Family Meals as a Manifestation of Our Royal and Sacrificial Calling

We often compartmentalize our lives. Last episode we talked about how just as your parish priest is a priest to the faithful, so also are the faithful priests to the world and its people. Just as the church functions as priests for the world and all its people—Orthodox Christians, other Christians, and even heathens, so also in our families, at least in our extended families, we have all these partitions, and we are called to be priests for them—intercessors before God. Today we talk about the act of eating together makes us into a priesthood. Eating is a religious act. Eating together even more so. At the center of the iconostasis above the holy doors are two images, both of which depict communal meals. Eating together is a royal act and a priestly act. We need to regularly eat together with our families and have it covered in prayer, asking God each time to bless us and the food which we are about to eat, and to thank him for these things. Enjoy the show!