the early years

Leave a comment May 29, 2015 nourishinggrace

parenthood is a martyrdom

a constant effort, tending to the soul of another

a hope-filled life

cultivating . instilling . loving . healing . nurturing . encouraging . educating . praying

within the seasons, grace and space

life fashioned of Faith, in the Church

“It will enough if you take care to instruct your children in the fear of God and instill them with an Orthodox understanding, and by teaching them to be faithful, you protect them from any manner of thinking that is foreign to the teachings of the Orthodox Church. The good that you sow in the hearts of your children, while they are young, will blossom forth in their hearts when they come to full maturity after enduring the bitter trials of school and contemporary life which often break off the branches of a good Christian upbringing.”

Saint Ambrose of Optina

walk in love

Leave a comment May 28, 2015 nourishinggrace

“After all, love is our true nature , our real self. God, motivated by love, created everything for us and offered Himself as a sacrifice to show His infinite love for us humans . Therefore, love is the deepest motivation of every human being.”

Kyriacos C. Markides

Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality

Greater love has no one than this,

than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

John 15:13

peace . harmony . whole

Leave a comment May 27, 2015 nourishinggrace

“A human being is created as a harmonious whole because he is an icon of God. As the Scriptures tell us, peace is the indwelling spirit of God. Peace is an attribute of God and a human being made in the image and likeness of God has the natural capacity to function in the same way.”

Kyriacos C Markides

Inner River : A Pilgrimmage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality

outside air

Leave a comment May 26, 2015 nourishinggrace

Television dulls children’s minds. They lose the ability to think on their own, to think critically…

Television has done us great damage.

Saint Paisios the Athonite

anxiety dissolves with Faith

Leave a comment May 25, 2015 nourishinggrace

“What is true for parents is also true for teachers.

With prayer and sanctity you can also help children at school. Don’t attempt to correct bad situations with human methods. No good will come of this. You will only produce good results with prayer. Invoke the grace of God on all the children, for divine grace to enter their souls and transform them. That is what it means to be a Christian. You teachers transmit your anxiety ot the children, without realizing it, and this affects them. Anxiety dissolves with faith. What is it that we say?

“We commit our whole life to Christ our God.”

Saint Porphyrios

tending the garden of the soul

Leave a comment May 24, 2015 nourishinggrace

“People are always in a hurry, rushing from one place to another.

They have to be here, the next hour they have to be there and the hour after that they will have to be someplace else. To remind themselves of their many obligations, they have to write them down. With all this running around it is a good thing they still remember their names! They do not even recognize themselves! No wonder! It is so difficult to see yourselves mirrored in murky waters. May God forgive me, but the world has become a huge madhouse! No one thinks of the next life anymore. All they want is more and more material goods. This is why they can not find peace and run around constantly.”

Saint Paisios the Athonite

teach a child in the way he should walk

Leave a comment May 23, 2015 nourishinggrace

“When from a young age a child becomes filled with Christ, goes to church with his parents, communes, chants, prays – later on when he gets older, leaves home and end up possibly in an unfavorable environment, it’s not difficult for him. It’s like wood which has been drenched in linseed oil. Afterwards, it doesn’t absorb water; since the oil protects it, it won’t take in water and it repels it.”

Saint Paisios the Athonite

the gift of parenting

Leave a comment May 22, 2015 nourishinggrace

Is it not strange that we send our children to learn skills and to school, and make a lot of effort for this purpose, but we do not bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4)?

We are actually the first to reap the fruits of this.

Saint John Chrysostom

the priceless image of God

Leave a comment May 21, 2015 nourishinggrace

“If artists who make statues and paint portraits of kings are held in high esteem, will not God bless ten thousand times more those who reveal and beautify His royal image? For man is in the image of God. When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle and to be forgiving — all attributes of God: to be generous, to love their neighbor, to regard this present age as nothing, we instill virtue in their souls and reveal the image of God within them.”

Saint John Chrysostom

“He [Father Maximos] went on to summarize the key themes of Eastern Orthodox spirituality: that God is love and that human beings made in the image of God are also love in their very depth. Therefore, to be truly healthy means to think, feel, and act in conformity with our innermost nature.”

Kyriacos C Markides

Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality

magnificence

Leave a comment May 20, 2015 nourishinggrace

Beholding beauty, the Staretz would look at the clouds, the sea, mountains and forests, meadows and a lone tree.

He used to remark that the glory the Creator shone with splendor even in this visible world, but to behold the glory of the Lord Himself in the Holy Spirit was vision infinitely transcending any human conception.