Glory to God! The Unfading Rose CD is OUT!!! See UnfadingRose.com for details!

 UnfadingRose.com

THE MOMENT WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR, and SO MANY OF YOU HAVE BEEN REQUESTING and ASKING ABOUT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED!  Thank you so much for your love and prayers.  Please let us know what you think of the website and if you have any questions or comments.  You can listen to a sample of the a hymn in Greek and English on the website!  Please let bookstores and other families know about this great resource... to be able to learn the hymns of the Great Feasts in our homes... and for when we attend these beautiful Divine Liturgies of the Great Feasts!  People who want more than on CD and bulk orders are able to order off our website at a discount!  Blessings to you all as we begin 2010.  

Exciting NEWS: New CD coming out with the Hymns of the Great Feasts!

Children's Byzantine Choir Unfading  Rose 

Παιδικός Χόρος  Ρόδον το Αμάραντον

Apolytikia of the Great Feasts
Coming Soon!


 We are moving forward with the publication of: Our first CD which you can listen to and learn these beautiful hymns! What so many of you have been waiting for is finally happening, to the Glory of God!   
Thank you all for you prayers for this big endeavor to finish quickly and smoothly, and always be... to the Glory of God.  Joyous Feast of the Nativity!  Christ is Born, Glorify Him!  +

About the Byzantine children's choir:

Unfading Rose

Unfading Rose ~ Three of our girls recorded the CD with three daughters of our dear friends, and their mother, who directs and sings with them.  Their parents are extremely blessed with the knowledge of and ability to chant!  They are from Greece, and learned Byzantine Music/Chanting in our Homeland... where it originated!  Our girls have been learning hymns for many years, and have been blessed to study byzantine music and chanting with various seminarians at Holy Cross... who we are very thankful for!  
Thank you especially to Nektarios and Michael Razouk!  
      Each time many of you would hear the hymns... on our phone msg. or elsewhere...  you have all been so encouraging and yearning to learn these beautiful hymns!  It has finally happened!! Our two families were so blessed to find one another... to combine the gifts which our children have been blessed with, and God-willing, to bless each one of you in this journey of our precious Orthodox Faith..

This recording represents the end result of an endeavor of love, from our two families, to your family, to make available the most common hymns from our Church year to families in the United States and Greece. As parents we discovered that our children take into their hearts, and learn very quickly, whatever music they hear. Exposing our children to the hymns of the Church is the best way to write these words on the tablets of our children’s hearts and engage our children in a life of prayer. As our children learned the hymns of the church in our home, they felt increasingly at home in the Church.  This first CD of Unfading Rose, are the Apolotikia of the Great Feasts in Greek and English!


We're are schedule for a first of the year release and CD's may be purchased through our website. Go to www.unfadingrose.com to make your order... we'll be up and running soon!
Stay tuned to find out more about the CD and about the icon of Panayia, "Unfading Rose" and how this came to be the name for our Byzantine Children's Choir... Joyous feast for the Nativity of our sweetest Jesus... who was born in such a lowly, humble manger.  May we always follow His example, and always try to create a place befitting for this lowly, humble  King - in the manger of our souls.  
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!



Unfading Rose

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!  ;)

Pride

In the book The Path to Confession, it says that Pride is loathsome and disgusting.  "Pride is disgusting in adults, bet it is equally unpleasent in those who are younger." Just like a thundercloud hides the sun so that we can't see it, spiritual light and warmth are hidden by Pride. "A proud person dosen't see the Lord." He will not be let in the gate of Heaven. You can easily see the person who has the disease of Pride. Until recently, most of us have thought that "I" was the first letter of the Alphabet, like "I want this," - "No I don't." Every single person struggles with that, but we have try to not be prideful, and learn to be humble.~ alexandra 

Kyranna and Alexandra Star as Bet and Bitsy in Oliver!

May 29, 10, 31st, 2008 ~ Kyranna and Alexandra stared in the Musical, Oliver, by Charles Dickens!!  They did a fantastic job, and just as people flew in from different parts of the U.S. for Kassiani's debut, we were also blessed with visitors from as far as Chicago, IL  for this weekends performances!! (Thank you Thea Laura, for another exciting visit/love/help/photagraphing/caring/exciting visit!)  The girls sang and acted wonderfully and it was a FANTASTIC performance!  This is the wonderful group PALS, which our oldest 3 girls have been a part of and are so enjoying.  Each week, they receive teaching in Singing, Acting, and Dancing.  It is a wonderful program.  Here are some photos from this fantastic performance of OLIVER!!!  Even the boys got to see the girls performances and sang along with many of the songs!  Alexios was peaceful throughout all of the Charlotte's Web and Oliver Performances~ whew!  What a blessing!!   Congratulations Kyranna and Alexandra, on all your hard work, and on such outstanding performances.   I was also in Oliver, when I was in 6th grade, so this brought back MANY wonderful memories for me!  

Alexandra Turns 12 Today!!!

Our dear Alexandra, you are TWELVE years old today!   "For a perfect, holy, peaceful, and sinless day, we pray to the Lord."  This is a quote/one of the petitions from our Divine Liturgy that you and I love so much.  I remember when you were little... you said to me one day, "oh mommy, it is so hard to have a perfect, holy, peaceful and sinless day!"  I could hardly believeyou said that because I had thought that thought, EXACTLY, so many times!!!  I told you that this petition is what HEAVEN will be like...if we make it there, God-willing, someday!!  One big ~ PERFECT, HOLY, PEACEFUL, and SINLESS day ~ that goes on FOREVER!!!  And, I told you that this is, with the Grace of God, and the help of our precious Lord, and His Holy Mother the Panayia, and all the saints, what we can strive for every day of our lives!!  Since that day, when we  had that talk, every single Litrugy we have been to, you and I have crossed ourselves when we hear that beautiful petition, each time, and made our special eye contact.  It's our special prayer for each day, on this blessed journey of life, together!!!  How can we begin to express our love for you? We will always remember you growing in my womb, so soon after your sister Kyranna was born… we could hardly wait for baby #2 to be born, if the Lord would give us another… which He so graciously did. You have been such a JOY for 12 years, and you have blessed us and many others so very much.  I have so much I want to write to you,  about you, and my/our love for you...  I want to write what your wonderful creative writing teacher wrote about you...(i forgot that paper in Boston, so when we return i will write her blessed words to you which so describe how you are!)

Alexandra, my Xandri, I love it when we wake up in the morning and you come in to us with your HUGE smile and those cheeks, and your runway :) and we cuddle much of the time before we start our day.  I love spending my days with you and helping you to learn and grow.  You are becoming such a beautiful child of God. +  You are like a diamond, which becomes more beautiful with time!!  You always have such an open heart to learn and grow in the areas you need to, and you have grown SO much.  It is so beautiful how some of the things you are working on, are the same things that I am, as well... and we get to learn and grow together.  I know that one of the reasons God gave you to me, is so I could learn much wisdom and blessings- which seems to be meant for you and given to you, but then it ends up being EXACTLY what my heart and soul needed!!  And  I didn't have a Spiritual Father when I w

as your age, and for many years when I needed to hear much wisdom and now I am blessed to do it through you and my life is being sketched and shaped in such a beautiful new way because of 

YOU!!  Thank you for this HUGE gift you have given to me.   I always remember and think about your love for me, and

 how even when I have fallen as a mother, you are so very loving and you seem

 to only remember the good and the love and the big effort you know I am making and how much I want to do everything like the Panayia does.  And you love me so much, I feel unworthy of this kind of love.  You have been so patient and loving with me, you have taught me to do more of the

 same with you and with all of your dear siblings.  You are my curly hair buddy.  I love it when we sit and  read something special together, like Father Arsenios... and we have both been so blessed

 at the times we decided to take a break and read or pray...  let's always remind one another to take these needed breaks!  "But you, when you pray, enter into your closet and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret shall reward you." Matthew 6:6     You have also blessed us so much with the talent the Lord has given you.  "For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." ~from the Parables of the Talents - Matthew 25:29  For many years now, our home has become a little monastery, a church of the home, and we are so very blessed to have so many

children fill our home, our lives, our hearts and our prayers ~ each day!  When we pray together and you and your sisters chant, it is such a great blessing to all of us.  You have also shared this gift you've been given with many, as on the day of Alexios' baptism here!  When you play the piano, my whole heart and body start to sing and it brings me so much joy, and takes me back to my house growing up, and i think so much of all of us playing the piano!  And here you are in your acting and singing though PALS!  Daddy and I can't express how much we've loved watching you learn, grow and share your talents with so many!  

Our New Baby + Alexios Stavros

+ Our latest Miracle/ Baby Alexios + Sleeping Peacefully. What ag HUGE blessing. We all fall more in love with him EVERY DAY! +GLory to God! Chirst is Risen! +