We want to raise children to give themselves completely to Christ, and they will be clear about their gender. More accurately, they will become a person--a man or a woman--as they are called to grow in Christ.

What I'd like to talk about today is: How are we to understand and respond to those who change cultural perceptions of gender, sexuality, and marriage? How are we to understand and respond to those who change their sexual identity or claim that it's unfair to deprive some people of marriage just because they are "gay"? How do we equip our children to navigate these issues and the world they live in with compassion and faith?

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Saint Paul the Apostle).

This highly personal and positive experience of the perceptible presence of the grace of the Holy Spirit does not, however, eliminate the possibility of its loss. Saint Silouan wrote at length on this theme of the loss of grace. Commenting on its cause and consequences, he refers to the conscious awareness of its withdrawal. Just as the soul senses the presence of Divine Grace, so too is it aware of its loss.

The importance of man's free will in the working out of his salvation is paramount in Patristic tradition. A key term used in this context is the Greek word 'proairesis' (προέρεσις), which means 'faculty of free choice' or 'deliberative choice'. This emphasis on man's 'proairesis' appears throughout many writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church.

A great reward is prepared for the righteous in the future life (St. Matthew 5:12). They will be brought to the most perfect and beautiful place, which Holy Scripture calls Paradise (St. Luke 23:43), heaven (St. Matthew 6:9), the Kingdom of God (St. Luke 13:28-29), the heavenly Father's house (St. John 14:2), and the city of the Living God and the Heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22). According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, "no matter which of these names one apply to this place, one will not sin: only let him know that the departed righteous dwell in God's grace in the Heavenly Kingdom or, as the church hymns proclaim, in Heaven" (The Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church, pt. 1, reply to question 67).