Lenten Reading with the Family

Finding some good lenten reading is always a good idea. It is always during Clean Week, that the kids start asking what we are going to read this year. So, here we are, dinner on the first day of Clean Week, and they started asking.

Our trouble this year was that two of the books we love reading and seem perfectly fitted for reading with the family, we have already used twice each for other lenten seasons. We cannot recommend them highly enough, especially because they are so well written and clearly convey Orthodox life lived out.

Everyday Saints and Other Stories is one of our favorites. The children enjoyed this so much that the two older ones have read through it a time or two on their own. In it, you will gain a much broader view of what "Orthodox life" looks like, which is helpful both for the convert that just has not lived a long life within Orthodoxy yet, and also for the cradle Orthodox who needs to see Orthodoxy outside of their own particular context. In other words...it is good for all of us. And it is just, plain fun to read.

The other book we have loved is On Earth We're Just Learning How to Live. This is a memoir of an elderly Russian priest who lived through World War II, decades of Communism as a priest, and the many stories of faithfulness which he has experienced. It is so new, fresh, and relevant that our kids cannot help but apply it to their own lives, even though they have not experienced the exact same events.

We still do not know what we are going to read this year. I tried a section from one book tonight, which includes lives of saints and righteous ones who lived under the Soviet oppression, and then tomorrow, I will try one from a elder from Romania. My main criteria is that it is well written, something that will keep the children engaged.