The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but in our time many yearn to break free of a prison of flat secular materialism.

Wait, wrong podcast.

But if you aren't already listening to Lord of Spirits, you definitely should be.

The modern health paradigm is just as beholden though to materialism.

We're constantly bombarded with Wellness trends, diet fads, and self optimization strategies, but very few consider health through the lens of Orthodox Christianity.

There's podcasts here to change that.

We'll dive into topics like fasting, prayer, stress, nutrition, and even physical training, and while staying rooted in the timeless wisdom of the Church.

Each episode will break down key health topics from an Orthodox perspective, bringing in guests, whether they're priests, health professionals, or experts in traditional wisdom, to help us navigate the practical and spiritual aspects of true well-being.

Welcome to Orthodox Health, the podcast.

We explore the intersection of Orthodox Christianity, physical health, mental well-being and spiritual growth.

I'm Doctor Michael Christian, joined by my Co host John, and we're excited to take this journey with you.

So grab a cup of coffee, lots of cream, coconut for fasting and let's get started.

Blessed.

Is the man who walks not in the counsel?

Of the wicked.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Welcome back to Orthodox Health Podcast.

I'm your host, Doctor Michael Christian.

And I'm your Co host John, happy to be here again with you guys.

That's right, and we are in the thick of the nativity fast right now when the whole culture is screaming buy more, scroll more, stress more, and the church is quietly saying fast, pray and give alms.

Absolutely.

This is that time of the year when you're in box.

Your e-mail or otherwise is full of those all caps Last CHANCE for the sales and deals.

The kids are circling toy catalogs and writing their letters to Santa Claus, who we're going to be talking about, and everybody's blood pressure is just going up, up, up.

But then, somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, we do have this gentle figure, Saint Nicholas.

The true Saint Nicholas, who's not a mascot.

He's an actual Bishop of the Orthodox Church, a confessor and a wonder worker.

Right.

And the stories we get about him aren't.

He had the best wrapping paper there.

He secretly throws bags of gold into a house, save three daughters.

He steps in to save innocent men from execution.

And he used his position not to hoard, but to pour out.

So today we want to ask, what if that kind of almsgiving is not just being nice, the actual medicine for the sickness of our hearts, our homes, and even our parishes?

Absolutely, because we talk on this show a lot about fasting, about nervous system health and about the microbiome.

But if we never talk about what money does to our soul, we are sort of leaving a major lab marker unaddressed.

Absolutely, because you can optimize your diet, get your steps in, dial in your sleep.

But if you're living in constant scarcity panic, white knuckling your bank account, comparing your Amazon cart to everyone else's, that's its own kind of disease.

And to help us really concrete and pastoral about this, we've brought back a familiar face.

That's right.

We have back with us again today my parish priest, Father Jonathan Ivanoff, priest, teacher and someone who's been in the trenches with parishes on stewardship mission and what it actually looks like for communities to be generous without being guilt driven or transactional.

Absolutely.

Last time Father was with us, we talked about the parish as a healing community.

So today, though, we're zooming in on one of the core medicines of that community.

I'm giving through the lens of Saint Nicholas.

We're going to hit who Saint Nicholas really is beyond mall Santa and why the Fathers talk about alms giving like a heels and cover sins and how ordinary families can practice this without going broke or going crazy.

And for the parents who are listening will also get practical about how to teach your kids the real Saint Nicholas, so they're not just learning that this is the season of sugar, noise and new devices, but of secret generosity and, of course, of mercy.

Absolutely.

So grab your coffee, not your credit card.

This one, Father Jonathan, welcome back to the Orthodox Health Podcast.

Thank you very much for having me back.

Good to see you both again.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for being here, Father.

For our listeners who maybe didn't catch our prior conversation at the episode you'd done with us on the parish as a healing community, could you just remind them who you are?

Give a little brief introduction of yourself?

Well, everybody knows who I know.

I am a priest of the Orthodox Church in America, Diocese of New York and New Jersey, and I'm the priest and pastor at Saint John the Theologian Orthodox Church here on Long Island, New York.

Been there for 32 years, since the day of my ordination.

Hope to be here for a few years more.

I got a lot to complete before.

I hope the good Lord takes me away.

But good to be back.

Good to be back with you gentlemen and looking forward to this.

Fantastic talk about a lot of work to do.

A lot of work has been done as some of you listening.

No Father Jonathan is my parish priest, and we've been blessed to have so much beautiful things occur at Saint John the Theologian here and Shirley, so thank God for that.

Thank God.

So we're going to be talking today about sort of the dichotomy between the church's understanding of Saint Nicholas and his life and his example, and the sort of modern commercial portrayal of him in the form of Santa Claus, and the way that affects our take on the Nativity season and how we relate to that in the context of the church.

Maybe let's discuss a little bit first about who Saint Nicholas of Mira actually is.

For those who may not be familiar with him as a Bishop of the Orthodox Church, maybe we give them a rundown of who the real Saint Nicholas is.

Yeah, that would be great.

Father, For people who only know the Santa imagery, how would you introduce him from an Orthodox perspective?

Well, Santa Claus mothers, put your hands over the ears of your children right now because you're not going to want to hear what I have to say.

But Santa Claus does not exist as of course, as we know, regardless of what Hollywood says about him.

And you only have to believe all that nonsense.

Hey, Nicholas was a real person.

A year ago, in September of 2024, I had the honor and the privilege of being able to participate in the pilgrimage to ancient Christian sites and what is today Turkey.

And one of the places we went to was the town of Myra in the region of Lecia on the southern coast of Turkey, near the Mediterranean.

Beautiful place.

And we got to visit the place where Saint Nicholas lived and preached and worked, and the church that he served in, which is not the church you see there today.

That's the second or third church that's been built over whatever was destroyed several times before, but it's built over the site his original church was located.

And interestingly, from street level, it's about 10 or 15 feet down to show you how much.

And all of the ancient sites all over the world are kind of like that.

You know, civilization keeps building up, up, up.

And when you go visit these ancient things, they are down, down, down.

So this place was way down there.

And it's a very interesting, very beautiful place.

Again, it's not the place where he served that that church does not exist.

But he was a very pious young man and he succeeded his uncle as the Bishop of Myra in Lecia, the region of Lecia.

And he also in his latter years participated in the first ecumenical council at Nicaea in the year 325.

He was already a little bit of an older guy at that point in time, but he was there.

So we're dealing with an historical personage, someone who really lived and existed and about whose life we know a great deal and things like that.

He was buried there in that church, and many years later, as the Turks were coming through the Anatolian peninsula, there happened to be some Venetian sailors in that area who dug him up.

Man who took his body, his relics as we call them, took his body to the other side of the Adriatic, across the Aegean, across the Adriatic to a small town called Bari Bari Bari in Italy.

And they interred him there and he's been there ever since.

So now the resting place of Saint Nicholas is in Bari, Italy.

Yes, people are listening to that going what?

How do we get from Saint Nicholas all the way to this jolly Roly Poly guy in the red suit and all of that kind of stuff?

Well, that image you can thank Coca-Cola for.

But as a matter of fact, Saint Nicholas from very early on was thought of as the patron St.

of children.

And there are some stories regarding him, true stories of how he aided and abetted families that had children who needed help.

And one of them, perhaps the most famous, which explains why we hang up our stockings on the chimney with care, was there was a man who had three daughters and the time was coming to either betrothe them, which meant they had to have a dowry, had to have a dowry, or he couldn't do that because that's not how things worked back then.

And he didn't have any money for his daughter's dowry, as though he was forced to have to consider selling her into slavery.

That's just the way things worked back then.

Saint Nicholas heard of this, came by the house stealthily at night, made sure no one was watching, made sure no one was listening or paying attention.

And he took a sack of coins, tossed it through the window, and it landed inside a stocking that was hung by their chimney with care.

And so the first daughter had now a dowry, and the father married her off.

And this happened two more times with the two younger sisters.

So this idea of hanging stockings on the mantelpiece of the chimney and all that, why do we do that?

That's why we do it because it comes from those stories about Saint Nicholas.

So he developed this reputation for loving children, which he did.

And his fame spread far and wide.

It spread in north into Russia.

It's spread, of course, now that his body was in Bari, it's spread N into Germany and into Holland and places like that.

And in Holland, St.

Nicholas, his name translated through German into Dutch from Santa Nicholas.

And Nicholas in the Germanic languages is clause because the word is Nicholas, Nicholas Claus name Claus in in German or or Dutch's Nicholas.

So it translated from Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus, from center Claus eventually into Santa Claus.

And it came to here in America that way through the Dutch colonies.

They were the first to popularize St.

Nichols 17th century.

So in the early 1800s, there was a man who wrote for one of the New York newspapers, this is around the 1820s we're talking about, named Clement Moore.

And he wrote a story, I believe for his daughter that ended up being called The Night Before Christmas, when all through the house now the creature was storing not even a mouse.

You know, that that story and all of the popular imagery about Santa Claus started with that story.

And then in the late 19th century, when Coca-Cola actually figured out we could sell some drinks with this stuff, tied their drink in with Santa Claus, Center Claus.

They gave him a big red suit.

Why a big red suit?

What colors of the Coca-Cola logo?

There you go, white and red.

He wore a big red suit, drank a from a bottle with a big red Coca-Cola label on it.

And that's where we get really the modern imagery that we see of Santa Claus.

It actually comes from that, but it's quite a twisted path that that took from Saint Nicholas to Santa Claus to Santa Claus to the Santa Claus from Coca-Cola and what has down to us today that we see every year at the Macy's parade and all that kind of thing.

Absolutely.

And so that's the rather tortured route that all of that took.

And of course, every step along the way through the centuries has taken us further and further and further away from the reality of who this person was.

And as a matter of fact, we would say an Orthodoxy still is because he's greatly venerated in our church on December 6th, not so much in the West anymore, but still greatly venerated in our church and always will.

He's the patron St.

of sailors, He's the patron St.

of Russia or one of them.

And when people exchange presents in the Balkans, they usually do it.

Then the Greeks interestingly, don't do it on Christmas.

Nobody doesn't on Christmas in any Orthodox country, but the Greeks do it on January 1st.

And it's not Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas bringing the presents, it's St.

Basil the Great.

He was also associated with his great love for children and things like that.

So that's when the Greeks do it on January 1st, but everybody else for the longest time did it on December 6th and then and it somehow got moved to Christmas.

Why?

Who knows?

It has no connection to Christmas and that's what we're dealing with today.

That's awesome.

So it's funny, looks like you were looking ahead on our show notes.

I was going to ask you about the story of the three daughters and the bags, gold and the stockings, but you already gent on that one.

But building off of that, actually, what does that story teach us about how to give the whole idea of hidden personal targeted, rather than some vague idea of being generous?

Yeah, that's a very good question, because Saint Nicholas, like many of the Saints and many of the holy people in the history of our church, didn't have to wait to be asked to do something good, to do good works, you might say, to do works of virtue and so forth, works of compassion and mercy.

They saw a need, and they filled it as soon as they could, as fast as they could, because time was a wasting with that man.

He had to get that dowry together in order to make it possible for his daughter to be betrothed to a suitor to a man who would marry her.

And no matter how beautiful a girl back then, you didn't marry her if her father could not provide a dowry.

But that's just the way things worked back then.

And I would say quite frankly, that's the way they worked up until maybe 100 a 150 years ago in much of the Orthodox world.

And if you look at pictures, for example, of women in the Balkans and they have their embroidered blouses and aprons and things like that, they often wore their dowry on them as jewelry.

And I have pictures of my grandmother and my great grandmother with those kind of things.

So this is just the way it was done for thousands of years.

If we have pictures of them still doing it 100 a 150 years ago, it stretches back unbroken for millennia.

This is something that Saint Nicholas couldn't say to the man.

Just wait till she's older.

We'll see what we can do then.

No, fortunately he had access to and control over the purchase finances, which were very ample at the time.

And the Bishop would take money.

And this happened all over the Orthodox world.

Bishops would take money as needed and give it to the poor.

And that's exactly what he did.

Not once, not twice, but three times.

That's phenomenal.

So on the show we talk a lot about fasting and prayer and food in general.

But the nervous system help.

And today we're talking about money, not as a fundraising gimmick.

We're not doing any Joel Osteen prosperity gospel idea, right?

Lord have mercy.

Yes, but as an actual medicine.

So really want to lean into that with how the fathers and in the scripture we get some bold language about alms giving and how it can cover a multitude of sins, how it delivers us from death.

How should we understand that?

What does it mean that giving is actually healing?

Well, to me that's a very interesting question because we go, we read this in the Scriptures and we hear the Father say this.

How should we understand that?

Very literally, quite frankly.

But when Jesus says don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, what more needs to be said about that?

You give without wanting anybody to see you or to know about it.

You don't go trumpeting what you did to other people like I've heard people do over the decades.

And you certainly don't give because your name's going to go up on a plaque on the wall or something like that.

It's very frustrating to deal with people and giving in general who come from certain backgrounds where that's just the way it's always been done, that the people have been recognized in order for them to give, you see, and they may even insist that their name go on a plaque on something because again, that's just the way they're used to having it done.

And I'm not saying that's bad, by the way, because a lot of people just have to deal with the way they were raised and things like that.

But I think we have to be very clear the the scriptures when it talks about almsgiving.

First of all, let me mention pairs almsgiving, the giving of alms to the poor as something that's done concurrently with prayer and fasting.

So these three things, prayer, fasting, and alms giving, are mentioned by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount.

And he assumes by the way he speaks about it, that you're going to do it.

And you understand that you have to do it.

And there's no question about it.

When you pray, when you fast, when you give alms.

It's not if, it's when.

So we're expected as Christians to pray, yes, to fast, which most people in today's society don't do.

We Orthodox fast almost half the year.

When you add together the normal Wednesdays and Fridays, then you add the 40 weeks of Lent, the 40 days of Lent, 40 weeks, the 40 days of Lent, the 40 days of Advent, Holy Week, the Assumption fast, and so forth.

When you Add all that together, it's 150 days, almost half the year and we're not told, well, if you feel like it, you don't eat meat on Friday or whatever.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no for meat Fairer Sunday to pastca, that's eight weeks of not eating meat, chicken, pork, fish and dairy products.

And so when it comes to giving alms, one of the things the church has always said is if you're going to fast, set that money aside, the money that you would have spent on food and give it to the one that doesn't have any money for food.

And again, it's very clear and it's said so often and in so many places by Jesus, by Paul.

I was just reading something in Peter the other night, basically says I think the same thing.

Again, there is an assumption in the Christian life, in the Christian faith, in the Christian Church, the Orthodox Christian Church, that we are going to do this.

And there's no question that we're going to do this.

And it's not a question of if.

It's a question of when and how perhaps and things like that.

But it's not a question of if we are called by our Lord and by his apostles to give to the poor, and not out of any sense of obligation, but with a heart full of love and compassion for the person who is downtrodden, for the person who does not have, for the person who cannot provide, like, say, Nicholas and the man with the three daughters.

You just do it because it's the right thing to do.

You don't have to ask.

Just do what you need to do when you see it and know that you may come across someone as you're walking down a street in New York or something like that and you see someone who they're on the pavement, they're on the sidewalk.

It's very clear they have no place to live.

It's very clear they're poor.

You can, you can just tell, you know, and you shouldn't be thinking to yourself, how much should I give this person?

Or maybe I won't give this person anybody.

They don't look worthy because they may take it and they may use it for drink.

Well our church clearly says we don't ask ourselves those questions.

We give and then what that person does with that money is between them and God.

But otherwise we agonize over these decisions.

Should I or shouldn't I?

He looks like he's drunk.

He looks like he would use that for drink.

So I'm not going to give to him because he is not worthy.

OMG.

This is done again and again and again by people seeking to justify themselves before God for the reason they choose.

Not to give, because are they going to find someone who's worthy?

Lo and behold, as they travel the streets wherever they go, they don't find anybody who's worthy enough for the money they want to give.

Which they don't end up giving.

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

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If I may, I want to backtrack a little on one of the points Mike had brought up when he said that alms giving covers a multitude of sins.

Yeah, Peter says that.

In preparation for today's episode, I was doing some research on Saint Nicholas and I listened to some of the stories of his life.

And one of the ones I listened to mentioned that as you said, father, that this man would have had to sell his daughters to slavery.

And in this particular telling of the story, it was clear that you were talking about sexual slavery.

So the giving of this money was going to help prevent them from falling into a life of sin.

So hearing Mike say that, that it covers a multitude of sins, I mean, I, I suppose it could be understood both ways that your charity at alms Giving can help to prevent sin.

But I also was thinking, does that mean that your almsgiving covers over sins you've committed?

Yeah, let's talk about that in a broader sense.

And what I mean by that is this James St.

James makes very clear in his epistle, faith without works is dead.

Everybody knows this.

We Orthodox Christians often get accused by Protestants who don't know anything about us of having a works based faith.

And the Church makes very clear that you're giving your acts your works of mercy and compassion or whatever they are.

Works of need to be done from the heart, not by a sense of compulsion or necessity or haven't given to anybody.

And in 10 years, I guess I got to give to this guy right here.

And you look upon the person with disgust as you're giving him the money.

While maybe that act of giving might be in your favor, that the fact that it proceeds from a heart that does not love is something, again, that our church teaches is not the way to give.

We give out of love.

We give from a place of compassion and of mercy in our hearts.

We don't give from a sense of compulsion like I have to, but that sense of compulsion can be there in the sense that our Christian faith produces in us this desire to help other people in need.

Why?

Because we understand that we are looking at a brother or a sister made in the image and likeness of God who is suffering, who is hungry, who is in need.

Are we going to be able to solve all their problems?

No.

But maybe for today we can help them get something to eat and get them through another day.

And if we do that from the sense of wanting to help a fellow human being made in the image and likeness, and we do it from that's that sense of love, then we've done a work, a work, you know, like James talks about works, then we've done a work in the proper way proceeding from a place of love, from the heart, not from a sense of hateful compassion.

When I say hateful compassion, I mean like I hear other people talk about giving.

I've heard people say they don't deserve my money or things like that.

This isn't about who deserves anything.

Because if you want to take that to the logical extreme, none of us deserve God's mercy and salvation.

None of us deserve it, but yet God freely gives to all of us that mercy and compassion.

Who could stand?

And we infer then call to do the same.

Jesus said, to paraphrase what he said, that the prostitute did, the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8.

Neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more.

So in a way, go and do as I have done.

Go and do what you can do to alleviate pain and suffering and so forth as you see it and when you can do something about it.

Absolutely.

And so actually tying that together, and I swear when I say this, I'm not trying to earn myself a plaque here, but I had a actual real case today.

My older daughter Marina is at the age now where we're trying to explain to her about Almsgiving and charity and trying to help out.

And so at her little sister's little gym class or gymnastics class to have a toy drive.

And so we just contributed to that and we contributed to different food drives and stuff like that.

But today I actually had the made the point of trying to explain to her like what's happened?

Like, Can you believe that They're kids with no toys?

There are even kids out there who have no food.

So I was explaining through and I saw it like light up in her eyes of like, really we should bring them food, we should help.

And so just seeing it coming from the heart, it was just, I can't even describe how it felt beautiful, beautiful actually seeing in that real life.

And it literally happened this morning.

So it's kind of funny that we were talking about that there.

Yeah, Now that's a good story.

And it's good to start when they're young like that.

From a practical perspective, some people might say, well, well, OK, father, I get it.

I should be ready.

So how should I be ready?

And I said, well, it depends on where you find yourself.

Sometimes.

John heard me say this many times in church.

Sometimes God will place people in your path.

And you may be in a hurry to get someplace.

You may be in a hurry to get to another appointment or to make a train or what, whatever you're doing.

But you know what?

Right now, God needs you to be next to this person.

This person becomes your neighbor right now.

And what do you do then when you find yourself confronted as we've got to be ready.

And one of the things I used to tell people who worked in New York City, millions of people commute into New York City every single day and they would say, well, what should I do?

Well, have some dollar bills or five or $10 bills readily accessible in your pocket, not in your wallet, readily accessible in your pocket that you can reach into your pocket, pull something out and give it to them.

And even more so if you have the time to say to them, hey, see that diner across the street?

You want to go get something to eat?

These are the practical ways which we can offer to help, and to some people that they would recoil and horror if I suggested going to a diner with a homeless person or something like that.

Believe me, the diner doesn't really care #1 #2 this is the kind of radical faith that we need to put into practice.

People need to see our good work.

Jesus said so many words.

I am the light of the world, but when I am not in the world, you are the light of the world.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your what does it say?

Good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

And this is very radical to do this.

And a lot of people aren't prepared for.

A lot of people don't want to do it.

But I think it's what our Lord calls us to do.

And there's a great grace that I believe passes through us as Christians to the person we minister to.

And I'm not talking about converting them or anything like that, but it's, it may be a grace they need.

It may be a sense of peace.

It may be a sense of joy.

It may be a sense that someone looked at me.

You know, people who are homeless talk about the way others pass them by and can't even make eye contact with them, can't even acknowledge that they're alive.

Think about this for a moment.

That's not how we're called to act.

That's not how we Christians are called to be.

When we talk about radical Christianity and and acting with radical faith to do radical things, radical works, this would be a way in which we could do it.

Is there no diner across the street?

OK, maybe there's a Starbuck next door.

Go get the guy a a lemon iced # loaf and a coffee or something.

Do something that can make them understand, not that just you're throwing money at them so that they can eat something later.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about recognizing them.

For those of you that have seen a wonderful movie called Man of God about Saint Nekhtari Osavegina.

Toward the beginning of the movie, there's this wonderful scene where he sees a poor person sitting on the ground, sitting against a wall.

And he says to him, can I sit with you?

And he sits down with them and he talks with them.

He recognizes that the guy has no shoes.

And So what does he do?

He takes his own shoes off and gives them to the guy.

Now, people walking down the streets of New York City in their, you know, $1000 Gucci suits or Brooks Brothers suits or whatever probably aren't going to do something like that.

But again, it's the idea of taking a moment to recognize the humanity, to recognize the image and likeness of God in that person that you're talking with.

Hey, guy, how you doing?

Looks like life's a little tough right now.

Do you need anything?

Here's another thing you can do.

You talk about practical aspects of how to put this into effect.

You know what the number one request of homeless people is?

Let me ask you, gentlemen, this John or Michael, what do you think the number one request of homeless people is?

Do you think it's food?

No, no.

What is it?

I had to go down the spot, say shelter, but.

Probably say company.

Yeah, companionship and the conversation.

Some kind of companionship, maybe.

New clean socks and underwear.

OK, OK.

You ever looked at the feet of a homeless person?

Really.

Have you ever done that?

I honestly guess I have, yeah.

If they have socks and shoes on.

If they don't, you'll see what kind of condition they're in.

In the summertime, they won't.

In the winter time.

They may wrap something around their feet, but new socks?

Clean socks and underwear more than anything else, That's the number one request of homeless people for the most part.

So anyway, the point is, there are things we can do if we have the desire from the heart to recognize what a brother or sister made in the image and likeness of God is going through right then and there.

And asking ourselves, how can I right now, in a very practical way, relieve his or her suffering and not be one of those people that all day passes them by if they throw anything at them, dollar bills or whatever, as if that relieves me of my obligation to do good.

This is radical faith placed into action to do radical things that we would not normally think of doing.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, I was just going to say maybe we contrast that with what happens culturally in the West during the Christmas season.

I know, Father, you mentioned that when you're doing this alms giving in the truest sense, it's not just throwing money at people to make them go away or to solve their issue, It's to recognize them.

It's to have a human connection.

And so much of the Western commercialization of nativity is centered on that, just throwing money at the holiday.

It's throwing money at each other.

It's throwing money at things, to then throw that at each other.

And so much of it is not personal.

It's not the true spirit of the fast or of the feast.

The remedy to that, of course, would be to do the opposite.

But the way in which we relate to it is difficult.

And we could talk a little bit more about things because I have some questions about dealing with kids in this kind of environment where everybody is doing the Western Christmas and everybody's telling their kids about Santa.

And I don't really want to do that.

I want to tell him the truth and I want to tell him the Orthodox way to understand this season.

But then how do we relate to our peers and our friends that that aren't Orthodox?

And I have a lot of questions and I'm going in a lot of different directions right now, but.

Succinctly, how do we rescue Saint Nicholas from the Santa Industrial Complex that Coca-Cola instituted?

Well, OK, that's a good question.

And I think the answer to that is very simple.

On the night of the 5th, to go to church.

On the morning of the 6th, go to church.

And even if that means taking time off from work, I mean, this year you don't have to do it because the 5th is Friday evening and the 6th is Saturday morning.

Even if that meant taking time off, most people have enough vacation time and personal time and, and things like that where they can do this kind of thing.

Take your kid out of school, you all go to church and you you celebrate the feast.

I think part of that is just the the idea of focusing on such a thing so that it becomes a reality in the life of your kids as they get older.

They're all also the little traditions that can be done.

You can buy a book about Saint Nicholas and read to him about it.

From the time my son and my daughter were little, they put their shoes outside their rooms.

So a lot of people don't know that little tradition.

And of course, that night Saint Nicholas comes and fills their little shoes with all kinds of goodies.

And I want talking money.

I'm talking little silver coins with the chocolate inside and you know, things like that.

But you put little goodies in it.

Maybe little icon of Saint Nicholas, whatever.

But it's the idea that you do this.

Now my son was well into his teens where he still insisted that those shoes had to be outside.

They'd better be filled in the morning.

Dad come up and we're a lot of gold chocolate coins real quick at that point.

His name is Nicholas.

So I mean that that's a little different because it was very special to him.

But the idea is that you celebrate it and you make it clear to your children that Saint Nicholas was a real person who's still alive and with Jesus in heaven.

And we can talk to him and he hears us and here's a picture of him.

Here's an icon of him.

Let's give him a kiss because we love him.

There are all these things that can be done, and for, for the most part in the Orthodox world, they are done.

But we can't let go of them.

We can't let them fall to the wayside.

We can't let them be forgotten.

We have to be added, especially as parents, again and again and again and again, to make sure that we make sure our kids know this, because the world wants to make sure our kids forget it.

So that's how we uphold St.

Nicholas.

As far as Santa Claus goes, that's a harder one because there is the peer pressure at school and things like that.

Most kids don't discover there's no Santa Claus until they're like 9 or something like that.

I forget how old my kids were when they they were about that old.

And we didn't say there wasn't a Santa Claus, but we always said there was a Saint Nicholas.

We would say Santa Claus, yes, honey, but his real name is Saint Nicholas.

And so we tie it back to our faith and our church.

We lived and he lived over here.

And here's a icon of him, and this is what he looked like and things like that.

So we always tied it back to Saint Nicholas.

And there are some people that don't want to bring their kids up in that.

And that's fine with Santa Claus.

And that's fine.

If you can do that, do it.

But we chose, knowing the environment, our kids would grow up in a school.

We chose to highlight both whose people talk about, but who he really is.

That's the kind of way with our children.

That's very encouraging, Father, because I have a lot of very fond memories of Christmas growing up as a kid with my family.

And there's a lot of things about, I mean, as everyone knows on the show, I grew up a Roman Catholic, so my family is Christian, and we did have the understanding of who Saint Nicholas was, but it was still kind of the Western Santa Claus.

But there are a lot of things about what the Western Christmas is I enjoyed as a kid, and who wouldn't as a kid.

I mean, Christmas is a beautiful season, but it's really hopeful.

At least it is to me to know, especially before when you'd mentioned things like the stockings from the actual life of Saint Nicholas there.

There are true things about what we do that aren't just commercial, that they're actually tied to who Saint Nicholas actually was, and that there is a way to make that connection so that it's not completely devoid of truth or the joy that a lot of people like me would associate with that from when they were kids.

I saw a picture once of a house, the interior of a house with a big Christmas tree and there were decorations all over and it meme on Facebook and it said something like at Christmas time your house should look like joy threw up or something like that.

And I think Christmas is this time where kids can make wonderful memories of how joyful this time was.

But I think Christian parents have to be very diligent in understanding that there are limits to what we can do.

I mean, this is not party time for us.

This is a time for fasting.

And when the rest of the world on December 26th is ready to take everything down, we've only begun to start our non fasting party period.

We fast, fast, fast, prepare, prepare, prepare.

And then when December 25th comes, we're partying with the exception of January 5th, we're partying from December 25th to January 7th.

So in fact, some people even take it longer than that, but we enjoy that time of of non fasting from Christmas on.

It's a time of great celebration.

The Lord has come into the world, has been incarnated and come into the world, has come in the flesh as one of us, as a baby.

We celebrate that.

But again, we're spending Advent, as the West likes to call it, We're spending what we call the nativity fest preparing and we don't go overboard with that.

Decorate, yes.

Put a Christmas tree up.

Yes, by the way, most of us like me, if you're old enough to remember, you 2 guys are probably not old enough to remember the Christmas tree in the past, and I'm talking maybe 50 years ago, 60 years ago, did not go up until the night before Christmas.

And some of you listening to this, if you're over 50 or over 60, you might remember that the Christmas tree never went up until the night before Christmas because it was the Christmas tree, not the Advent tree.

It didn't go up all of December or going back to Thanksgiving or whatever.

That's just the way things were.

But they're not that way anymore.

They've evolved.

And so now we put the tree up early, we put decorations up early.

Fine, do that.

But don't get caught up in the worldly spirit of Christmas, where we're going to party, party, party.

And then we've been party, party, partying so much by the time Christmas comes, we're exhausted and we we don't feel like doing anything more.

And this really doesn't feel special because we've been partying all the time anyway.

What is there to look forward to?

And in the morning we get up and we RIP our presents open.

We don't go to church anymore.

And then everything feels sort of spiritually empty by about dinner time on Christmas Day.

Well, is there any wonder you've taken the joy out of it by bringing the world?

Into it.

Instead of letting the church be the focus of this period of time, we've let the world be the focus.

And that's why we're disappointed and feel empty come December 26th.

Absolutely.

And it's even present in the Coca-Cola eyes.

Christmas music that's played everywhere, starting from right around Halloween, right?

Every store you go into, every restaurant, and none of it is actual Christian music.

It's all this secular stuff that is vaguely Christmas esque and then shows how the season is leading up to.

It's like a whole big party.

And by the end of it, I mean all is God.

Well, there are two types of Christmas music.

There is the stuff that does mention Jesus Christ and his birth.

Come All Ye Faithful and or come O Come Emmanuel.

And there is some good.

I love that stuff.

I love that Christian music.

Is it western?

Yes.

But does it glorify Christ?

Yes it does.

Now the other form of Christian music is the commercialized Hollywood eyes.

I don't know how what I even to call it that last Christmas I gave you my heart and the the very next day you tore it apart or whatever that song by George Michael is that kind of stuff.

I actually have to say I hate that kind of music.

If it's not glorifying Christ, you can't call it Christmas music.

And I know I'm going to be excoriated for saying this.

I'm glad my wife isn't watching this, but It's a Wonderful Life is not a Christmas movie.

White Christmas is not a Christmas movie.

If it doesn't mention Jesus Christ or the reason for December 25th, it's not a Christmas movie.

It may be set during Christmas, it may mention Christmas, it may make everything about Christmas whether it's snows or not.

But without sounding anti-Semitic, just remember that some of the most popular Christmas music out there was written by Jewish songwriters.

Just keep that in mind.

Pretty much exclusively.

Very extensively.

And that's not to say it's not not the word like a catchy.

The fact of the matter is none of it is about Jesus Christ.

And the same problem with Easter and and all that garbage with Bunny rabbits and that crap.

But Christmas is a little more insidious.

And the way in which the world tries to disassociate what we celebrate that made the feast from what they want it to be, to commercialize it, to commercialize if they have to do what they've done, to make money off if they have to do what they've done.

Because think about what America would be like if we were all Orthodox.

A lot of this stuff would not be going on because we're fasting and all of that kind of stuff.

I mean, America corporate would be going crazy trying to figure out how to compromise the incarnation.

And they've done it in the Western form, but they haven't done it to us yet.

They're trying, but they have to us yet.

Absolutely.

It would have to be Black Friday on the 26th I guess.

Isn't it like Boxing Day or something somewhere?

Boxing Day is the day after Christmas in Canada and England and Australia.

There you go.

Ultimately, turn Boxing Day into into Black Friday.

That's what the American corporate would do do.

You know why Boxing Day is called Boxing Day?

No.

So when you box up all the stuff you got from Christmas, it doesn't fit or you don't want and you take it back.

Really.

The more you know, and to that point though, that's the whole idea.

People have that confusion here in the West.

The 12 days of Christmas, right, is, oh, it's the 12 days before.

No, it's the 12 days succeeding that till January 7th, as Father said.

By the way, the 12 days of Christmas, that's not our thing either, because the 12 days goes from January 25th, the January 6th, right?

But January 5th for us is a strict fast day, strict fast day.

So we don't party that day, but we do party from the 25th to January 4th and then the 6th and the 7th are great, great feast days for us.

That's fair.

So.

To that, living in this hyper capitalist corporate world here in the West, from your vantage point as a priest, and you were talking about the idea of not approaching the season in this super jubilant way.

You think while there is joy to be had, it still needs to be subordinate to the fact that we're in the fast still.

What are some of the biggest spiritual dangers we see on how people are approaching money and gifts and everything during the nativity season?

People buy too much.

I think a lot of people, out of guilt, buy their kids too much.

They buy people they love stuff that they don't need out of the sense that they have to.

When most people, I believe, because I've heard this for many decades now from far too many to think otherwise, most people simply want their family to be together.

They want to be with family, they want to be with friends, they want to get together over a meal.

They want to be able to just be together, love one another, relax and and not worry about.

Everybody complaints about the materialism during Christmas, but everybody is caught up in the materialism of Christmas because they think they have to be, because they think that's how they show their love for another person by the value of what they give them.

So I do believe that we are very much caught up in the material aspect of Christmas, Christmas to a point which doesn't provide anything for us.

A long time ago, children got one or two presents during Christmas.

Now some people can do expensive studies paid for by the government that says, well that's because way back when the amount of money a man made was not enough to buy a lot of gifts.

Well, that doesn't then make any sense either because if you have more money, that means you have to buy more gifts.

I'm not buying that for a second.

But the materialism aspect, whether it be in all the food we indulge in, all the food and drink we indulge in, or the simple materialism of what we buy people is really to a point where it's giving without a heart.

Someone gets mad at someone, they're not going to buy them a Christmas present that year, or I'm just not going to buy this person presents anymore because we're getting older.

And what, you're just going to stop giving to one another?

OK, that that's fine.

But again, the whole point of this season is at odds with what the church says the season is for.

It's all about preparation and all about thinking of the other.

Thinking of an other and doing for them.

Not doing for everybody just because I like them.

To tie in a little what you mentioned before, Father, about feeling compelled to give, I've actually compared the way that the giving takes place in the West to like a Mexican standoff where everybody's giving and you're either going to be in it or you're not.

And if you're not the one that's going to give to, then you're a bad guy.

I think to get out of the standoff, there's got to be discussion and planning among families and friends to say, all right, this year are we doing one gift per person or what are we doing?

Everybody's got to be on the same page.

And so and so don't buy $500 or whatever worth of stuff for Jimmy.

We're not doing that.

And it's got to be understood.

That way you can focus more on that community and being together and don't worry so much about who's giving or getting what.

Yeah, that very true.

And I agree with that because I think large families should do that.

I think they should, instead of having to worry about buying for 10 people, just say look, let's do a secret or let's do something where we agree to this, that or the other thing.

Do something like that.

Because most people don't want to admit that the pressure of having to go out and shop is more than they can bear.

For a lot of people it is more than they can bear, more than they want to bear and it's very uncomfortable and it's very guilt based and all of that kind of stuff.

Doing things like what you suggest are very good ideas.

I know a guy that give you an example, went to his wife and said, honey, we've been married a long time and when I was younger and I wanted to show you my love, I bought you nice jewelry.

Yes, honey, that was very sweet.

Well, honey, now that we're older, I know that you don't have a chance to wear a lot of a jewelry I did buy you.

So is it OK with you if I back off worrying about buying you jewelry and instead we do things that help us build memories?

And he said he saw his wife kind of just, he saw in her eyes that the way they lit up, that he had hit a nerve of some kind.

And that's what they do now.

They build memories.

That's beautiful.

They take the old trips.

They do something that builds a memory.

That's their big thing right now.

I think those are the kind of things a lot of people should focus more on building memories during this time, which is very special to begin with.

And a lot of people remember things during certain Christmases.

That's something you have to work out with your own family and loved ones.

But it is a smart way to go.

I think what John was talking about a moment ago.

And Mike, if you want to touch a little bit on just the stress and anxiety that can be associated with that kind of pressure when you don't work that out ahead of time and you don't know is this enough for so?

And so like, what if they give more and I look like I'm being cheap or something like that?

It's a lot of pressure on people.

I'm sure that's horrible for your health, but.

Yeah.

I mean, we've touched quite a few times on the danger of stress and how a chronic stress response that fight or flight is horrible on both your mental health, but your physical health and your spiritual health.

And that's something more that talk more too, but it's just from a.

Basic physiological level, the raid, the surges and your cortisol, your adrenaline, it's going to take a toll on you.

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But yeah, Father, if you want to expand on the spiritual aspect of that.

Well, I think the spiritual aspect kind of unfortunately speaks for itself.

This time becomes very debilitating.

You know that Christmas is one of the loneliest times of the year.

And here's another thing that we can do.

Instead of going out and buying gifts for people we feel guilty about not spending more time with, go spend more time with them.

My goodness, you take someone you haven't seen out for dinner, go out and see a movie.

Go out and go to a museum.

Do something with them to build a memory.

You don't need to buy people anything.

Just go spend time with them, that's all you need to do.

It sounds like a lot.

Oh my time is so valuable.

No it's not.

Come on, stop being feeling self important and bragging about it.

Go to someone you haven't spent time with that you should have or should be and take them out and do something with them.

That's all.

It doesn't take much.

Doesn't it cost a lot of money to go to a museum or go to a park?

Something like that?

It doesn't take much but build memories with your friends.

Don't give them things that they're going to put on a shelf.

And in 1020 years worry about downsizing their house and having to clean out all the garbage they have that they really don't have any use for and never did.

And told you they like the gift you gave them when really they were looking at it going one more thing got a dust.

That's very much, my mom is going through that right now as she's trying to downsize and everything in older years and she's very much feeling the pressure of that.

So no, I definitely understand that.

So the take home message is spend time with your family, spend time with your friends, spend time with the homeless.

If you can, there's a lot of ways to do that last part, and it doesn't necessarily mean sitting down next to someone on a sidewalk in New York City.

There's a lot of ways you can spend time with people who are, as the world likes to say, less fortunate.

But just notice something about that phrase.

We only hear it during Christmas time.

You know, What about the rest of the year?

We give during this time because everybody calls it the season of giving.

The world wants it to be a season of giving because how do you give?

You go buy something and you give it.

But it's about more than that.

It's about much more than that.

You know, we're celebrating a God who broke through time and space to spend his time with us.

So if he could break into his own creation, can't we break into ours?

Or breakthrough and out of our own creation and spends money with people who need us.

Absolutely.

That's wonderful.

So to that point of making things regular, not just seasonal, how would you counsel someone who's never really practice Almsgiving?

What's the starter pack for?

How do you actually build almsgiving into their life, not just a December burst?

OK, Well, that's a very good question.

I think it depends.

But I think that when I said earlier, some people just like to give and there's no personal connection, OK, with some people that's unavoidable.

But you can become a part of something that is collectively gathering money, alms and giving it to the less fortunate.

And here in America, for the Orthodox Christian listening to this podcast, they're focused North America.

There's international Orthodox Christian charities, both of which especially IOCC, they have a very high navigator rating, something like 9394.

I mean, the vast majority of the money that you give to them, 9490390496 cents, whatever it is, gets to the person the organization eventually gives the money to.

And this money could be local, which is what Focus North America does, or could be international, which is what IOCC, International Orthodox Christian Charities does.

There are other ways of doing this.

There's the Toys for Tots campaign.

Our Paris is going through that now.

Very interestingly, last Sunday, a little boy in church, 4 years old, wanted to take something out of our Toys for Tots box.

And his dad had to explain to him, no, no, no, there are children who don't have toys.

And the little boy looked at his dad like he didn't understand how there could be children that don't have toys.

And the dad said to him, you know how you have a lot of toys?

Yeah, well, there's some children that don't have toys.

And little boy had taken something out-of-the-box and he looked at it.

His father didn't have to say anything more.

He put it back in the box, and I think Toys for Tots is a wonderful thing to do.

Being involved in the distribution of those toys is a wonderful thing to get involved in.

Inevitably, a lot of people in our parish know people who are in need, and if the parish can work more toward identifying that need and collectively through the parish do something about it, that's a wonderful thing.

But I think there's a lot of ways one can do that.

I mentioned the giving aspects.

Focus North America, IOCC, Toys for Tots.

Go talk to your priest, talk to him and say, Father, what can I do to help?

What can I do to help another person?

Do we know of any need in our parish?

Is there some need outside of our parish that you're aware of?

What can I do to help?

It's not hard, just start someplace.

It's beautiful and I know Bob and Jonathan and John are going to be too humble to do so to ask, but I know that Saint John the Theologian is looking for some funding to help finish their building project.

So I'm going to put the link down below.

Make sure you head out over there if you can help them move forward on their growth because they are experienced some great growth and definitely consider that as part of your alms as.

Well, thank you very much, Doctor Michael.

I appreciate that very much.

Our attendance with Divine Services is up 50% from 5 years ago, from six years ago.

Praise God.

In the last, in the previous three years of 24/23/22, we brought about 12 or 13 people into the Church over that three-year period.

We have 11 catechumens right now, and we're going to be ready to enroll about 8 more between now and the end of January.

Looking at having around 20 catechumens by the time Lent starts next year.

That's beautiful.

I love it here.

So we that the growth is there and therefore our building project needs to catch up to some of these things.

And we're right now under kind of the active encouragement of the local municipality to do some things with providing some safety railing on our handicap ramps and elsewhere.

And so I, I appreciate any help that anybody watching this would be willing and able to give us.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

Like I said, I'll definitely have it down the show notes, so make sure you head on over.

I've already been plugging St.

John of Chicago the whole talk, although we try to be a little bit capitalist about it, right as the corporate capitalist season episode we're talking about.

We have a our choir put out a album and so they've all those funds for that go directly to our building fund.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

So we've had that in the show notes the entire time, but I'll make sure starting going forward from here, that Saint John theologian gets in there too.

So thank.

You very.

Much, of course.

So in talking about giving, we mentioned a little bit earlier on when we talked about the life of Saint Nicholas and how he was giving those bags of gold in secret to the the family in need.

So how do we navigate the difference between when giving should be hidden and when, if at all, it may be appropriate that it's visible such that it encourage others to give, and avoiding pride in doing so?

Very good question.

I think there's something to what I would call Christian peer pressure within parish life, within church life, where when you start to do something and people think it's hard to do, but when people start doing it, you begin to point to the, the thermometer and say, look, it's going up.

And, and I'll give you a practical example.

In our own church, we've recently done a fundraiser, which we collected money to, to put in a parking lot.

Parking lots, as we learned, are not cheap.

And originally, this was going to cost us over $100,000.

And we were able to do a portion of it.

To make a Long story short, we didn't have to raise 100.

We had to raise about 85.

And when we started this, everybody kind of looked at one another and said #1 we've never raised this much money before #2 I don't think we're going to be able to raise this much money #3 who's going to give blah, blah, blah.

So there were there were objections to this kind of thing.

As people started to give and as the thermometer started to raise, it got to a point where at some point someone looked at that and said, you know what?

I didn't think we'd ever get to this.

But now that we got to this, I'm going to put in a big donation.

So one big donor did come by and it put us way over, way over $100,000 to the point where we actually met our goal of $123,500.

Nobody thought we'd get there.

Nobody thought we'd get there this fast.

We collected all the money way before Thanksgiving, but we did.

And then ever since we announced that we hit and surpassed our goal, more money has been coming in because now there are some people that don't want to have their names left off of whatever list we're going to keep track of, of who gave.

And so this, this kind of thing, a crowd attracts a crowd.

Money attracts money that there are advantages for people to see that collectively we are raising money and hey, if you haven't given yet, be a part of this.

This is really good and it's going toward good things and, and, and things like that.

I think the kind of giving that the Lord was talking about when he said don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing is he didn't want people going around going, OK, is everybody watching me?

Well, look, see, I got some money here and and I'm going to give it to this thing over here this good 'cause, right?

Am IA good guy.

I'm good, right?

I'm a good guy.

I'm a good Christian, OK, here it is on Markdown that I gave this money to them.

OK.

I think that's the time that the Lord wants us to heed is warning not to let the right hand know what the left hand is doing.

We don't go around trumpeting what we do.

We don't go around making a big deal of it.

We don't go around publicizing it.

And I think that's the part that we have to be very careful of it.

It's not done ostentatiously.

Not done with fanfare, the Lord said.

Father, who sees you doing this in secret will reward you openly.

So a lot of it has to do with where's the ego in all of this?

Is the ego seeking to be satisfied?

Is the ego seeking to be recognized?

Wrong approach.

Wrong approach.

Oh, that's beautiful.

So we kind of touched a little practical before, but if we could see just one concrete change and how Orthodox Christians approach both Saint Nicholas Day and the Nativity season, what would it be?

Well, one concrete change is regarding Saint Nicholas.

Go to the services Friday night and Saturday morning.

This year, the fact that the liturgy Saturday morning means nobody has any reason not to be there.

No one can say I have work, even though people will take off to go see a ball game or some stupid thing like that, or to go golfing.

But it's on Saturday morning.

Bring your kids, bring them Friday night, bring them Saturday morning.

Read to them about Saint Nicholas.

Make sure they understand.

Put the shoes out and next to their bed or in front of the the door to their room or whatever it happens to be.

And make sure you fill them.

Parents, they're going to wake up in the morning and want to see something there.

And then keep doing traditions like that year after year as your kids grow up like mine did.

They get used to it and it means something to them and they have this special connection to the Saint.

It may be over the years, as you do this with many other Saints with whom there are special traditions and things like that, they begin to relate to and love countless numbers of Saints whom they come to see as their friends in heaven, talking to God about them, talking to God about helping them or helping mommy and daddy or whatever you know, you bring them up as.

So go to the services, honor the Saints.

This year on The Saturdays of December, there's a number of Saints being honored, the second Saturday, December 13th, St.

Herman of Alaska, the third Saturday of December, Saint Ignatius and Saint John of Cronstadt.

The 4th Saturday happens to be this year, Saint Stephen the Proto Martyr.

So there's a lot of ways this month of December alone where we can honor a great number of Saints and teach our children to honor them as well and love them.

So that that's one thing I would say honor Saint Nicholas by by going to the services.

Second thing is very practically, don't get caught up in what the world defines this period of time to be and demands you do what they say.

Honor the fast, go to the services, keep keep the fast, honor the fast, go to the services and and just prepare, prepare, prepare and come December 25th party hearty joy to the world.

The Lord has come.

Amen.

That was.

Beautiful.

Do I give me last questions there?

Yet I just, I think this is a great conversation.

I think a lot of this is going to be really helpful for people that are navigating the nativity season in the West and to have a more robust and fulfilling experience of both the fast and the coming feast.

So I thank you, Father, for having this conversation with us.

I think it's been very helpful.

Thank you very much for inviting me.

And I just want to say one more thing again, folks, don't listen to the world.

Listen to Christ, listen to the church.

Do what the Church has always taught us to do, and you will find yourself much more fulfilled, much happier, much more joyful by the time the Christmas feast actually comes.

Amen.

That was wonderful.

So where can everybody find you, Father?

Where can they find me?

Yeah, well, if you're ever out on Long Island, come to Saint John the Theologian Orthodox Church.

But in the meantime, I have a podcast called The Transfigured Life.

Please look me up there on YouTube.

The Transfigured Life.

We've got 53 or videos out now with over 13,000 subscribers, but more importantly almost 3/4 of 1,000,000 views on those episodes that look some of them up there are very topical and I'm sure you'll find some that speak directly to you.

And by the way, during this Christmas season, we did a video, we did an episode very early on about the dating of Christmas.

You know, a lot of people nowadays like to claim that Christmas is based on a lot of other Pagan nonsense and things like that and it's not.

So go look up the episode on the transfigured life about was Jesus born on December 25th.

I think you'll enjoy it.

Very pertinent to this time of the year.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

SO thank you again for coming on.

Absolutely.

So for everybody listening out there, just to underline a few things we heard today, one, St.

Nicholas is not a mascot.

He was a.

Bishop, and he is a healer whose hidden generosity literally saved lives.

Two almsgiving is not a seasonal PR move.

It is absolutely medicine, both for the poor, for our own hearts, and for our parishes.

And three, most of us don't need that grand gesture.

We need a first step, a conversation with our priest, a quiet envelope, a meal shared or bill quietly paid.

So if today stirred something and you don't let it stay in the realm of nice ideas before Saint Nicholas Day or before Nativity, choose at least one act of concrete almsgiving.

And do it ideally secretly if you can.

Absolutely.

And if this episode has helped you, please share it with someone in your parish or in your life.

Maybe it could be a priest, or your parish council, or maybe even that friend who's trying to figure out how to do the whole Saint Nicholas thing with their kids without just adding in more plastic garbage to the house.

Absolutely.

So we're truly thankful to follow Jonathan for being with us and for reminding us the church's economy is mercy, not marketing.

But before we sign off, we want to quickly look at what's coming next week.

We're shifting gears from Saint Nicholas and the medicine of alms giving to the future of food.

And our friend Nick Hillman is is back with us to talk about fake meats, food 2 point O and ultra engineered food products that GMOs and the push to redesign creation in a lab and how all that collides with the fasting seasons with stewardship and actually feeding real human bodies in the church.

So we also want to wish a blessed names day to our good friend Nick there.

But the working title is Beyond Vegan Food, 2 Point O and Technocratic Fasting.

And yes, we're going to talk about what it means to keep the fast without handing your body and soul over to the lab coat priesthood.

Absolutely, Mike.

And I'm going to take the opportunity as well to say happy and blessed name day to my godson, whose patron is also Saint Nicholas.

So happy name day to you, Nick.

Beautiful.

So if you've ever wondered, is this pea protein Patty in the freezer section actually affecting my spiritual life, that's going to be the episode you don't want to miss.

Absolutely.

So hit subscribe, send to a friend, and if you got questions for us or for Nick about fasting, fake meats or the future of food, drop them in the comments or send us a voice message over on Speak Pipe or Telegram and maybe we'll even pull them into the conversation.

But until then, may St.

Nicholas teach us how to give, may Christ heal our hearts through mercy, and may the Nativity fast be full of quiet, hidden generosity.

Absolutely.

Thank you all so much for listening, and we'll see you next time on the Orthodox Health Podcast.

And as always, God Bless is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all of your other favorite listening locations.

And you can also find us available on YouTube at Doctor Michael Christian Rumble at Orthodox Health and Sub SAC at Orthodox Health podcast.

You can also follow us on social media for more insights, discussions, and behind the scenes content.

Connect with us on Instagram at Orthodox Health or in our Telegram group at Orthodox Health Podcast and join the conversation.

We'd love to hear your thoughts, answer your questions, and continue building this community together.

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Until then, stay strong in faith, take care of your temple, and keep Christ the center of your health journey.

God bless.

The.