The Morning Offering

How to Teach Your
Children to Love God

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Children Learn Love of God From 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 filled 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
 

Saturday February 9, 2013 / January 27, 2013

36^th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.

Translation of the relics (437) of St. John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople.
Venerable Peter of Egypt (5th c.).
New Martyr Demetrius at Constantinople (1784) (Greek).
Venerable Titus the Soldier, monk of the Kiev Caves.
New Hieromartyr Peter (Zverev) of Voronezh (1929).
St. Demetrius Klepinine, priest of Paris (1944).
Venerable Leonty (Stasevich) of Ivanovo (1972).
New Hieromartyr and Mystic Leontius of Tarnopol and Jablechna (Poland) (1972).

You can read the life of the saint in green, by click on the name.

THANK YOU, to all of you who have been able to contribute towards the support of the monastery. These difficult times of economic hardship have impacted the monastery, and those of you who have been able to donate, have been our lifeline. May God bless you for your generosity, and kindness.

With love in Christ,  
Abbot Tryphon

Donations can be made directly to the monastery through PayPal, or you may send donations to:

All-Merciful Saviour Monastery
PO Box 2420
Vashon Island, WA 98070-2420 USA

1 Corinthians 14:20-25

Tongues a Sign to Unbelievers

²⁰ Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.
²¹ In the law it is written:

“With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people;
And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,”

says the Lord.
²² Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe. ²³ Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind? ²⁴ But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. ²⁵ And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you.

Matthew 25:1-13

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins

25 “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ² Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. ³ Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, ⁴ but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. ⁵ But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.
⁶ “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ ⁷ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ ⁹ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ ¹⁰ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut.
¹¹ “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ ¹² But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’
¹³ “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.