SSCORRE!
Saint Sophia Cathedral
Online Resources for our Religious Edification
Topic of the Week – “Electrifying” Your Home with the Energy of the Holy Spirit
With what is your home electrified? Table lamps and ceiling fixtures, sure, but what else? The glow of screens: TVs, computers and phones. More recently, strings of Christmas lights. Anything else?
“A home without a lit oil lamp in front of icons is cold and dark, but when you have a lit oil lamp in front of your icons, you are giving yourself a physical reminder of the energy of the Holy Spirit in the home.
We should “electrify” our homes, to have the energy of the Holy Spirit in them, with holy icons, oil lamps, holy water, incense and our prayers….”
Adult/Family:
We must acquire the blessed habit of receiving the sanctifying Grace of the Mysteries of the Church. In our homes we must have holy water, dried up antidoron, and every morning, every morning we must before we leave to go to work, to devote a minute to prayer, to consume the antidoron, to drink our holy water, and you know what – our entire lives will change! As well as the future life or our families! Thus making our homes into a little church.”
From a talk by Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol, “Electrifying” Your Home With the Energy of the Holy Spirit
More resources:
- “…Since the parish church uses incense, so should the family church use incense as an offering pleasing to God…. the house is “blessed” with incense.Some Orthodox have the custom of saying with each sign of the Cross thus made: “This room (or bed) is blessed by the sign of the Holy Cross.” The person censing is accompanied by all members of the household…” Read the entire article The Appropriate Way to Use Incense while Praying at Home
- “censing each day with a home-censer and incense” The Orthodox Way of Life
- “…in offering prayers… the father leads, the mother coordinates, and the children assist. We light a candle before the icons and burn fragrant incense as a sign of our love for, and devotion to, the Lord and His saints…” Living the Church in the Home Today
- How to prepare Antidoron for your Little Church
- How to Burn Incense at Home – YouTube
Purchase items for your vigil lamp and censer: Vigil Glass, Altar Supplies for Home and Church, Floating wicks, with cork float, Charcoal
Preschool/Elementary:
Chant along withLet my prayer arise – Orthodox chant in English
Listen to Let My Prayer Rise: The Sacred Censer
Middle School:
Listen to Let My Prayer Rise: The Sacred Censer
Prayer When We Light an Oil Lamp or a Candle in Our Homes
Let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.
Prayer When We Light Incense In Our Homes
Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Hear me, O Lord.
We offer you this incense, Christ our God, as a fragrant spiritual aroma; accept it upon your heavenly altar, and send down upon us the Grace of Your All-Holy Spirit.
Prayer When We Drink Holy Water
Lord make this to be for me a source of incorruption, a gift of sanctification, a deliverance from sins, an averting of diseases, to be unapproachable by hostile powers, filled with angelic strength.
High School
Help your family by preparing the extra antidoron for use during the week as part of your daily prayer life at home. Follow these instructions:
” *Please note: Antidoron is blessed during Divine Liturgy. It cannot be antidoron without first being blessed.
- First, you’ll need to ask your priest for some extra antidoron. It may be in abundance right now since no one is at church to receive it. Contact him and ask how you could meet up to get some.
- Next, you’ll cut it up into small bite sized pieces. The smaller it is, the longer it will last and that’s something you might want to keep in mind considering our current situation. (Watch a demo here.)
- Place the pieces on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees until hard. You don’t want any moisture because that will cause it to mold. I usually bake mine for at least twenty minutes. I check this by picking up one of the larger pieces and squeezing. If it feels a little squishy, I give it a few more minutes. You can also shake the cookie sheet a little and will hear when the pieces are hardened.
- When it comes out of the oven, let it cool COMPLETELY – remember you want no moisture whatsoever.
- Once completely cooled, place in an airtight container….”
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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
