings
1 Thessalonians 5:1-8
The Day of the Lord
5 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.
Luke 11:14-23
A House Divided Cannot Stand
14 And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke; and the multitudes marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub,[a] the ruler of the demons.”
16 Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven. 17 But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. 22 But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. 23 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
Thank you for your precious comments. Could you please write a few words to parents whose teens have departed from the faith ? Again, thank you and please pray for our daughter Mary É.
I was raised outside of Orthodoxy, coming to it only ten years ago. My parents were not regular church-goers, nor did they pray in our presence. However, when I was four and my brother an infant, my father requested a Bible for Christmas. That night he read the first chapter of Matthew to us, thinking he would share the story of the birth of Christ with us. It took him several nights to cover it all, one chapter at a time. By the time he had finished the story of the Nativity, he had begun a new tradition. For the next seven years, we heard a chapter a night, making it all the way through the Bible three times before we became busy with the lives of teenagers. The Word, however, kept us safe until we were ready for the gift of Faith that it opened us up for. My brother is now an evangelical pastor, and my heart has found its home both in my prayer corner and the Orthodox church. As a mother, I continued the tradition, getting through the Bible 2.5 times with my children. My older son is tentatively setting out on the walk of faith now, with his believing wife. My younger son is thinking on things, but I have seen God walk him through some very poor choices and tough times and bring him out the other side whole and well. If nothing else is available to us, the Word of God will make its home within us and guide us on our way — if we hear it daily as little children.