SSCORRE!
Saint Sophia Cathedral
Online Resources for our Religious Edification
Topic of the Week – Perfecting Our Lives
“….this being the liturgical new year, the month that we reset our goals, spiritually, for ourselves, for our family, and it’s very important that this concept of this being the new time, be a real part of our lives…. Now is the time to set our hearts and our minds towards new goals, regaining whatever we have to regain in order to reset our hearts and our hope….”
…It doesn’t matter how you learn, learn. Make a change in your life. God’s providence occurs in our life out of our voluntary obedience and seeking out His will and His providence or we learn it through the suffering that our own choices brings into our life and He allows it to happen. He allows it to happen….”
Adults/Family:
- “….And the analogy that is there for us, and especially now in the beginning of the liturgical year, is that we have to give in to the idea that we are only going to make ground through incredible perseverance…. We have to look at our lives and realize that the context of our own life and God’s providence, the very life that we are in right now, work problems, health problems, problems with the family, unemployment, over employment, over busy-ness, whatever it is, the challenge that comes to me today in this very moment, it is providentially, what is God is giving me. And if I accept it and I work on it with a Christian attitude of faith in Christ, it becomes the absolute means for my transfiguration, personally…”
Read Perfecting Our Lives here.
Consider setting some Spiritual Goals for the new ecclesiastical year.
Preschool/Elementary:
Read this blog entry about God’s Providence and how God’s plans for our day are better than our own plans.
Discuss what instances in your own family’s life things like this have happened and how embracing an unexpected struggle was actually what God wanted. What challenges are there currently in your family’s life that you are struggling with but need to embrace?
Psalm 16:8 coloring page
Proverbs 3:5 coloring page
Psalm 118:24 coloring page
Middle School:
- What does God intend for me to do in this situation?
- What does God intend for me to learn from this?
- How does God want me to help this person he has sent into my life?
Read these Words of Wisdom from Abba Dorotheos of Gaza
High School:
“…the question we need to be asking all of the time, every day, as difficult or impossible as that seems or even as boring as that might be, we have to ask ourselves, “What does God want me to be doing?“
The experience in the moment, is the experience that God is giving you, providentially, to become the person that He wants you to be. And there’s great, great comfort, great relaxation when we finally accept that instead of trying to resist it. The resistance is exhausting. To resist God’s will is futile. It’s an incredible, incredible labor that we commit ourselves so that exhausts us and we cannot win in the end and God has a sense of humor. Watch out. So when He sees us resisting His will, resisting His will, resisting His will, he chuckles and he just turns up the volume a little bit more, right?”
Read the small section Don’t Fear Anything from this article.
How will you persevere in the experiences that occur in your life to become obedient to God’s will and providence?
Click Below to Color:
A Message from Maria Spanos
I am passionate about our Orthodox Christian faith and seek to help others learn as much as they can about it. My purpose here is to share online resources that help strengthen our relationship with Christ and bind us closer to His Church. I believe they are invaluable in learning about our precious Orthodox Tradition, and are a great aid for teaching family members, friends and others about Orthodoxy. ~Maria
Two of my favorite quotes:
“A true Christian behaves in this life so that it may be a preparation for the future one and not only a life here below. In his actions, he does not think what will be said of him here but of what will be said there in heaven; he represents to himself that he is always in the presence of God, of the angels and all the saints, and remembers that someday they will bear witness of his thoughts, words, and deeds.” — Saint John of Kronstadt
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“Of all the holy works, the education of children is the most holy.”
— St. Theophan the Recluse
