Through God's grace, we have holy relics of the Holy Martyr Cyricus in our church, and which upon the consecration of Saint Andrew were placed, along with other holy relics, in the crypt inside the altar table. What a blessing!

Saint Silouan likewise writes, "Just as people go in and out of a house, so may thoughts proceeding from devils come and go again, if you do not accept them." The same idea is expressed by another contemporary spiritual elder (geronda) of Mount Athos, Elder (Saint) Paisios. He used to liken logismoi (evil thoughts) to airplanes that are flying by overhead in the air. If you don't give them any attention, they just keep passing by, but he said we must be careful not to build an airport in our hearts so that they can land and take residence within us. That's a nice little analogy.

In the words of Saint Silouan--and this is the first quote on your handouts if you want to follow along-he wrote:

"I began to beseech God for forgiveness and He granted me not only forgiveness but also the Holy Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit, I knew God. The Lord remembered not my sins, and He gave me to love people, and my soul longs for the whole world to be saved and dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven."

What great evil results from empty and idle conversations and gossip! Sometimes one heedlessly spoken word causes a whole storm of unpleasantness and fills the heart of the one referred to with indignation and hatred. So even a word that was not ill-intentioned, one we counted as nothing, can strike a mortal sin, just as a small spark often turns into a great fire burning whole villages. "How great a matter a little fire kindleth", says the holy Apostle James.

"But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment" (St. Matthew 12:36).

Just as an army trains soldiers to battle the enemy for the sake of the homeland, so the true family, the Orthodox Christian family, endows its children with the spiritual armor by which they can overcome temptations, battle sin, live exemplary and moral lives, gain union here on earth with God, fulfill the divine potential within man, and pass into the next life with the spiritual power to pray for family members left behind. A True Orthodox Christian family teaches love (agape) to its members-that intuitive, spontaneous love natural to blood relations, and encourages them to go out into the world sharing this love with others and perfecting it to whatever degree possible.