"They could be your children if you would be focused on making your home the domestic church, reading the Scriptures together, studying the lives of the Church Fathers and Saints together, teaching your children to say the Jesus prayer, teaching your children to embrace fasting as a family, teaching your children to look forward to the Sunday Liturgy and not saying, 'oh, mom, do I have to go to Church? I don't want to go to Church'".
TRANSCRIPTION:
I'm in Roswell, Georgia, I am in the home of the Weber family. It has been a joy to be with them. They have been visiting our monastery for some time and these are their children, and I love these children so much that I am thrilled that they called me grandpa, right, is that right? You call me grandpa, okay.
Being here in this beautiful family chapel is incredible, it's an incredible experience for me. When I first walked into their home, it's the first time I had been here because I'm here in Georgia giving talks about Orthodoxy in different parishes, but being hosted by this wonderful family, in this beautiful home, in this incredibly beautiful neighborhood, in the house that is the most beautiful in the neighborhood i would have to say. But when i walked in through the front door and looked through their living room into the heart of the house which is this beautiful chapel, this chapel is worthy of an Athonite chapel. To me it's in fact - when the priests were here the other night for a gathering and a dinner that they sponsored, one of the priests even agreed with me when I said this - you could serve Divine Liturgy. In fact, it was Metropolitan Jonah that said that, I'd said, you know, "you could serve Liturgy" and he said, "yes, you could", so this is the heart of this house".
The reason why I wanted to do this talk is because these children - who are homeschooled by the way, so they're not being tainted with woke out there and destroyed before they're even into young adulthood - these children are being raised by two pious Orthodox Christian parents who love them. And the time that I have been here, in many ways has reminded me of my own parents because my own parents were so sweet and loving to me and raised me as a believer and raised me knowing that I was loved, and these children know they're loved and in turn they are able to extend love to crazy old men like me: and that means a lot! But at the heart of who they are now is not only that they're homeschooled for their education but they're being schooled in what it means to be an Orthodox Christian. This is a family that basts together, this is a family that goes to one of the most beautiful Orthodox churches that's only within walking distance of their place.
God richly blessed them with that, but what's else is wonderful is that these children on a daily basis worship with their parents in this beautiful chapel. This chapel even has stars painted on the ceiling. It is a stunning chapel, they all have their own personal patron icons in this chapel, and what they are experiencing here is going to stay with them for the rest of their lives. And because their parents have a hand on dealing with their children, these children are going to grow up to be good parents, or maybe even a monastic, because I think this young man has a monastic calling, because he is just, well, you can see he's even got the long hair.
But one of the other things that I've noticed about this family is that their daughter, Priscilla, dresses like a girl in beautiful dresses, with beautiful glasses, she is being taught by their beautiful mother, who looks like a woman instead of... in other words, this family exemplifies what it means to be a husband and a wife, and a father and a mother to their children and they're imaging Christ and the Church to their children, they're imaging what it means to have a family gathered around the altar of God. One of the things that a lot of people kind of avoid as they're living their Orthodox faith is the truism that the father of the household is the domestic priest and one of the difficulties that I've seen over the years with parents is if the father isn't having the role of the domestic priest but is leaving it up to his wife to be the one that pray, that has the kids praying together, that the kids, especially the boys, are not having that image of what it means to be an Orthodox man. It's like the women are the religious people.
One of the things that I find absolutely amazing about Orthodoxy is that this is not a faith for women, it's a faith for men and women, and I've talked about this before that it, on the average, if you go to in any Orthodox church you will see 50 percent men 50 women, this is truly amazing. I remember mentioning this once, this truth, when I was speaking at the Greek Cathedral in Baltimore, Maryland, there were 400 people assembled there and I made that comment and I could tell people are looking around like, "is this really true?", so one of the young men I called upon to stand up and count all the men and the young woman got all the women out of 400 and some people there were 200 men 200 women. This doesn't happen in western churches, western Christian churches, denominational churches, it doesn't happen, usually mostly women even pastored by women. Whereas in Orthodoxy we haven't suffered the feminization of Christianity, but was wonderful and when I say that, it's not a slam against equal rights for women because women have a role in the Church. The Holy Virgin is the most revered of all of our saints and she's a woman. She's revered by the angels in heaven and she's a woman. She never ceases to be a woman. We don't have icons of the Holy Virgin wearing pants and looking like she's the boss, she is the Mother of God and she's our mother.
And so especially for young women they can visualize, they can in their devotion to the Holy Virgin they are learning the preciousness of their womanhood. And young men, when they are imaging Christ their image and in their father even that their father ministers to them as a good father, you know, which is the image of God the Father to all of us. So, for the family, an Orthodox family, if you're going to raise children like this that I've gotten to know very well over the years, you want children like this, I mean who doesn't want children like this? They are, they could be your children if you would be focused on making your home the domestic church, reading the Scriptures together, studying the lives of the Church Fathers and Saints together, teaching your children to say the Jesus prayer, teaching your children to embrace fasting as a family, teaching your children to look forward to the Sunday Liturgy and not saying, "oh, mom, do I have to go to Church? I don't want to go to Church".
These children, these two young men serve in the altar, I witnessed it, you should see them in their sticharion - oh my gosh - it was spiring to me and in turn, every day that i've been here, this young lady puts a card on my pillow in the guest room, saying such wonderful things, usually with a heart on them. I mean i have never been anywhere, even if i was in a five-star hotel they wouldn't be doing that for me, this young woman is exemplifying what it means to be hospitable in a Christian home and she's mirroring her mother, and these two young men are mirroring their father. I have told their mother in fact a few times I've slipped and I've called her matushka because she is, I mean, I'm going to say to the world: you are, as the father of this household, feel destined to be a priest. So, surrender. So, my love to all of you who are watching this video and I want you to know that the joy that I'm feeling in this household is the joy that you can feel in your household by raising up children like this, to be everything that Christ meant them to be when they were created, and in turn I will say to all of you who are worried about the future of our country, the future of our world: there's hope! So God bless you all and I have to say I feel a hallelujah coming out!