a good use of time

It was my husband's idea. And the result has been well worth the minimal effort.

On Sunday mornings, even on the mornings where we are running late, my husband writes down the scripture readings for the liturgy and brings a bible to the car. During the drive to church, he reads the passages and explains them to the children.

By the time our children get in the car for the ride home, they have heard the scripture stories 2-3 times. Once in the car. Once during the liturgy. And, nearly every Sunday, once during Sunday School (granted, this is usually the gospel story).

The result: our children often understand key parts in the homily; our children are prepared for Sunday School and return home really having learned something.

I am very thankful for my husband taking the time and effort to do this. Do try it too!

Saints Peter and Paul

Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear (1 Peter 1:17)

I was reading from the Prologue of Ohrid this morning and was struck by the homily of the fear of God on the above verse. At one point he writes:

"Will I be saved? This question should torment every one of us in the same way that the sower is tormented by the question: Will I reap the fruit of my labor in the field? The sower labors and fears every day. Let us also labor and fear "all the time of our sojourning" on earth."

As trite as it may be to say, it is very easy to have anxiety and to fear earthly things. To fear God--that is a struggle. However, it is a struggle we need to embrace and seek that we may have the same boldness as Paul one day and be able to say, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20).

To celebrate the feast:

Here is a list of activities I compiled last summer for this feast.

In addition to these activities, I have a challenge for all you mothers (and fathers). We all have fears and anxieties we struggle with. I was told during a confession once that it was my duty as a mother not to pass on my fears to my children. What is the first step to doing this? Control your mouth. Do not speak of your fears in front of your children. During your prayers, seek repentance for those earthly fears and ask that the Lord replace them with the holy fear of God. This is what we want to teach our children: to fear the Lord our God.

May the Lord have mercy on us and each of us learn to be driven by the fear of God in our daily lives.

Pentecost

Pentecost is this Sunday--May 23, 2010. I can't believe the Pascal Season is already over with! If you haven't already started hyping this momentous feast, now is the time.  There are lots of great ideas in the archive of this blog which I'm trying not to overlap on.  Make sure to check them out too.

Pentecost is especially exciting for children being that it is the church's birthday and kids love birthdays! Start prepping for this feast by reading the story of Pentecost over and over again--it's helpful for children in church to hear a familiar reading, as well as important for them to know this story. Start brainstorming with your kids about ideas of gifts we can give to the church (money, flowers, candles, icon (depending on your church)) as well as gifts for the poor & others and make sure to follow through with it on Sunday. Perhaps bring a cake to coffee hour and sing "Happy Birthday" to the Church (or have your own party at home).  Reuse your Ascension puppet theater and puppets to put on a Pentecost production. There are so many fun ideas!

It's also an important time to focus on the gifts/ fruit of the Holy Spirit. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, whether at home, driving, watching TV, reading a book, point out examples of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control. It is actually amazing how often you will see these values manifest in our society. As mentioned previously in this blog, especially focus on one or two and try to think of a creative gift to give your child/children based on this.

The Troparion for the feast is (tone 8):
Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, Who hast revealed the fishermen as most wise by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit - through them Thou didst draw the world into Thy net. O Lover of Man, glory to Thee!

Singing the Troparion is always a helpful way to establish a church/home connection for kids.  It also provides us with important theological insights about the significance of the feast. In order to make this troparion come alive for children there are many good fishing inspired games to enjoy. For instance, you could make a "go fish" game with the fruit of the Holy Spirit (either words or pictures depicting the word) or create a game in which you use a pole or net to capture fruit of the Holy Spirit fish (little pretend fish with a word or picture on them). Be creative!  This can be lots of fun for us parents too!

May you all have a blessed feast!

Saint Brendan the Voyager

Today is Saint Brendan's Day, and I apologize for not posting this ahead of time so that you could prepare.  It's not too late to celebrate, though!

Another wonderful pre-schism western saint, Brendan the Voyager (b. 484) was a monastic in Ireland who founded many monasteries.  As his title and icon imagery suggest, he was a sailor who traveled around.  He is said to have gone in search of the Land of Paradise.  While the account of his journeys are intended to be of a symbolic and spiritual value, some have conjectured that he may have been one of the first saints to set foot in North America, some say Canada. 

Thus, in French Canadian spirit, serve up some Canadian bacon with French toast cut into simple fish shapes to symbolize simultaneously St. Brendan's ocean travels and also the Christological "ichthys" fish.  Serve breakfast for dinner!  (Or, next year, serve fishy toast for breakfast and Irish fare for dinner.)

You can also play the card game "Go fish!" and make origami boats to sail in the tub at bath time.

Talk to your children about The Water Project and make a donation.

(You can buy the beautiful Orthodox icon featured on the left above from Come And See Icons.  Below is the troparion featured on their website.)

Troparion (Tone 4)
The Divine Likeness has been perfected in thee, O holy Father Brendan, for taking up the Cross thou hast followed Christ, and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to disdain the flesh for it passes away, but to cultivate the soul for it is immortal: wherefore, O holy father, thy spirit rejoices with the Angels.

Vegan Hot Cross Buns

A great fasting-friendly recipe to allow the Orthodox to participate in the Western tradition of Hot Cross Buns:

Ingredients:

1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 tsps)

1 cup soy milk

2 tbls vegetable oil

1/4 c sugar

2 tbls applesauce

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 c currants (I like a mixture of raisins and dried cranberries)

2 tbls finely chopped candied lemon peel (or orange). This can be omitted but it is SO good.

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

3 1/3- 3 2/3 c all purpose flour

Mix yeast with 2 tbls warm water (approx 105-115 degrees). Let sit for 5 minutes or so till yeast has dissolved.

Meanwhile, warm the milk to about 105-115 degrees. Stir in vegetable oil, sugar, applesauce, salt, currants, lemon peel, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cool to lukewarm and add to yeast mixture.

Add part of the flour and stir it in. Then knead in by hand the rest, only adding enough to handle the dough easily.

Place in an oiled bowl. Brush top of dough with vegetable oil. Cover and let sit in a warm place until double.

Punch the dough down and divide into 18 pieces, shaping them into balls. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until almost double.

Heat in oven at 425 degrees about 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool.

Decorate with a glaze of powdered sugar and lemon or orange juice into the shape of a cross.

Holy Week Clock

Here is this year's version of our Holy Week clock! I used coloring pages from online (see the links below).

Here are the coloring pages I used for the clock:

Ten Virgins Parable

Jesus Heals Peter's Mother in Law (Holy Unction)

Jesus Washes the Disciples Feet (Holy Thursday)

Good Friday

The Guards guarding Jesus' Tomb (Holy Saturday)

The Resurrection (Pascha)

Easy AND Yummy Vegan Recipes

To help guide you through the last week of Lent, here are some easy and yummy vegan recipes, courtesy of Ms. Martha Stewart:

• Pea Soup (A great choice for Palm Sunday, where it is traditional in Wales to have pea soup).
• Black Bean and Corn Stew
• Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Avocado Sauce
• Sesame Noodles
• BBQ Tofu Burgers
• Chickpea Apple Curry (simply ditch the yogurt as a topping)
• Eggplant and Tomato Pasta (omit the optional Parmesan garnish and you're good to go!)
• And, believe or not, you can make sloppy joes with lentils and the kids'll love it. Simply substitute lentils for the ground beef and you're good to go (you can find vegetarian versions of Worcestershire Sauce quite easily. If you have trouble finding some, it is quite easy to make. Use this recipe).

Annunciation of the Theotokos

March 25th (today) marks the annunciation of the Theotokos. It is a feast celebrating the Archangel Gabriel appearing to Mary, announcing that she will bear the son of God. We celebrate both God reaching out to man and Mary's response; a humble obedience we should all emulate.

This is one of the only days during Lent (along with Palm Sunday) when fish is allowed. In the western church, this feast is also referred to as "Lady Day".

Ideas to celebrate:

1. Treat your family to a feast of fish for this celebration.

2. The Liturgical color for this feast is blue; so why not dress appropriately?

3. Read the story of the annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) and have the children memorize the verse, "Be it unto me according to thy word."

4. Here is a simple handprint angel craft. You could also use finger paint for the activity instead of cutting out paper. A bit more messy, but the kids will think it's fun!

May you all have a blessed Feast of the Annunciation.

Holy Week Activities

A friend from college emailed me some links for activities yesterday (thanks, Christa!). One is for making The Hill of Calvary and the other is for making an Easter Tree.

Hill of Calvary

Easter Tree

The latter activity I really like and I thought it would be fun to do a twist on it and put images of the Stations of the Cross on it. You can print out images of art for this (see the stations listed below) or have your kids color these coloring pages of the different stations.

1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus is given his cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets His Mother
5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of His garments
11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus' body is removed from the cross (Deposition or Lamentation)
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.

Although this is definitely part of the Western tradition of Christianity and not the Eastern, I think it is a very good way to educate our children in preparation for Good Friday. I would suggest spending the week coloring a page or two each day and putting up the tree on Good Friday.

Another twist on this activity would be to buy a live tree to plant on Pascha in honor of the Life Giving Tree, the Cross.

Do remember that I have other activities listed for Holy Week and the rest of Lent in the archives and that this is a blog that depends on group participation. In other words, please share your ideas! We can all benefit from each other's creativity as we strive to educate our children in the faith.

Lent Begins

Here is something that I posted on my personal blog site for the beginning of Lent. Many of the ideas are basic, but if any help you in your lenten journey this year, Glory to God.

Lent began this afternoon with the Forgiveness Vespers Service. This is our first year in an Eastern-Rite Orthodox Church. I really enjoyed the service today and look forward to encountering more lenten services the weeks ahead.

The focus of lent is truly about fasting from sin, but fasting from certain foods, prayer, and almsgiving are avenues to this end. Here are some of my "tips" or getting through lent. Let me add the disclaimer that I am NOT an expert at fasting. These are just some things that I have found helpful.

1. Pray! Pray like you are really in a battle (it is more real than we know). If I begin the day praying, I have more energy to journey on and am less likely to despair. I suggest Met. Philaret's prayer for the beginning of the day, and the Lenten standard: The Prayer of St. Ephraim (see below). Really embrace the words and keep them with you throughout the day.

2. Go to the extra church services if at all possible. It is SO encouraging to remember that we (the Church) are all in this together. It is easy to get bitter if you feel alone in fasting. Truly, I have found that struggling through Lent with my fellow parishioners glues our community together in a way that nothing else can.

Since Luke doesn't do well at the night services in general, I am going to try to listen to Ancient Faith Radio podcasts during the season. We will try to actually make it to church too, but it may not always be possible. AFR is such a tremendous resource for families to bring the Church into their homes.

3. Have a project. If you are spending less on food, buy extra food for the local food bank, send money to Haiti, etc... Almsgiving really helps fasting make more sense to me. Volunteering works if you cannot give, just have a goal.

4. Find good recipes and recycle them. I always face the temptation of trying out all sorts of recipes and spending hours in the kitchen. As our priest in CA said, Lent is about simplification. The fast is to focus our minds on the spiritual, not on proper meal preparation. OrthodoxMom.com, Orthodox Mother's Digest , and this site have hosted several fasting recipe swaps.

5. Have a baked potato night each week. Baked potatoes are great, and there is little prep time involved. I like to rub oil on the skins before baking them. They are 10x better this way and it encourages everyone to eat the skin (the best part in my opinion!). Vegans-serve with baked beans, chopped green onions, BBQ sauce, salt, pepper, grilled onions. Vegetarians- use cheese, cottage cheese, butter, sour cream, etc... Homemade pizza once a week is also good, and fun for a Saturday night.

6. Make breakfast easy. I like Emily's idea of having oatmeal every day. For myself, I know that the more I have to think about, the more distracted with food I become. I also like cheese or a homemade energy bar for breakfast.

7. Prep veggies and fruit and dips to have on hand. Tomorrow I will make hummus, ranch dip (160z sour cream + 1 packet dry ranch dressing mix), and cut up a bunch of carrots.

May God bless you all and multiply your efforts to His glory!

Lenten Prayer Of St. Ephrem The Syrian

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity,
humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother, for Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.