March 2007

”Antiochian Church of St. Ignatios Limassol, Cyprus”

In this Issue

How do we begin?
Sunday school
New baby

Where do we begin ?

During Great Lent we try to fight against our idleness and lethargy to bring ourselves in repentance back to God. God made man to love Him and enjoy His creation, to care for all creatures and the very earth itself. Man’s disobedience changed all this! The Death and Resurrection of our Saviour Christ has made it possible to regain paradise.

We begin with ourselves. In paradise God walked in the Garden and He and Adam talked together. Every day we should begin with God Who has raised us from our sleep and given us a new day in which to praise Him. The Church makes it easy for us to “see” God as soon as we wake by giving us the Holy Icons. We should have our “special place”, the Icon Corner, in our homes… There God walks and is closer to us than anyone else at home.

Is the Icon Corner in your home set aside for holy things? There should be nothing else there but things to do with our communion with God. It should be at such a height that you can venerate the icons easily, and your children too. It should be obvious to every visitor to your home that this is a very special place where you meet with God. There must be times when you are not available to anyone else because you are praying. This obviously should not be a “trumpet blowing” declaration of our own holiness, but it is important that our children, our spouse, our siblings or whoever can see that we do pray and that it is more important than anything else we ever do .

If we can pray together as a family that is wonderful, but there should also be times when we ourselves can get away into that place for quiet and prayer. We would not neglect earthly food and yet we tend to only “snack” on heavenly food, and that rarely.

Our preparation to receive Christ Himself begins at home in the Icon Corner the night before we come to church. When we return from church, we go there, to our Icon Corner, to give thanks. This is the heart of our Christian home. This is where we begin! Light candles or night lights there for prayers and as an offering to God. If you can, use incense to worship God, the offering reserved for God from ancient times. Keep in that place a list of those for whom you pray. Don’t trust your memory! Keep blessed bread and water there for your daily food and blessed oil for your health and wellbeing. Keep your prayer books, your Bible, your spiritual reading and your prayer rope there, and keep your heart there… so shall we come close to beginning our struggle to defeat “sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk” and to stand a chance to replace them with “chastity, humility, patience and love”.

Don’t complain that your faith is weak and then not eat what is needed for the strengthening of it.

“O God cleanse me, a sinner”