Have you ever gotten in trouble for something at home or at school? Your parents or your grandparents or maybe your teacher might have told you that you did the wrong thing. They might have told you that what you did was bad. When we do something wrong, we try to do better next time, don’t we?

In the epistle reading today, Saint Paul writes something about God that is in the Old Testament too. The Bible says, “His righteousness endures forever.” That means that God does the right thing…all the time. God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t do the wrong thing.

Sometimes we might mess up and do something wrong. Our parents or our teachers make mistakes too, and even they might do the wrong thing too! But we can remember that God is always good. He always does the right thing, before Christ was born (in the Old Testament) and during Saint Paul’s time, and during our time too! We can always look to our Lord as an example of righteousness…doing the right thing. And when we look to the Lord, we can see how we can do the right thing too!

SAINTS STILL HELP US! SAINT GERASIMOS OF CEPHALONIA

Sometimes we hear about saints from a long, long time ago. Do you ever wonder if they know about us or if they hear our prayers?

Today we celebrate the feastday of Saint Gerasimos. He was born 500 years ago, just a few years after Christopher Columbus discovered America! But St. Gerasimos still listens to prayers, and he especially protects the people on his island of Cephalonia.

Cephalonia is an island off the coast of Greece. It is right in the middle of an earthquake zone, and the people there notice lots of little earthquakes and tremors all the time. But sixty years ago, a huge earthquake hit, and it destroyed almost everything on the island.

Lots of people said they saw Saint Gerasimos then! He comforted the people who were very scared. He also helped people who were trapped in buildings. The saints care about us very much, and they understand our problems because they lived here too. Do you see how St. Gerasimos understood and cared for the people on his little island?

We can ask saints to protect us and help us! Can you think of a prayer you could say to a favorite saint?

We celebrate St. Gerasimos today, Oct. 20th (Nov. 2, OC).

Click here to download your free copy of The Children’s Word.

Welcome to “The Children’s Word,” a weekly ministry of the Orthodox Christian Network. Each week, Presvytera Alexandra Houck writes this little newsletter for young parishioners! You will find age-appropriate articles, stories, and activities in every edition. The newsletter is provided in PDF format so that you can easily download and print it, and share it with your parish, church school, homeschool, family, and friends.

Each issue includes a message on the Sunday Gospel lesson and on one of the saints for the week. You’ll also find a coloring page and other activities. It is designed for a 8.5 x 14 page, so it can be printed and folded.

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Presvytera Alexandra Houck

Presvytera Alexandra Houck created The Children's Word bulletin so children will know they are not only welcome in church, but even more, an essential part of the Church family. She hopes the weekly bulletin will be just one more way we can make kids feel at home in church. Presvytera Alexandra is a graduate of Duke University and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Her husband, Fr. Jason Houck, is a priest at St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis, MN. Presvytera Alexandra and Fr. Jason have five small children: Lydia, Paul, Silas, Philip, and Sarah. Presvytera Alexandra grew up attending Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Asheville, North Carolina with her nine siblings.

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