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).