Kyklos Greek Cafe presents, "Wisdom of the Saints"

Before my last visit to Saint Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery in Florence, Arizona, I began reading this book, on Saint Nektarios of Pentopolis.



I have been to the monastery several times but it never registered to me before that the main church is named after St. Anthony and St. Nektarios.

This trip was a big deal for me in many ways, one of which is that I made a connection with the Saint.

At the beginning of his work career in Constantinople when he was yet very young, (he was born in 1846 and reposed in the Lord in 1920), he wished to serve the Lord in his work for his cruel boss where he packed tobacco and sent it in boxes. He came up with a brainstorm wherein,

"He thought of a way that he could serve the Lord and be able to spread the treasure of the Orthodox faith to the people, despite his lack of time. In the bundle he carried with his worldly possessions, he had a flat notebook in which he had written various verses from the Bible and the writings of the Holy Fathers. His idea was that he would sort out the most impressive verses from the notebook and then write them on the wrappings of the boxes in which he placed the tobacco."

About a month or so ago, I remembered this story from the Saint's life and thought it would be worthy of us at our restaurant, Kyklos Greek Cafe, to in a similar manner spread the Orthodox Faith. We did not however, think it the best way to do this from giving out Bible verses but instead determined to put out sayings of the Saints.

We also did not think it wise to include sayings that mention the name of our Lord feeling that doing so would automatically turn off a lot of people without them perhaps examining the uniqueness of the Orthodox Faith.

Our hope is that when we place these cards with each order that the client might be interested enough to look up the Saint quoted on the card online and be drawn into our most Holy Faith. It has been neat reflecting on what effect these cards have as many people mention now they look forward to them. They are also counter to Panda Express "Fortune Cookies" which build up the customers' egos and actually, in some of the cards we give out are rebukes to the selfishness which afflicts modern man.

At the bottom of each receipt we quote Father Seraphim Rose but only as "Seraphim Rose" like so, using one of the Blessed Father Seraphim Rose's favorite sayings, "It's Later Than you think":


("It's Later Than You Think" is written on the bottom of our receipts as shown here)

Below is a smattering of the sayings we now give out to each and every customer to the glory of God in the hope of guiding many towards repentance and a Life in Christ in this very limited and humble way.

I must give credit to my brother Costa who has gone online and put together all these sayings as well as the format of the cards which I think is very attractive.