Sunday, January 14

Sunday mornings during the school year, I open the Church School session with the Trisagion Prayers and a brief talk.

Tomorrow, I plan to tell the children about St. Nina, Equal to the Apostles and Enlightener of Georgia. (The country, not the state!) Hers is quite a story, with interesting connections both to our patron St. George the Trophy-Bearer, as well as to the Patriarchate of Antioch.

I'm also slated to talk to the first grade class about the body of Christ, which is the theme of this summer's Diocesan Parish Life Conferences: "Building up the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith..." (Ephesians 4:12-13)

As I thought about it this week, it seemed to me that there were four aspects to the body of Christ that should be mentioned:

1. The body which Christ took from His mother Mary, identical to ours and "capable of death", per St. Athanasius, as Christ is "of one essence with us", per the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council


2. The body in which He was raised from the dead, identical to what ours will be in the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35-49, Philippians 3:17-21)


3. The body of Christ in the Eucharist


4. The body of Christ which is the Church

Of course, if I don't get to bed, I won't be able to talk to anybody about anything in the morning!