The Elder Simeon and the Savior!

Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Mark 10:4
Sunday, February 2, 2014 Volume 2, Issue 5

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Sometimes its hard to wait, isnt it?
Waiting for your birthday, waiting for a friend to
come over, waiting for school to get out, waiting for dinner to be ready. Were always waiting for something. But imagine waiting for something bigger. Imagine waiting for heaven to open. Imagine waiting for Christ to be born. Imagine waiting for somebody to save the world! Today is one of the 12 Great Feasts of our Orthodox Church. Today we celebrate the Presentation of our Lord into the Temple. When baby Jesus was still a baby, only 40 days old, His parents took Him to the Temple for the first time. The elder there was named Simeon, and he was very old. He was waiting. Waiting for the Savior. All his life he had been Simeon was waiting for this Baby all his life! waiting. When he saw baby Jesus and when he held Him in his arms, he said, Lord, now let your servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation. After all these years of waiting, Simeon knew that he could die in peace. He had finally seen the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!

D W OR D F I N R C J M Z D U U G S Y K D H W
Can you find these words in the scramble?
DEPART ICONS LORD LUKE MONASTERY MOSAIC PRESENTATION SEEDS SIMEON WAITING

ST. LUKE THE RIGHTEOUS

GOD PROVIDES
Weve all seen beautiful 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 Loukas, and it is named after St. Luke. (This is a different saint than the one A beautiful mosaic icon of St. Luke the Righteous 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 remember St. Luke on Friday, February 7th.

D V N A V D P F E Z N M A E

S Z K V U R F J C E O N N V

L I C O N S N Y P S I V H J

V D C T P M W X A A T B L T

G R D E T J Y I Z R A K B O

O O A Y N R C U C U T Y S Q

X L Z R R W O C J D N D O K

Z J F S T E S W C H E U U V

N I T I A W T D W E S B Z E

N R N M Z M D S S U E F G M

E T D E A Y B E A E R O P Y

Y K C O S Q L M P N P W G X

C K U N I H A D W A O Z H V

J X S L V L S J Y I R M R A

Q Z R T C I I U T C T T V B

Whats in an icon?
What can you find in this icon? Its the Apostles! Can you believe the icons are all made of little tiny pieces of rock?

Osios Loukas