A mother's letter to her unborn child

I write this letter to my unborn child from the depths of my soul.

You’ve entered my womb and made my life complete and whole.

I never thought I would be chosen for such an awesome task.

It is a greater blessing than what I ever could ask.

I can almost imagine you in my mind.

Beautiful, Happy, Bouncing, flashing a smile so kind.

Feeling you flutter is a sensation like no other.

It does wonders for the joy of this soon-to-be-mother!

You create a glow in me I never knew I would see.

It is true happiness that sets me on cloud nine manifested deep inside of me!

You’re my baby, my child, my heart, and my wonder.

I pray we create a bond that no one can put asunder.

You’re a designers’ original! A creation from the King!

I can hardly wait for you to enter the world and see the joy you bring.

Sweet baby of mine, you’re a magnificent gift from above.

Living proof of how your father and I have shared our love.

I hope you have your fathers’ eyes

Then you will go into the world able to look at all things wise.

I hope you inherit my ability to plan.

With that you will be able to face all things in life as a strong woman or man.

I hope you receive from your father his selfless ways.

For this the Heavenly Father will bless you, as he did him, all of your days.

I hope you learn from me, spirit and let no one take it.

Believe me you will need it in life, and many will try to break it.

But with that spirit you must have your father’s center.

With that you will be cautious of any door you enter.

I want you to have my curiosity.

There’s nothing wrong with questions you may blurt!

But receive your fathers’ discernment,

so you’ll know when to let go before getting hurt.

Have my big heart; know what emotions are and how to be real.

Share your fathers’ strength so you can handle what you feel.

Share my sense of humor! Laugh a lot it helps you through life.

Share your fathers’ sense of duty. Know how to be serious and take strife.

I’m emotional so I tell you its okay to blubber once and a while like your Mom.

But learn to develop what your father has; an excellent sense of calm.

But most of all the things I wish for your father and I to share.

I wish we teach you to love, respect, strength of mind, and to care.

These are my feelings, wishes and hopes for you.

You make my heart and soul sing!

I welcome you to the world and thank you for the joy,

my little queen or king.

Thank you God for this blessing .....

Why do children lose faith in God?

Why is it that some people are able to know God and believe in Him until the end of their days, while others lose their faith while still young ? How does this loss of faith occur and by what means can faith be preserved or renewed ?

Before answering these questions I would like to say a few words to those who say that religious beliefs should not be “foisted upon” children.
Religious faith cannot be foisted upon a person; it is not something which is alien to man, but, on the contrary, it is an essential need of human nature, it constitutes the primary content of man’s inner life.


When we take care to have a child grow up truthful, good, when we develop in him a correct understanding of and a taste for beauty, we do not foist upon him something alien or extraneous to his nature; we only help him to extract this from within himself, we help him recognize within himself those traits and movements which are common to all human souls.

The same should be said concerning knowledge of God.

According to the principle of not foisting anything upon a child’s soul, we would generally have to renounce all assistance to the child in developing and strengthening the talents and capabilities of his soul. We would have to leave him to his own devices until he grew up and decided which principles to adopt and which to reject.

But in this case we would not have guarded the child from external influences, but would have only made these influences chaotic and arbitrary.

Let us return to the question of why some people retain in their hearts a constant and unshakeable faith until the end of their days, while others lose it, sometimes completely and sometimes returning to it with great difficulty and suffering?


What is the reason for such a phenomenon ? It seems to me that it depends on the direction which a person’s inner life takes in his early childhood. If a person, consciously or instinctively, is able to preserve a correct relationship between himself and God, he will not lose faith, but if his ego occupies an unseemly preeminent and dominant place in his soul, then his faith will be superceded. In early childhood a person’s nature does not yet occupy first place, does not yet become an object of worship. For this reason it is said: if you do not become like children, you will not enter the Heavenly Kingdom. As the years advance, our innate egoism grows more and more within us, becomes the center of our attention and the object of our gratification.

And this self-centered egoistic life usually runs along two channels - the channel of sensuality, gratification of the body, and the channel of pride, of strict trust in and worship of reason in general and one’s own in particular.

These two channels do not usually coexist within one and the same person. Some are dominated by the temptations of sensuality, while others by the temptations of reason. With age sensuality sometimes changes into unhealthy sexuality, from which those who are dominated by reason and pride are often free.

Sensuality and pride - two ways of serving one’s nature - are precisely those traits which, as we know, were manifested in the original sin of Adam and Eve, and created a barrier between them and God.

That which happened to our forebears, now happens to us.

The unhealthy direction of our inner life from childhood, which leads to the development within us of either sensuality or pride, pollutes the purity of our internal spiritual sight, deprives us of seeing God. We stray away from God, we remain alone in our egoistic life, with all the consequences of such a condition.

Such is the process of our abandonment of God.

In those, however, who succeed in keeping a correct relationship with God, the development of egoistic, sensual and proud attitudes is impeded by the memory of God; such people preserve their purity of heart and humbleness of mind; both their bodies and their minds are placed within a framework of religious consciousness and duty. They look upon all that springs up within their soul from the height of their religious consciousness, evaluate their feelings and passions properly, and do not allow them to take control. Despite all the temptations that come across their path, they do not lose the basic direction of their lives.

Thus the purpose and the difficulty of religious guidance lies in helping the child, and later the teenager, to preserve the right relationship between himself and God and to not allow the development within himself of the temptations of sensuality and pride, which pollute the clarity of internal spiritual sight.

Remembering my youth, I must admit that it was precisely through such an internal process that I lost my religious faith when I was 13-14 years old. The enticements of sensuality, the excessive trust in reason and the pride of rationality which were developing in me, deadened my soul. And I was not alone, the majority of my friends suffered the same fate.

Had an experienced spiritual instructor happened to be alongside us and peered into our souls, perhaps he would have found something good in them, but primarily he would have found idleness, gluttony, deceit, hypocrisy, self-assurance, inordinate belief in one’s powers and abilities, a critical and skeptical attitude towards the opinions of others, a tendency towards hasty and and rash decisions, stubbornness, and a trusting attitude towards all kinds of negative theories, etc.

The only thing he would not have found in our souls would be the memory of God, and the inner quiet and humbleness which it engenders.

We did not have such an instructor. Our religious teacher, a venerable protopriest, barely had time to check on our lessons in the Law of God and to explain further. And we regarded these lessons with the same boredom and indifference as all the others. Outside of these lessons we had no contact with our teacher. Confession, to which we went once a year, we approached with no understanding whatsoever.

And nothing prevented us from becoming spiritually extinguished.


Protopriest Sergey Chetverikov

The children, their joys and their difficulties ( St. Paisios )

Q.: I’ve noticed, Elder, that sometimes babies smile at the time of Divine Liturgy.

A.: They don’t do that only at the Divine Liturgy. Babies are in constant contact with God, because they’ve got nothing to worry about. What did Christ say about little children? ‘Their angels in heaven continually gaze upon the face of my Father who is in heaven’. They’re in touch with God and with their guardian angel, who’s with them all the time. They smile in their sleep sometimes, and at other times cry, because they see all sorts of things. Sometimes they see their guardian angels and play with them- the angels stroke them, tease them, shake their fists and they laugh. On other occasions they see some kind of temptation and cry.

Q.: Why does temptation come to babies?

A.: It helps them to feel the need to seek their mothers. If there wasn’t this fear, they wouldn’t need to seek the comfort of being cuddled by their mothers. God allows everything so that it’ll turn out well.

Q.: Do they remember what they see as babies when they grow up?

A.: No, they forget. If a little child remembered the number of times it had seen its guardian angel, it might fall into pride. That’s why, when it grows up, it forgets. God’s wise in His doings.

Q.: Do they see these things after baptism?

A.: Of course after baptism.

Q.: Elder, is it all right for an unbaptized child to reverence relics?

A.: Why not? And they can be blessed with the holy relics. I saw a child today, it was like a little angel. I asked, ‘Where are your wings?’ It didn’t know what to say! At my hermitage, when spring comes and the trees are in blossom, I put sweets on the holm-oaks next to the gate in the fence and I tell the little boys who come: ‘Go on, boys, cut the sweets from the bushes, because if it rains they’ll melt and spoil’. A few of the more intelligent ones know that I’ve put them there and laugh. Others really believe that they’ve grown there and some others have to think about it. Little children need a bit of sunshine.

Q.: Did you put lots of sweets, Elder?

A.: Well, of course. What could I do? I don’t give good sweets to grown-ups; I just give them Turkish delight. When people bring me nice sweets, I keep them for the kids at the School [the Athoniada]. ‘See, last night I planted sweets and chocolates and today they’ve come up! See that? The weather was good, the soil was well-turned because you’d dug it over well and they came up just like that. See what a flower garden I’ll make for you. We’ll never need to buy sweets and chocolates for kids. Why shouldn’t we have our own produce?’ (Elder Païsios had planted sweets and chocolates in the freshly dug earth and put lilac blossoms on top to make it seem that they were flowering).

Q.: Elder, some pilgrims saw the chocolates you planted in the garden because the paper stood out against the soil. They didn’t know what to make of it. ‘Some kid must have put them there’, they said.

A.: Why didn’t you tell them that a big kid put them there?



Q.: Elder, why does God give people a guardian angel, when He can protect us Himself?

A.: That’s God looking after us especially carefully. The guardian angel is God’s providence. And we’re indebted to Him for that. The angels particularly protect little children. And you wouldn’t believe how! There were two children once, playing in the street. One of them aimed at the other to hit him on the head with a stone. The other one didn’t notice. At the last moment, apparently, his angel drew his attention to something else, he leapt up and got out of the way. And then there was this mother who went out into the fields with her baby. She breast-fed it, put it down in its cradle and went off to work. After a bit, she went to check and what did she see? The child was holding a snake and looking at it! When she’d suckled the child, some of the milk had stayed on its lips, the snake had gone to lick it off and the baby had grabbed hold of it. God looks after children.

Q.: Elder, in that case, why do so many children suffer from illnesses?

A.: God knows what’s best for each of us and provides as necessary. He doesn’t give people anything that’s not going to benefit them. He sees that it’s better for us to have some sort of defect, a disability instead of protecting us from them.

Source: Discourses 4, Family Life, published by the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, Souroti, Thessaloniki

Why do children lose faith in God?

Why is it that some people are able to know God and believe in Him until the end of their days, while others lose their faith while still young ? How does this loss of faith occur and by what means can faith be preserved or renewed ?

Before answering these questions I would like to say a few words to those who say that religious beliefs should not be “foisted upon” children.
Religious faith cannot be foisted upon a person; it is not something which is alien to man, but, on the contrary, it is an essential need of human nature, it constitutes the primary content of man’s inner life.


When we take care to have a child grow up truthful, good, when we develop in him a correct understanding of and a taste for beauty, we do not foist upon him something alien or extraneous to his nature; we only help him to extract this from within himself, we help him recognize within himself those traits and movements which are common to all human souls.

The same should be said concerning knowledge of God.

According to the principle of not foisting anything upon a child’s soul, we would generally have to renounce all assistance to the child in developing and strengthening the talents and capabilities of his soul. We would have to leave him to his own devices until he grew up and decided which principles to adopt and which to reject.

But in this case we would not have guarded the child from external influences, but would have only made these influences chaotic and arbitrary.

Let us return to the question of why some people retain in their hearts a constant and unshakeable faith until the end of their days, while others lose it, sometimes completely and sometimes returning to it with great difficulty and suffering?


What is the reason for such a phenomenon ? It seems to me that it depends on the direction which a person’s inner life takes in his early childhood. If a person, consciously or instinctively, is able to preserve a correct relationship between himself and God, he will not lose faith, but if his ego occupies an unseemly preeminent and dominant place in his soul, then his faith will be superceded. In early childhood a person’s nature does not yet occupy first place, does not yet become an object of worship. For this reason it is said: if you do not become like children, you will not enter the Heavenly Kingdom. As the years advance, our innate egoism grows more and more within us, becomes the center of our attention and the object of our gratification.

And this self-centered egoistic life usually runs along two channels - the channel of sensuality, gratification of the body, and the channel of pride, of strict trust in and worship of reason in general and one’s own in particular.

These two channels do not usually coexist within one and the same person. Some are dominated by the temptations of sensuality, while others by the temptations of reason. With age sensuality sometimes changes into unhealthy sexuality, from which those who are dominated by reason and pride are often free.

Sensuality and pride - two ways of serving one’s nature - are precisely those traits which, as we know, were manifested in the original sin of Adam and Eve, and created a barrier between them and God.

That which happened to our forebears, now happens to us.

The unhealthy direction of our inner life from childhood, which leads to the development within us of either sensuality or pride, pollutes the purity of our internal spiritual sight, deprives us of seeing God. We stray away from God, we remain alone in our egoistic life, with all the consequences of such a condition.

Such is the process of our abandonment of God.

In those, however, who succeed in keeping a correct relationship with God, the development of egoistic, sensual and proud attitudes is impeded by the memory of God; such people preserve their purity of heart and humbleness of mind; both their bodies and their minds are placed within a framework of religious consciousness and duty. They look upon all that springs up within their soul from the height of their religious consciousness, evaluate their feelings and passions properly, and do not allow them to take control. Despite all the temptations that come across their path, they do not lose the basic direction of their lives.

Thus the purpose and the difficulty of religious guidance lies in helping the child, and later the teenager, to preserve the right relationship between himself and God and to not allow the development within himself of the temptations of sensuality and pride, which pollute the clarity of internal spiritual sight.

Remembering my youth, I must admit that it was precisely through such an internal process that I lost my religious faith when I was 13-14 years old. The enticements of sensuality, the excessive trust in reason and the pride of rationality which were developing in me, deadened my soul. And I was not alone, the majority of my friends suffered the same fate.

Had an experienced spiritual instructor happened to be alongside us and peered into our souls, perhaps he would have found something good in them, but primarily he would have found idleness, gluttony, deceit, hypocrisy, self-assurance, inordinate belief in one’s powers and abilities, a critical and skeptical attitude towards the opinions of others, a tendency towards hasty and and rash decisions, stubbornness, and a trusting attitude towards all kinds of negative theories, etc.

The only thing he would not have found in our souls would be the memory of God, and the inner quiet and humbleness which it engenders.

We did not have such an instructor. Our religious teacher, a venerable protopriest, barely had time to check on our lessons in the Law of God and to explain further. And we regarded these lessons with the same boredom and indifference as all the others. Outside of these lessons we had no contact with our teacher. Confession, to which we went once a year, we approached with no understanding whatsoever.

And nothing prevented us from becoming spiritually extinguished.



Protopriest Sergey Chetverikov

The Orthodox Child at Home

Daily Life
The Orthodox family gets up in time to say their morning prayers together. If this means missing some sleep, bear in mind that it is not only a good spiritual discipline for the adults in the family, but a tremendous example to the children of where the family's priorities truly lie. Of course, extenuating circumstances might render this schedule impractical. If a member of the household works nights, for example, he should be allowed to say his prayers later.

Before eating or drinking anything, each member of the family should have some antidoron or a sip of holy water. By this act we remind ourselves that every good gift comes from Our Father in Heaven. When children begin each day with prayer and by partaking in holy things, they will be far less likely to associate piety and godliness as attributes to be considered on Sunday at Church.

In our culture, breakfast is likely to be a hurried, informal meal. However, this is no excuse to forget either the blessing or one's table manners. If the children are attending public school, chances are that they have picked up some fairly deplorable habits which must be vigilantly corrected. As with any other meal, complaints about the food must not be tolerated. The day should start with a nutritious meal but that does not mean that the mother must become a short-order cook catering to each individual whim.

After breakfast, when various members of the family have made their way to work or school, the traditional Orthodox mother will find herself at home with her smaller children. Or, if she is homeschooling, all her children will be there with her. The children will not be at a day care center while she is at work because then we would not be discussing the traditional Orthodox home. Frankly, the concept of a mother dropping her children of each day at an institution in which a few underpaid employees attempt to supervise several children at once is antithetical to the idea of Orthodox homelife. The mother who wants to instill true Christian spirituality in her children must be there to see to it herself.

Though cleanliness and orderliness in the home are important and should not be neglected, the Orthodox mother should avoid the use of television as a babysitter while she attends to household chores. No matter what the sponsors of children's shows may try to tell us, there is very little on television which is actually instructive or substantial. The rapidity with which the images are shown have a mind- numbing affect on a toddler and afford them little opportunity for interactive play. Television does, however, become addictive and parents who indulge this addiction usually end up experiencing the very unnerving phenomenon of their small children demanding to see "their" programs and throwing tantrums when their demands are not met.

Far more instructive is the constant verbal communication that should be taking place between mother and child. This is how a young child learns to speak correctly. If the child is allowed to play in the same area of the house where the mother is doing her chores, they can have a lot of positive interaction without the mother having to leave her tasks and devote her entire attention to the child. In addition, some time should be set aside for the mother to read stories and play games with the child. A mother is her child's first and best teacher provided she does not turn her responsibilities over to the television set.

This is also a good time to introduce children to concepts of beauty and harmony, particularly in the area of music appreciation. Without worldly biases, small children inately love that which is lovely. Peaceful and intricate melodies not only calm babies and small children but help them to form a preference for that which is beautiful. As the child grows, he will come in contact with cynical peers who identify their world view with nihilistic noise. The best protection an Orthodox parent can offer is to instill in the child a love of beauty and a belief in good, as embodied by the Orthodox Church and expressed in many ways by those who love God.

What else can a young child learn at home with his mother? Other than the basic skills necessary for functioning as a social being, the Orthodox child is forming a conscience and it is critical that this conscience be formed correctly. He must not be shielded from the fact that he is a fallen creature capable of sin and in need of repentance. This self-knowledge must be cultivated. The mother must be strong and look at her child in the light of what is best for his eternal soul. She must:

1) Firmly insist that every command she gives to the child, even the seemingly least significant, be obeyed. If obedience is not forthcoming, there should be immediate and unpleasant consequences. A mother who sighs and smiles after such a transgression, saying, "I just can't get him to do a thing I say," has abdicated her responsibility for the child's soul.

2) Teach the child to respect other people's property. This may mean that the mother will find herself endlessly repeating, "Is that yours? No, that is not yours. Don't touch." This will not only help instill a certain humility in the child (I am not the center of the universe. Everything does not belong to me), but it renders the child far more trustworthy in situations where he is not under constant supervision.

3) Teach the child to ask permission. Anyone who has visited an Orthodox monastery knows that the monks ask a blessing of the abbot before they do anything - begin their work, go out on an errand, take a drink of water. This not only helps the monks spiritually in accepting authority and acting in obedience, it helps the abbot maintain good order in the monastery. If a monk were to take food without asking, how would the abbot know whether the brothers had enough food for the evening meal? The same is true in the Orthodox household. If a child must ask permission before eating, then the mother knows how much food he has eaten and whether or not he might make himself sick by having more. If the child must ask permission before he goes out to play, the mother knows where he is and will not spend time franticly searching for him.

Permissiveness is not kindness. A young child who has bonded to his mother from infancy desires to please her. His willfullness and rebellion do not make him happy; they are merely traits of fallen humanity. Some modern theories teach that it is wrong to make a child apologize when they have done something wrong. They surmise that since the child is not able to feel genuine contrition, we make the child into a hypocrite by forcing them to say what they do not feel. The baptized Orthodox Christian child does indeed feel the inner imbalance of his soul when he has sinned. He must be taught to recognize the source of that imbalance and to express the repentance that is necessary for him to be restored to harmony with God.

What frost is for flowers, so is the transgression of the parents' will for a child; he cannot look you in the eyes, he does not desire to enjoy kindnesses, he wishes to run away and be alone; but at the same time his soul becomes crude, and the child begins to grow wild. It is a good thing to dispose him ahead of time to repentance, so that without fear, and with trust and with tears, he might come and say, "I did something wrong." (Ibid, p. 43.)

In the evening, the family is reunited. The evening meal should be taken together. Sadly, our society has largely abandoned the concept that it is important for the family to come together in joyful fellowship at the end of the day. Frantic accommodation of various schedules, snacks taken in front of the television, grazing from the refrigerator — these have taken the place of meaningful conversation and the bonding of parents and children around the dining room table. Let it not be so for the Orthodox family. The hectic pace of life being what it is, the evening meal may be one of the few times we have during the work week to relax and enjoy one another's company. This is where children learn how to make congenial conversation and have a chance to tell the important events of their day. It should be an opportunity for everyone at the table to talk about the things that interest them with the people they love most. This is not the occasion for the mother to tell her husband about the transgressions of the younger children, or for heated arguments of any kind, or for adolescent sullenness, or for complaints about the food. Informality within the family does not mean that we are free to be our rudest and crudest with those who must put up with us. It means we are free to express our love and interest in those with whom our lives are entwined.

At whatever time is most suitable to bring the entire family together, we say our evening prayers. This may be followed by the daily scripture reading or a reading from the lives of the Saints. These are very beneficial for children as it gives them spiritual heroes to emulate. If, when we begin the practice of spiritual readings, younger children become squirmy and inattentive, we must not be discouraged. They will soon accept whatever is routinely done and will understand what is said better with time.

http://orthodoxinfo.com

Raising children- interesting read

How to raise a juvenile delinquent

by the Houston Police Department

1. Begin in infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.

2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him. This will make him think he's cute. It will also encourage him to pick up cuter phrases that will blow off the top of your head later.

3. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he is 21, and then let him decide for himself.

4. Avoid the use of the word “wrong.” It may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him and that he is being persecuted.

5. Pick up everything he leaves lying around — books, shoes, and clothing. Do everything for him so he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility onto others.

6. Let him read any printed matter he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but let his mind feast on garbage.

7. Quarrel with your spouse frequently in the presence of your children. In this way they will not be too shocked when the home breaks up later.

8. Give the child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own. Why should he have things as tough as you had them?

9. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink and comfort. See that every sensual desire is gratified. Denial may lead to harmful frustration.

10. Take his part against neighbors, teachers, and policemen. They are all prejudiced against your child.

11. When he gets into real trouble, apologize for yourself by saying, “I never could do anything with him.”

12. Prepare for a life of grief. You will be apt to have it.

Although the list above certainly provides thoughtful and detailed guidelines on how to flunk at parenthood, I felt, somehow, that the conclusion was depressing, to say the least. Consequently, I wrote the following “Positive Response” — since it's not easy to be the parent of a juvenile delinquent, others might be encouraged to choose a method of parenting which, though equally arduous, is at least more positive and rewarding.


How to raise an Orthodox Christian,
and, possibly, a saint

(My positive response to the Houston Police Department).

1) When the child is yet young, begin to train him/her in sympathy and consideration for others and in unselfishness. By these means he/she will grow up to understand that the material things of this world are not the most important things for Orthodox Christians. Your life-style and example will be the greatest influence on your child in this matter.

2) Teach your child how to chant the psalms and the hymns of the Church. This will encourage him or her to learn to love the holy services, and to reject the foul language and immodest songs that are so widespread today in our society. Your example in this will have the greatest influence on your child.

3) Never cease from finding occasions to train your child in spiritual matters and in the love of God and others, and always bring them to the Church. When we were small, we were never asked “if” we were coming to church — or anywhere else, for that matter. The fact that we were going to church was a foregone conclusion. Your child must learn this from the very earliest years. If you wait until your child reaches adolescence, it will already be far too late.

4) Teach your child the meaning of the words “right” and “wrong,” “sin” and “virtue,” “truth” and “falsehood” ; also teach your child to know the Church's Faith, and to recognize erroneous belief. In this manner, your child’s understanding and spiritual discretion will grow as the years go by, and he/she will be prepared for the future, even if he/she has to endure hate and persecution for his/her convictions.

5) Give your child spiritual duties appropriate to his/her age and understanding. These could include such activities as reading the Lives of the Saints written for your child’s level, or reciting some of the evening prayers together with the rest of the family, or fasting and making prostrations, or helping out in church if he or she is old enough.

6) Aside from providing your child with plenty of Orthodox spiritual literature appropriate for his/her age, make sure that material of an impure or inappropriate nature is not in your home. Unfortunately, today this includes most of television programming. Remember: whatever goes in, comes out. Your example in this matter will have the greatest influence on your child.

7) Your own life-style, your personal tastes, your words, the books you read, the music you listen to, and the things that draw your interest and attention will all speak louder to your child than anything else. Hallow your child's eyes with the holy icons. Sanctify his hearing with the holy hymns, his sense of smell with sacred incense, and his entire body and soul with the holy Mysteries. If your home is a haven of spiritual sanity, love, and peace, your child will know where to turn when he or she inevitably encounters the blasphemous, shocking, and sordid things that fill our society. Teach your child the Jesus Prayer. In connection with this last matter, I remember the following story:

Some twenty years ago, on the Greek island of Oinoussae, which lies opposite the large Aegean island of Chios, there was a married priest who served the spiritual and liturgical needs of the sacred Convent of the Annunciation there. This clergyman had four or five children, and every morning he lined them up for a “review.” He interrogated them to learn if they had, upon arising from bed, made the sign of the cross, said their prayers, washed their faces, brushed their teeth, scrubbed behind their ears, and dressed nicely and appropriately. Then he would wave his prayer rope in front of them and ask “And now, children, what is this?” Holding their prayer ropes in their hands, the children would lift them in a salute, and cry aloud “Our weapons!”

8) Instruct your child in almsgiving and compassion towards those who are in need. And teach them also that they should help in house duties and, if they are old enough, that they should labor at various odd jobs, so that they may learn from an early age that, as the Holy Apostle Paul tells us, one who does not labor should not eat. Idleness and affluence together have, in our society, destroyed countless young people and led them into sin and even an early death. Never be ashamed to say to your child: “We can't afford it.”

9) Teach your child by your own example — and by the examples found in the Holy Scriptures and the Lives of the Saints — that abstinence from food and drink and personal comforts is a noble and beautiful thing, taught to us by our Saviour Himself and by the Saints. Aside from being good for our souls, austerity is also good for our little planet. Whenever I visit our parish of Saint Nectarios in Seattle, there is Divine Liturgy every day. After the service on weekdays, a group of us usually go to a nearby restaurant to have a cup of coffee, a muffin, etc. Over the years, the waitresses have learned about our fast days — “Oh, okay, it's one of those days,” they say, when our orders are particularly small. “Yes,” I reply, “it's a Low Environmental Impact Day.”

10) Be fair if it should ever happen that your child gets into a dispute with another child, or with teachers, or with other authorities. If your child is wrong, he/she is wrong, and show him/her, together with your love and support, why he/she is wrong. Your child will learn something of God's justice from your example.

11) As the years pass, if you persist faithfully in these matters, as you must, you will discover, much to your surprise, that you have grown spiritually also. Saint Paul was quite serious when he said that “a woman shall be saved by childbearing"—and we know and understand that, especially in a society such as ours, both parents are essential for the proper kind of Orthodox Christian spiritual nurturing that is needed.

12) Prepare yourself for a life of spiritual struggles and prayers. You and your children will need them and the grace of God, for we are not living in the world as God originally created it. We are living in occupied territory—a land occupied by the enemy. But, by our holy Faith and God's grace, we are nonetheless a free people, living in hope and expectation of our deliverance in our true and everlasting country. And if we are heedful in these matters, we will have the boldness to say to our Saviour in that last day, “Behold me, your servant, and the children which Thou hast given me.”

By the intercessions of Saints Joachim and Anna, O Christ God, may we, together with all our little ones, be deemed worthy of the Heavenly Kingdom. Amen.


Orthodox Christian Witness
St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church
Seattle, Washington 10300
October 27, 1996

The children, their joys and their difficulties ( St. Paisios )

Q.: I’ve noticed, Elder, that sometimes babies smile at the time of Divine Liturgy.

A.: They don’t do that only at the Divine Liturgy. Babies are in constant contact with God, because they’ve got nothing to worry about. What did Christ say about little children? ‘Their angels in heaven continually gaze upon the face of my Father who is in heaven’. They’re in touch with God and with their guardian angel, who’s with them all the time. They smile in their sleep sometimes, and at other times cry, because they see all sorts of things. Sometimes they see their guardian angels and play with them- the angels stroke them, tease them, shake their fists and they laugh. On other occasions they see some kind of temptation and cry.

Q.: Why does temptation come to babies?

A.: It helps them to feel the need to seek their mothers. If there wasn’t this fear, they wouldn’t need to seek the comfort of being cuddled by their mothers. God allows everything so that it’ll turn out well.

Q.: Do they remember what they see as babies when they grow up?

A.: No, they forget. If a little child remembered the number of times it had seen its guardian angel, it might fall into pride. That’s why, when it grows up, it forgets. God’s wise in His doings.

Q.: Do they see these things after baptism?

A.: Of course after baptism.

Q.: Elder, is it all right for an unbaptized child to reverence relics?

A.: Why not? And they can be blessed with the holy relics. I saw a child today, it was like a little angel. I asked, ‘Where are your wings?’ It didn’t know what to say! At my hermitage, when spring comes and the trees are in blossom, I put sweets on the holm-oaks next to the gate in the fence and I tell the little boys who come: ‘Go on, boys, cut the sweets from the bushes, because if it rains they’ll melt and spoil’. A few of the more intelligent ones know that I’ve put them there and laugh. Others really believe that they’ve grown there and some others have to think about it. Little children need a bit of sunshine.

Q.: Did you put lots of sweets, Elder?

A.: Well, of course. What could I do? I don’t give good sweets to grown-ups; I just give them Turkish delight. When people bring me nice sweets, I keep them for the kids at the School [the Athoniada]. ‘See, last night I planted sweets and chocolates and today they’ve come up! See that? The weather was good, the soil was well-turned because you’d dug it over well and they came up just like that. See what a flower garden I’ll make for you. We’ll never need to buy sweets and chocolates for kids. Why shouldn’t we have our own produce?’ (Elder Païsios had planted sweets and chocolates in the freshly dug earth and put lilac blossoms on top to make it seem that they were flowering).

Q.: Elder, some pilgrims saw the chocolates you planted in the garden because the paper stood out against the soil. They didn’t know what to make of it. ‘Some kid must have put them there’, they said.

A.: Why didn’t you tell them that a big kid put them there?



Q.: Elder, why does God give people a guardian angel, when He can protect us Himself?

A.: That’s God looking after us especially carefully. The guardian angel is God’s providence. And we’re indebted to Him for that. The angels particularly protect little children. And you wouldn’t believe how! There were two children once, playing in the street. One of them aimed at the other to hit him on the head with a stone. The other one didn’t notice. At the last moment, apparently, his angel drew his attention to something else, he leapt up and got out of the way. And then there was this mother who went out into the fields with her baby. She breast-fed it, put it down in its cradle and went off to work. After a bit, she went to check and what did she see? The child was holding a snake and looking at it! When she’d suckled the child, some of the milk had stayed on its lips, the snake had gone to lick it off and the baby had grabbed hold of it. God looks after children.

Q.: Elder, in that case, why do so many children suffer from illnesses?

A.: God knows what’s best for each of us and provides as necessary. He doesn’t give people anything that’s not going to benefit them. He sees that it’s better for us to have some sort of defect, a disability instead of protecting us from them.

Source: Discourses 4, Family Life, published by the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, Souroti, Thessaloniki

The deepest meaning of life ( St. Paisios )

“When your children are still small, you have to help them understand what is good. 

That is the deepest meaning of life.” 

St. Paisios

When you thought I wasn't looking

  A message every adult should read because children are watching you and doing as you do, not as you say.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator, and I immediately wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you feed a stray cat, and I learned that it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you make my favorite cake for me, and I learned that the little things can be the special things in life.

When you thought I wasn't looking I heard you say a prayer, and I knew that there is a God I could always talk to, and I learned to trust in Him.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you make a meal and take it to a friend who was sick, and I learned that we all have to help take care of each other.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you take care of our house and everyone in it, and I learned we have to take care of what we are given.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw how you
handled your responsibilities, even when you didn't feel good, and I learned that I would have to be responsible when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it's all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw that you
cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking I learned most of life's lessons that I need to know to be a good and productive person when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn't looking I looked at you and wanted to say, 'Thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn't looking.' 

http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2013/02/when-you-thought-i-wasnt-looking.html

Elder Paisios heals a child - Αδημοσίευτο θαύμα του γέροντος Παϊσίου στην Αργολίδα

Elder Paisios depicted giving a child a loukoumi
The doctors were disillusioned, as my parents later told me, that they had to go make a surgical incision in my chest to relieve the fluid that that collected around my lungs. My young age, however, made this intervention even more difficult. The necessary tests were performed on that Friday, which showed that things were totally bleak, so at the meeting of the Physicians, they decided to go ahead the next Monday with further tests and the ultimately the surgical procedure.

On Friday evening, while I was sleeping in bed with the protective railings up, my mother was sleeping in a chair next to me, and something immediately woke me up, and I saw an elderly monk enter in from the door to the balcony. He turned towards me, put down the iron railing, and made the sign of the cross, blessing me three times. I was startled, and with joyous surprise, I cried out loudly to my mother who was next to me, but she, strangely, did not here me. That unknown monk smiled lovingly, and then left straightaway.

When my mother awoke the next morning, she saw with astonishment that the railing was down, and that I was cheerful. I explained as best I could at that age about this wondrous visit by a monk, and they began to show me different pictures of Saints so I could indicate which that monk might resemble. My gaze, however, fell on the picture of Elder Paisios from a book from the Holy Monastery of Souroti which my mother was reading those days.


On Monday, the doctors performed the prerequisite tests, and then were speechless. They confirmed the wondrous improvement in my health. The surgery was cancelled, and in a few days, I returned joyously to my home again. So great was the happiness and gratitude of my parents for this miracle of Elder Paisios, that my next brother that was born they named Arsenios.




Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!

http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.ca/2014/07/elder-paisios-heals-child.html


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


«Οι Γιατροί είχαν απογοητευθεί, όπως μου είπαν κατόπιν οι γονείς μου, και θα έπρεπε επειγόντως να προβούν σε διάνοιξη τομής στο μέρος του στήθους για να αντλήσουν τα υγρά που είχαν συσσωρευθεί στους πνεύμονές μου.
 
Η μικρή μου ηλικία όμως παράλληλα έκανε δυσκολότερη κάθε προσπάθεια επεμβάσεως. Έγιναν οι απαραίτητες εξετάσεις την Παρασκευή, οι οποίες ήταν υπερβολικά δυσοίωνες και αποφασίστηκε από το συμβούλιο των Ιατρών να
προβούν την ερχόμενη Δευτέρα σε επανεξετάσεις και στην οριστική χειρουργική επέμβαση.
 
Την Παρασκευή το βράδυ και ενώ κοιμόμουν στο κρεβάτι με ανεβασμένα τα προστατευτικά κάγκελα η Μητέρα μου καθόταν και κοιμόταν και εκείνη σε μία καρέκλα δίπλα μου κάτι με ξυπνάει και αμέσως και βλέπω να εισέρχεται από την μπαλκονόπορτα ένας ηλικιωμένος Μοναχός.
 
Στράφηκε προς το μέρος μου, κατέβασε τα σιδερένια κάκελα και κάνοντας το σημείο του Σταυρού με ευλόγησε τρείς φορές. Εγώ ξαφνιασμένη και με χαρούμενη έκπληξη φώναζα δυνατά στην Μητέρα μου που βρισκόταν ακριβώς δίπλα μου αλλά κατά ένα περίεργο τρόπο δεν με άκουγε.Μου χαμογέλασε στοργικά ο άγνωστος εκείνος καλόγερος και κατόπιν αποχώρησε.Όταν το πρωΐ ξύπνησε η Μητέρα μου είδε έκπληκτη τα κάγκελα κατεβασμένα και εμένα ευδιάθετη.
 
Της ανέφερα, όσο μπορούσα να μιλήσω σε εκείνη την ηλικία, το θαυμαστό γεγονός της επισκέψεως
ενός Μοναχού και τότε άρχισε να μου δείχνει διάφορες φωτογραφίες από Αγίους για να της δείξω σε ποιον έμοιαζε ο καλόγερος αυτός.
 
Το βλέμμα μου όμως έπεσε επάνω στην φωτογραφία του Γέροντος Παϊσίου από ένα βιβλίο της Ι.Μονή Σουρωτής που διάβαζε εκείνες τις ημέρες η μητέρα μου.Την Δευτέρα έγιναν οι σχετικές εξετάσεις και οι Γιατροί τότε άφωνοι διαπίστωσαν την θαυμαστή εξέλιξη της υγείας μου. Το χειρουργείο ακυρώθηκε και μετά από λίγες ημέρες γύρισα χαρούμενη και πάλι στο σπίτι μου.
 
Τόση ήταν η ευτυχία και η ευγνωμοσύνη των Γονέων μου για το αναφερόμενο θαύμα του π.Παϊσίου που στο επόμενο αδελφάκι μου που γεννήθηκε έδωσαν το όνομα Αρσένιος.»
Πηγή:Ι.Ναός Γενεσίου Της Θεοτόκου Ναυπλίου

http://estavromenos.blogspot.ca/2014/07/blog-post_29.html

Raising Christian Children ( Elder Paisios )

What are the demands on a Christian parent? How are we to bring up our children as Christians? The main thing is to act like Christians ourselves.

Here is some wisdom from Elder Paisios.


Parents must live like true Christians and be careful of their behavior. Children are like computers; since a very early age, they register in their minds everything they see, or hear happening in their homes. If they see their father and mother quarreling, cursing and using bad language, they record everything in their mind's tape.


So, when they grow older, they start cursing and quarreling using their parents language. They behave this way, without really wanting to, but because they have inherited the pathetic behavior of their parents. Later on, when they realize their mistakes, they find it difficult to correct them.


As a parent every action you take is important when you raise children. It is not necessarily what you say but how you act that teaches them the Orthodox way of life. It's essential to show them the virtues as well as the way to practice their faith Parents should pray with their children, attend Church regularly, participate with them in the sacraments, especially Confession and Holy Communion. A parent's habit becomes the child's habit. This is the way to raise Christian children.

Reference: Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain, p 124

Elder Paisios sees a vision of murdered children

On the third day after Pascha, 1984 , the Elder saw a terrible vision during his prayer:

In front of him there was a big field, sowed with wheat, which had only begun to come up. He was standing near a wall that surrounded the field. Lighting candles, he stuck them to the wall. He did this in memory of the departed, as in reality he had a custom of lightning candles for the whole suffering world — for the living and the departed.

To the left of the field there was a wild and deserted place, dark, without any traces of greenery, full of rocks and stones. A continuous earthquake shook it, and a loud roar was heard everywhere. The Elder listened more attentively to it and determined that it was made up of the thousands of blood-curdling shrieks. He did not know their origin, but suffered greatly when he heard them.

There, where he was, perplexed with the meaning of that vision, he heard a voice explaining to him, that the field, sowed with wheat which had not yet matured, symbolized the tomb of the souls of the departed that will be resurrected. And the terrible place on the left was where the souls of the children, killed through abortions, were gathered. The Elder suffered so greatly because of what he had seen that, after the vision, in spite of the fact that he was exhausted, he could not lie down to sleep a little.

Elder Paisios 

http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2014/03/elder-paisios-sees-vision-of-murdered.html

Children that Stray from the Faith: A Monastic Answer

Handmaiden:

How can we help our children regain their faith if they stray away from church in high school or when they go to college?

Mother Raphaela:

We cannot do anything to help our children regain their faith if they stray away from Church as they grow up. Once our children have grown, we have to let go of them and let them lead their own lives and make their own choices and decisions. Whether we have raised them well (and the biggest part of that is giving them an example by the way we have lived our lives and spoken our words), whether we have made huge mistakes that we must learn to repent of before God and His people, or whether we have raised them well along with some mistakes, what is left to us is prayer. Prayer is not trying to manipulate our children from a distance—perhaps even thinking that God and His saints are more powerful manipulators than we are if we can get them on our side. Prayer is taking the time and making the space regularly in our lives to put our children (and all of our loved ones) in God’s hands; asking the saints for their help in doing this; asking their guardian angels and their saints to be there with them. Prayer is letting go and trusting God. Such prayer is also a powerful statement to our children that we trust them. As long as we are taking the time and making the space to rescue them, we are giving them an equally powerful message that we think they are still children, incapable of handling whatever it may be.

Will our children always “turn out right”? No. Especially not on our schedule. But if we truly pray, if we truly love God, then we give them the best possible atmosphere to choose what is good and true, even when it does not seem right to us. And they will know that we love them, no matter what. This is the way God loves. For some of us, part of the Cross we may be asked to carry is to share in the suffering He endures each time one of us turns away from Him in order to pursue our own self-willed agenda.

Overall, the best thing we can do for ourselves and our children (and for all of our loved ones) is really to learn and understand that we are always, wholly, totally in the presence of God no matter what we do or say, no matter what we endure or perpetrate. Whether we recognize His presence or not, we cannot get away from Him. If we accept this presence and the great love that He has offered us and will always offer us, even now we have a foretaste of heaven. This is a simple understanding, but it is the basis on which all theology and prayer rest. Any words of theology and prayer apart from this realization are simply “noisy gongs and clanging cymbals” (1 Corinthians 13:1). When we make the time and the space, with God we acquire the love of the Holy Spirit, and as St. Seraphim teaches us, then God can save thousands around us.



http://lessonsfromamonastery.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/children-that-stray-from-the-faith-a-monastic-answer/