During Great Lent, we like to concentrate on feeding the soul and not just depriving the body. Though we generally fast also from our usual intake of media, we find that feeding the soul with good, pious tales and instruction about Christian life can be very helpful.

Here is a series of three short movies from Russia (all in the same video). Even if you do not understand the language, they are worth watching for the expressions and visuals of heartfelt prayer to God. In the first tale, a monk judges a simple family man for his rather short prayer at the beginning and end of the day. The monk’s spiritual father gives him a humorous obedience that changes his perspective about how easy it is to say long prayers and fully remember God when managing a full household. The second tale features a woman who prepares all day to receive the Lord for dinner, but she misses him three times as He comes to her in the distressing disguise of three poor and destitute people. Finally, the last one (and funniest) is about these three simple islanders who have invented a prayer to the Holy Trinity “Three of You, Three of Us, Have mercy on us”. Monks on the mainland get wind of this and go over to enlighten them with a more sophisticated prayer. A funny conclusion demonstrates that the islanders need no such enlightenment.

And finally, our best recommendation of Orthodox Instruction that the whole family will enjoy. It is also a podcast, but Steve Christoforou produces such rich (and sometimes funny) visuals to go along with his deep instruction, it is worth watching the Youtube. Here is the latest installment of a video series that has been running since 2013: