by Father Jesse Philo
“O heavenly King, O Comforter…” My daughter, Emma, and I join voices for the beginning of evening prayers.
I have been praying the evening prayers with Emma since she was an infant—6 years of prayers. For the most part she has merely listened, perhaps saying “amen” at the end as her only vocal contribution.
“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal have mercy on us,” Emma prayed, bowing and crossing. At age five she began to recognize and say part of the Lord’s prayer, losing it somewhere between “trespasses” and “trespassers.”
“O most holy Trinity have mercy on us…,” she continued.
But one day recently, Emma surprised me by saying all of the evening prayers nearly perfectly on her own.
I looked down at her in surprise, but she continued to look at the icons, praying. “Well,” I thought to myself, “it appears she’s been learning something at Saint Basil Academy!” Her prayer came naturally, unforced; words too complex for her natural vocabulary rolled off her tongue with relative ease. As a father, it was a wonderful surprise; one that has served as signpost of the value of an Orthodox Christian education for me.
Every day at the beginning and end of the school day, Headmaster Mr. Barnett leads the children through set prayers. The children each know their parts; some lead the singing of the troparion and kontakion hymns to St. Basil. The prayers are not the focus of the day, taking only a few minutes. At the end of the prayers, a single student reads the prayers for the blessing of their learning.
It is clear to me from watching little Emma that their learning has been blessed.
