Day 2+ Sharing, from me-

+ + + Hello all!  November 21  + + + Joyous Feast for the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple!      We had a glorious feast  for the Panayia today at Holy Cross!  I wish every one of you could have been with us.  It is also my dear hubby's birthday... so we were celebrating double! ;)  There was an icon of the Presentation that was very beautiful and had flowers all around it, though the one below is actually the icon from two year's ago at Holy Cross...   I remember this icon like I was at this Liturgy one day ago, not one or two years ago~ do you see how the colors of the flowers they used, so AMAZINGLY bring out the colors in the icon?  It brought us to tears... and our hearts to Paradise.  There is something so beautiful, so unexplainable in words that happens, by the grace of God, when we adorn... (with flowers,our time, our prayers, with our tiredness, with love...)...when we adorn our sweet Lord, His Holy Mother, and the blessed Saints/Angels of our Holy Faith!!  

I want to encourage those of you whose churches do not decorate icons for the Great Feasts, or for the Divine Liturgies when we celebrate the lives of the Saints throughout the year, to think about doing so!  As so many things about our holy faith bless us...  the icons, the beautiful chanting/singing, the voice of the priest... his prayers, petitions, and sermons.... the icons, the incense, the candles...  when a special icon is adorned, decorated...  it will bless your soul, the moment you step foot in the church.  Somehow, it draws our hearts and souls even more into the event we are celebrating or the life of the Saint who we are remembering that very day.  I feel like I am in Paradise, right next to them, and they are also right here by our sides!  The young women at Holy Cross Seminary have made an imprint on our hearts forever.  They take such time, tenderness, care and prayer, as they decorate, and our children have been so blessed to help them on certain feasts and learn a bit about this beautiful talent, and self-less giving which they do here... EVERY WEEK, feast after feast, saint after saint... and each time we walk into church and there is an icon decorated, it is as beautiful or more ~ than the one before.  We have started to try to decorate the icons in our home... especially for our own Saints and the Great Feasts!  Even if we do not have time to decorate them all around... we can pick flowers/roses/greenery from our gardens, and garnish the icon in front of it- where it sits, or floating in a glass of water that sits in front of the special icon that draws our mind, heart, and thoughts to that Saint or event all throughout the day! 

I was thinking the other day as I stared from the inside of my heart into one of these beautifully decorated icons... that we ought to take this same kind of time, to  endure and decorate our faith... our patience...  our prayers... the hearts of our children... our homes... our challenges... our filoxenia(hospitality for others)...  our forgiveness... our humility...the list goes on and on.  Our priest, Father Peter, was speaking today about how the Panayia at such a young age of 3 years old, was presented to the Temple... and how she is also a Temple, and was a Temple for Christ, as she bore him in her womb(the very event we are all preparing to celebrate).  As we prepare, what a blessing to take time, throughout these 40 days... a bit more -away from the world... to truly prepare a place, a Temple, in us, which would be fit for this most humble, lowly King, who was born in a manger...   "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?  If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple." 1 Cor 3:16-17(NIV)   May we remember this each day of this joyous period of the Nativity fast, and though it may be difficult in the world we live in... with all the ways it is seeking to pull us, our children... and perhaps God-forbid to destroy us... may we take time to flee those things! (be it certain kinds of music, tv, news, food... busy-ness...our pride...laziness...gluttony...) Thank God for our Holy Faith, which gives us these 40 day periods, fasting days, etc... to prepare our bodies to truly become a beautiful, fitting place for this sweet baby Jesus and to truly become "a Temple of the Holy Spirit."  May we all be inspired by the Virgin Mary, who at the age of three, being led by her guardian angel... ran up the steps of the Temple, and may we RUN to the Panagia, to Christ, to prayer, to our icon corners, to hug our children, to our prayer ropes/the Jesus Prayer... all instead of reacting or responding too quickly... before and after all we do, especially during this period as we prepare for the nativity, and then may this kind of running be a part of our innermost being.  Yesterday,  Konstantina wrote/shared so beautifully and humbly from her heart!  Many of you emailed me how blessed you were by her!  I join all of you in thanking her... and encourage you to read and re-read her precious words... about exactly what i have been sharing about, and becoming Saints!  We all truly basked in the  grace that was OVERFLOWING in her... after she had been to that vigil, venerated St. Gregory Palamas'  holy RELICS... Philip and i read her beautiful sharing last night...we were so blessed-i was brought to tears, to Paradise...had chills everywhere... 

+I pray that the Lord and His Most Holy Mother the Virgin Mary, whose entrance into the Temple we celebrated today, will have mercy on you and keep you and all of your beautiful families under their Holy Protection! + Joyous Feast! ~with so much love in +Christ, georgia 

i will try to download the tracks of the Hymn for this Great Feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple... in Greek and in English.  If anyone reads this who has a blog w/ blogspot and you can give me any advice on this, i would GREATLY appreciate it!  ;)