Friday, October 4, 2024

Speech Given to Students of the Newly Opened Free of Charge Sunday School (St. John of Kronstadt)


Speech Given to Students of the Newly Opened Free of Charge Sunday School

By St. John of Kronstadt

My friends! A Sunday School has been opened for you today, with God's blessing, for free: and the books in it are ready for you and everything you need for studying. It is called a Sunday School because you will come to it on Sundays, and on other feasts of the Lord, and of the Mother of God.

Do not think that it is a sin to go to school on feast days. No, it is not sinful, but soul-saving. Rather than sitting at home, or doing something idle, or wandering the streets, it is better, without a doubt, to occupy yourself with study for an hour or two. Learning is light, which means that it is a good deed, and when is the time for a good deed, if not on a feast day? On a feast day you do not work, according to the fourth commandment of the Lord; according to that commandment, one must work six days a week, if there is no feast day, and on the seventh, that is, on Sunday, one must go to church – to pray to the Lord, our Creator, to venerate His most pure Body and Blood at the Liturgy, to listen to the word of God, to remember God's mercy to us, and to think about eternal life. For all of us, brethren, will be resurrected in due time for another, never-ending life in heaven. This is a very important matter, and that is why, among other things, the no work day of Sunday is given to us, that is why we must certainly go to church on Sundays, so that, having venerated Christ's resurrection, we may remember our own resurrection from the dead, in order to prepare our souls for a joyful, and not a sorrowful resurrection.