You ask, “Shouldn’t I be doing something?” Of course that is necessary. Do whatever falls to your hands, in your circle and in your situation—and believe that this is and will be your true work; nothing more from you is required. It is a great error to think that you must undertake important and great labors, whether for heaven, or, as the progressives think, in order to make one’s contribution to humanity. That is not necessary at all. It is necessary only to do everything in accordance with the Lord’s commandments. Just exactly what is to be done? Nothing in particular, just that which presents itself to each one according to the circumstances of his life, and which is demanded by the individual events with which each of us meets. That is all. God arranges the lot of each person, and the entire course of life of each one is also His all-good industry, as is each moment and each meeting.
— St. Theophan the Recluse from The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It
My oldest son graduated today from one of the finest institutions of learning I have ever known. It lives in the shadows of other better known institutions and is lesser known because of its small size and relatively short existence. Other institutions pride themselves on their acceptance rate for graduating seniors, their rejection rate of lessor mortals desiring admission, and their overall ability to graduate products of an educational system that are worthy of fame and fortune. My son’s institution (and now his alma mater), St. Herman of Alaska Christian School in Boston, MA does not graduate products but persons, persons made in the image and likeness of God. And the goal of their program is not mere intellectual excellence; they teach their students above all to love God and keep His commandments.
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Just moved to Syracuse, NY with the family, and one of our first official acts was finding the local library and obtaining a card for borrowing. My children who are of age all proudly sport their own card in their private wallet. I am determined they have this long before they ever have cards for spending money.
“I’m a Christian, so I don’t go to parties,” said a person to me recently. There was a time in my life I would have accepted such a judgment about parties without qualification. The theology behind the idea of
Many parents have felt the wonder of the moment when their child was old enough to utter his first word. Perhaps, equal to excitement is the moment when he begins to read. He sounds out everything in his path All goes well until he decides to exercise his phonics skills on a supermarket tabloid. Words “scandal” and the easier monosyllable “sex” send his impressionable mind reeling as he asks parents a barrage of troubling questions.
It’s rare that we cry through a film. Hollywood cheesiness has about as much effect on us as a doorbell on a deaf person. But when my wife and I saw this recent French film about a blind and deaf girl in the late nineteenth century, we could not help but weep for joy, sorrow, and deep, abiding Hope in the world to come.
Had our first day of school today in our newly created Home School dedicated to the