The Joy of the LordThe Joy of the...
Transcript of The Joy of the LordThe Joy of the...
The Children’s Word is a weekly bulletin for Orthodox Christian young people. Copyright 2018 Alexandra Houck.
Email is orthodoxchildrensword (at) gmail.com. Find it each week at myocn.net.
The Prodigal Son
“Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for to such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Mark 10:14
Sunday, February 4, 2018 Volume 6, Issue 5
The Joy of the LordThe Joy of the LordThe Joy of the LordThe Joy of the Lord Have you ever been so excited
to get somewhere that you ran on your way?
Imagine taking a walk to the playground and
then taking off running when you saw the
park. Sometimes it’s just too hard to wait!
Today we hear the beautiful story of the
Prodigal Son. We hear how the young man
asks his father for his money. We hear how
he wastes all that money. We hear how he
feels awful about it, and we hear how he comes back to ask for his father’s
forgiveness. Then we hear how happy his father is to see his son again!
Do you know just how excited his father is? The Bible says, “But while he
was still far away, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and
hugged him and kissed him.” Do you see how excited and happy his father
was to see his son? He ran to meet him! He just couldn’t wait.
Now we know this story is really a story about how God loves us, His chil-
dren, too! When we make mistakes, we can always turn back to our Lord.
We can always change the way we’re acting or break the bad habits we
have. We can turn back to the Lord, and we can ask for our Father’s for-
giveness. Then, He will be like the father in the Prodigal Son story today.
He will meet us and welcome us back. God will have that same joy too!
A Ministry of the
Orthodox Christian Network
This great icon is in the dome at the
monastery of St. Luke (see page 3).
Do you know who’s in the icon?
They’re the apostles. Can you be-
lieve these are all made from little
tiny bits of colored rocks?
What’s in an icon?
WORD SEARCHWORD SEARCHWORD SEARCHWORD SEARCH
Can you find
these words in
the jumble?
FORGIVENESS
JOYFUL
LUKE
MONASTERY
PRODIGAL
RIGHTEOUS
RUNNING
S J K A M B R E M D S R F L K
V U O I K S K E H Z I O C C L
T N O Y W B H T X Z P X N A Z
A J Y E F Q U F H L D H G D T
T W D V T U V F T C T I O R V
O I W W M H L O O W D Y N Q X
K R H D R L G A P O B R K L T
R T E M Y U T I R Z D E C V G
Z Y S T J K L P R L E T S U Q
H I H H D E Q Z J O R S F Z Z
S S E N E V I G R O F A R L T
R U N N I N G M E N I N W B X
E K E M V M Y I B R H O Z K X
W R G B Q A Q T H B T M G N D
J Y A N X M Z X H B U K H W A
ST. LUKE THE RIGHTEOUS
“God provides”
We’ve all seen beauti-
ful icons, but you can find
some of the most amazing ones in
the whole world at a monastery
in the middle of Greece. This
monastery is called “Osios Lou-
kas,” and it is named after St.
Luke. (This is a different saint
than the one who wrote one of
the Gospels. This saint was born in 896, about 1,100 years ago.)
St. Luke the Righteous tried to love God and to trust in Him even
when he was little. He came from a poor family, and he worked very
hard to help his family. He worked in the fields and he took care of
sheep, staying outside in really bad weather. Still, he helped other
poor people too. One time, he gave away all the seeds that he was
supposed to plant in the fields. He knew that God would take care of
him. But what happened? The fields gave more and better crops than
St. Luke had ever seen before!
Lots of times, you can see how much people love a person by how
they honor him or her. In America, you see some of the greatest
monuments to George Washington and some of the presidents. But
you can see that the people really love St. Luke the Righteous because
his monastery is SO beautiful.
We celebrate St. Luke’s nameday on Wed., February 7th (Feb. 20 OC).