To read something pious at the table is a normal thing for a monastery. Everyone sits decorously and eats—quietly, of course. Someone stands at the analogion and reads the Lives of the Saints and the writings of the Church Fathers to the whole refectory.  But to do something like that in the family would be completely impossible—at least in such a large family as mine, with small children. Let’s suppose that the older children would be interested in hearing something at the table. But even so, not for long. And we won’t even talk about the younger ones. If your one-and-a-half-year-old, who puts his potatoes onto his spoon with his hand, tries to bring the spoon up to his mouth, and then cries when they end up on the floor, do you think that there is any way in the world that he is going to let anyone at the table listen to anything? And then: who is going to read? Who is going to be deprived of eating together with the others? Who is going to make him eat up his dinner that has gotten cold, when everybody else is hurrying to get to bed on time in order to go to school or work tomorrow?

All this is unrealistic, from the realm of fantasy. Maybe when the children grow up or when you get a maid you’ll be able to do this? If it’s needed in general, of course.

Here is what St. John Chrysostom says about combining meals and education in the family. I will say right away that he is not making any comparisons with any desert-dwellers—we are talking about the most ordinary family.

“There is nothing more pleasant than Divine teaching. Listen to what the prophet says about it: How sweet to my throat are Thy words, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth (Ps. 118:103). Put this honeycomb on the evening table, so as to fill all of it with spiritual gladness.”

In the treatise On the Upbringing of Children, Chrysostom suggests that parents narrate to a child subjects of Holy Scripture “one evening at the meal,” then at the following meals “review the lessons already covered.”

The saint ends his sermon more than once with similar words: “All this, beloved, let us keep in mind, and when we have returned home, let us offer a double meal—one of food, the other, of what was heard; let the husband pass on what was said, and let the wife learn; let the children also listen, and let the household not be deprived of this instruction.  And so, so that there would be some kind of fruit both for you and for us—to us from being teachers, and to you from listening; let there be offered at your house a spiritual repast together with the bodily one.”

Likewise, “study of spiritual chant” should accompany the meal. Chrysostom calls upon the fathers to “teach their wives and children to sing such songs, especially at the table. Since the devil constructs his crafty designs mostly at times of banqueting with the help of intoxication, overeating, indecent laughter and emotional relaxation, it is especially then, and before the meal and after the meal, that one must protect oneself from him with a fence of psalms, and, having risen from the table, together with wife and children, sing holy songs to God.” The whole family takes part in the study of chant and in the very singing itself; under the father’s direction the wife and children sing, and this is an educational act for all the participants.

And so it works out that the time of meals together in the home is a time of education and a time of singing spiritual songs and of studying Holy Scripture.

There is something special about such “instruction at dinner.” It is a lesson inscribed in the lifestyle of a home, built into the life of the house. The father is the teacher at this lesson. He teaches what he himself, in turn, was taught by the Church. What is interesting is that the form of the lesson-meal allows the teaching to be conducted not “from the pulpit,” not “from above,” but as an instruction of conversation, “together,” “side by side.”

To sing prayers in chorus, all together before and after meals is easy and simple—it is just an ordinary thing in a church-centered family. But at mealtime? We’ve sat down at the table—now what? Soul-profiting conversation? How? About what? It should somehow come together all by itself. According to Chrysostom, Dad may, of course, retell what he heard in church. But more often than not we are all there together at the services, and we don’t need anything to be retold.

How then can we join a physical and spiritual meal together, according to the Saint’s precept? The association easily arises to that same monastery reading at the table. We only need to overcome a million obstacles and give it a try anyway.

But how to make reading at the table interesting and easy for my children, so that they would be eager for this reading, and not be afraid of it? The main thing, as always, was to begin. And I began to read at the table. I began with the fact that I began to read during the Great Fast. With a newborn baby in my arms I sat at the table with everyone else—the other children and Dad ate, while I read. It wasn’t difficult. The baby wouldn’t let me eat in peace anyway. After the reading I gave the baby to my husband, and I myself ate.

Then we returned to reading at table periodically. For example, on the eve of a feast we needed to tell the older children about the event that was being celebrated, but there wasn’t any time. Supper was the very time when we could tell the children something in our own words or read something to them. Little by little reading at suppertime changed from being a new and strange burden to an ordinary and eagerly-awaited event. And although the organization of such an “educational trapeza” is carried out in test mode in our family, and certainly changes in circumstances will entail new unexpected particulars, nevertheless we can already draw certain conclusions from this experiment.

Don’t read too long

You need to read just a little bit—one or two paragraphs. No matter what the reading is, even the most serious philosophical-theological treatise, the children (at least from five to eleven years old) listen quite attentively when I first begin to read. And here, the most important thing is to stop in time. If it’s a sermon—by the same St. John Chrysostom—it’s entirely sufficient for them to hear one complete thought. If it’s a narrative—the Patericon or an excerpt from the Lives of the Saints—it’s good to stop at the most interesting part, so that the children would ask you to continue reading. You can finish reading, for example, before they go to bed. Or tell the ending in your own words. In such a case not only will reading at the table turn out to be easy and interesting, but the children will perceive it as a gift. You can even read till the end, but in this case it should be a very short Life—two pages maximum.

This “short reading” has to be started just as soon as everyone has sat down at the table and to finish by the time everyone’s hunger has been satisfied and the first glasses have been drained. Exactly how much time you can spend and how much you can read is determined by experience; it depends on the age of the children and how they behave themselves.

It has to be interesting

First and foremost, the reading has to be interesting to me, myself. If it’s boring to me, the children will feel this without fail. They are very sensitive to such issues. Of course, on that particular day I may not necessarily have an overwhelming desire to read, for example, Theophan the Recluse. But if I love his works—for example, his letters—then this love will “come through” without fail while I read. It will come through and wake me up, but if I myself am not happy reading this selection, then gradually I will be sure to find a reason and excuse to stop such an experiment, and such “readings at supper” will quickly stop.

What exactly should I read?

The choice of literature for reading at the table should be determined by our goal: why do we read in general? In order to get some benefit “for the soul” at the same time that we eat. To direct our thoughts in a certain way. To learn something. To find out something new relating to the spiritual life. We read what suits us, what is close to us, just what I and my family need here and now.

We can use something already prepared. Let’s say that we like St. Ambrose of Optina’s calendar with “thoughts for every day.” In this case we can read these very thoughts at the table. It’s convenient—you don’t have select anything special: the calendar with a little bookmark is sitting in the kitchen. Or it could be the life of the saint of the day. For a feastday, we can read a special reading just for that day.

No one is forcing any framework onto us—today we may read something that was planned, while tomorrow we might read the children some thought that we came across in a book or on the Internet. This will be a reason to share with the children and my spouse something valuable that I myself learned today—a reason to discuss something important.

Reading at the table as a pedagogical method

A discussion of the reading may actually be the most important part of “reading at supper.” If we chose some reading especially for a feast day supper, it means that some thought seemed important to us, interesting and close. We can and should state it here and now at the table. The children can listen to all of it quietly, or can ask questions, or can even tell something connected with what was read, or even without any connection with it. The reading at the table is the theme set for conversation at the table.

You can read every day at suppertime. Or you can read only once a week—on Saturdays, for example, or at Sunday dinner, when the family returns home after Liturgy. The most important thing is to arrange it so that at least once a week, the whole family together joins together at the same table, so that it would be joyful—to be together, to be next to each other, so that this common table would unite people not only by good food, but also by socializing with each other. And so that this socializing would bring “spiritual gladness” and benefit to all who sit at our table.