Christian Parents, Parenthood Will Sanctify You
Head of Orthodox Church in America on the Jesus Prayer and Parenting
Oct 2, 2009
"Parenting is an ascetical, spiritual, practice. It will sanctify you," Metropolitan Jonah – the spiritual and administrative leader of the Christain Orthodox Church in America and Canada – said in an interview with this author. He paused to let the word, "sanctify" sink in.
The Orthodox definition of sanctification is one of the central tenets of the faith, Father Jonathan Ivanoff of Long Island, New York explained later. It means making someone or something holy and it is a joyous hope. What parent hasn't yelled at a child just because the parent was short on patience, not because the child deserved it? Christians believe that humans are imperfect, fallen, but through sanctification they can be inspired by the Spirit to rise above that. Those who are sanctified are able to love both God and people.
The significance of this is enormous. Metropolitan Jonah said, "You love God only as much as you love the person you despise the most." Loving God and others is the near impossible task that can be made possible through sanctification. And according to the Metropolitan, parenting pulls people out of their ego consciousness and selfishness into this authentic love for the other.
The Jesus Prayer and How Parents Can Quell Anxiety About the State of the World
Parenthood brings with it a host of worries and fears. Could Metropolitan Jonah offer some words to parents and others who are worried about the state of the world and who experience anxiety over this?
"Jesus Christ is our only hope," he said. "If people put their hope in anything of this world, they will be bitterly disappointed. Everything in this world passes away. Our hope is rooted in the conscious awareness of God and our living union with God. When we have that, then come what may in the world."
How do we reach this point of obedience and faith? Metropolitan Jonah said, "We must move from the Jesus Prayer to the prayer of Jesus to His Father." The Jesus Prayer is what Orthodox Christians pray repeatedly in order to meditate, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Metropolitan Jonah said parents must move from this, from their state of repentance, to "entering Jesus's prayer to His Father." Thy will be done.
"When we pray to the Father as Jesus did," he said, "then we have the strength. Then we can be an anchor of hope in the world."
What to do When There is No Time for God and Spiritual Prayer
But how can over-burdened parents who are constantly doing for others find time to even think about being spiritual? How can they create the silence and inner stillness, that the Metropolitan also said are at the core of staying spiritually grounded as Christians?
"You just have to find the time and make the space," the Metropolitan asserted. He said a daily time of silence and stillness was necessary. People often don't like that answer and try to find an easier formula, a smaller pill, a quicker fix. But there was something so knowing and certain about the Metropolitan's tone when he said it – he sounded the way a parent would, if he saw his or her teenager had an infected, festering, sore, but the multi-tasking teen was ignoring it because he was "too busy" to deal with it. "Let's tend to this wound," the parent would say definitively, knowingly, over the child's objections. "You must make the time."
Metropolitan Jonah's certainty about the daily need for silence, stillness and prayer clearly comes from personal experience. He spent twelve years in a monastery before taking on the demanding job of serving as Metropolitan of the church. It is clear that the ascetical practice is as important to him as ever, if not more-so. The job of being a parent may be as significant as the job of a church leader, just on a smaller scale. The ascetical practice can be just as important in this role.
Parenthood can sanctify people because it pulls them out of selfishness and into love. Quiet time and stillness are essential to stay spiritually grounded. Christian parents should put their trust in God and pray to the Father as Jesus did. This is how people have the strength to rise above their own fallen nature and worldly limitations. Metropolitan Jonah summed it up well, "Spirituality is not about death and the afterlife, it is about living."
Source: Interview on September 25th, 2009 with Metropolitan Jonah, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of all America and Canada of the Orthodox Church in America. The interview took place at St. John the Theologian Orthodox Church in Shirley, New York.
Read more about Orthodox Christian beliefs and practices:
Metropolitan Jonah's explanation of the meditative, spiritual practice of Orthodoxy (the second part of this interview.)
The Joyous Orthodox Christmas: Fasting Before Christmas
Teaching kids about God from the Orthodox Easter (Pascha) Service
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