Another Fast Begins...

AND SO TOMORROW BEGINS the Apostles Fast. I have to say that I really find comfort in the fasting periods of the year. They are reminder to me to refocus and get back on track in my relationship with Christ. Even through we do keep our morning and evening prayer times, it is easy to get so busy that you are just going through the motions to get it done. One of the many things that I'm grateful for my children for is keeping me on track. They have become accustom to the rhythm of our "domestic church" and so even if I'm feeling rushed or that we have to push on to get going, they are the reminder to take a breath and do what's important. Daily prayer to me, is like the warm up the symphony does before a great performance. If I don't get prayer time in, our day doesn't go nearly as well. For me fasting times are a time to slow down. To spend more time at the foot of our Lord. Reading His Word and meditating on His Mysteries.

To try to instill all the gifts the Church offers us in our children can be a challenge. It all begins with me or rather my husband and I. There are times it's hard to be a "good" example. It is far to easy to miss Vespers or to skip prayer times. To allow the 'under tow' of life to pull us out into a sea of chaos and lose the rhythm that the Church provides for our benefit. It is the podvig, the struggle we carry through our days. As I've shared before in previous posts, it's important to me that my children celebrate ALL the feasts of the Church; Not just Christ's birth and resurrection. In keeping all the feasts, however we need the preparation, which is what the fasts provide.

So over the next few weeks I will be sharing some snippets of our journey through this fast. I hope you'll join me and share your thoughts. Enjoy your day!

Spirit Monday...

THE HOUSE IS now quiet... and I can now organize my thoughts. Doing this blog thing does take a lot of time, but I'm enjoying it. However, trying to do it with the buzz of children during the day seems not to work for me. I can only keep so many conversations going at a time. Three chatty boys and trying to chat with you, well you should get the picture. But now the house is quiet... How I love the quiet! There are days that I think that if someone could just lock me in solitary confinement in a room full of yarn or fabric, some knitting needles or a sewing machine, that as long as I had a bathroom and meals I could be happy for a long, long time. Ha! Ha!

Today is the beginning of Spirit Week. After each Great Feast of the Church we celebrate the one that made the feast possible. So today, being Spirit Monday, we honor the all Holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, Who descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost. This was the fulfillment of our Lord's promise to send the Comforter to His disciples (John 14:16). At the services of Pentecost we return to singing

"O Heavenly King, the Comforter the Spirit of truth,

who art every where present and fillest all things,

treasury of blessings and giver of life, come and abide in us,

and cleanse us from every impurity

and save our souls O good One."



I especially love this prayer and it is such a comfort to hear it again during our services. It's one of the first prayers I teach my children to sing. I love to hear their little voices singing it during our evening prayers. Don't you just love to hear children sing. It's so sweet. Why is it that adults singing off tune doesn't sound nearly as sweet? Hmmmm....

Anyway, all in our home especially love Spirit Week! A whole week with NO fasting!! For those of you non-Orthodox reading, we fast each Wednesday and Friday during the year. Except during fasting periods, where we fast everyday for a period of time. So fast free weeks are very special to us. I hope to make some fun and more special than usual non-fasting meals on Wednesday and Friday this week to share with you. So stay tuned.

To celebrate the Feast of Pentecost Sunday we were able to get out and just enjoy the day. We had a lovely walk and then a nice meal afterwards. Even though it wasn't a particularly sunny day, it was warm and nice to just get out and admire God's creation.

Don't you just love buttercups...

My kids thought that this was the "X" tree, must be treasure close by...

Now I'm back to planning the week ahead... I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope your are able to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit visit upon you today and everyday!

Pentecost...

THIS IS THE WEEKEND of Pentecost... What a glorious feast of the church! One of the ways I help to make this feast more significant to the children is to put the emphasis of celebrating the "birthday" of the church. We make a cake and talk about the Gospel reading for the day. Years ago when my oldest was six or seven a group of ladies and children from our church decided to make a special plate for the feasts of the church. I'm sorry to say the only two I completed were the "Liturgical year" and Pentecost. However, I now can not find the one made for Pentecost.

The Liturgical Year plate shows in colors and symbols all of the seasons of the church year. It's a wonderful visual to show the fasting and celebration seasons of the year. I should find a ceramic shop and make the other feast day plates so I could have a special plate for each feast. Hmmmm... have to think about that. Anyway when we make our "Pentecost Birthday" cake we use this special plate for the feast. We also go out and find greenery and flowers to decorate to signify "that God’s divine Breath comes to renew all creation as the “lifeÄcreating Spirit.”  Just another way to make the feast more meaningful for the children.

So after the wonderful services of Pentecost Sunday the children will help to prepare our special meal with a special dessert, usually a cake. What's a birthday without a cake, right? Then on Spirit Monday, the following day, we would usually travel to our historical Holy Trinity Church for Spirit Monday to continue the celebration of the feast. This year, however we will be home, due to a lacking of transportation. There's a lovely picnic lunch afterwards and another day of celebration. I'm sad to be missing it.

On this weekend of Pentecost I wish you a blessed feast and pray that we all honor the visitation of the Holy Spirit upon us throughout the year.

Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, who hast revealed the fishermen as most wise

by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit:

through them Thou didst draw the world into Thy net.

O Lover of Man, Glory to Thee (Troparion).

When the Most High came down and confused the tongues, he divided the nations.

But when he distributed the tongues of fire, he called all to unity.

Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the All-Holy Spirit! (Kontakion)



Celebrating Name Days...

TODAY WAS THE names day of my little boy. Often times my non-Orthodox friends ask me, "What is a 'names' day? Why do you have them? Well the short answer is, as an Orthodox Christian we have a saint's name that we use at church. For those of us who are blessed to have our children baptized into the church at birth we name our children after saints that we admire in the church. So often times their name and church name are one in the same. As for my family we chose our children's saint's names based on when they were due in the church calendar. I like having my children's names days near their actual birthdays. But since one never knows when a baby will arrive, my son's names day and birthday are more than a month apart.

In our family on someone's names day we read about the saint, sing (as best we can) the troparion for the day, attend a service if there is one and then try to make the day special and fun. Often times the children get a small gift and they always choose a special treat to be served that day. Today was all about chocolate chip cookies. We all enjoyed them! I do so much baking regularly I have gotten out of the habit of baking treats, so it was a blessing that they were requested today.

The helpers...

Adding the chips...

Ready to go into the oven...

mmmm..... don't they look like cookie perfection!

Lovely FULL cookie jar and a cup of tea! I had to take a picture, since I know it won't be that way for long.

Enjoy your day!

Feast Days...

YESTERDAY WAS THE glorious Feast of the Ascension of our Lord! While we weren't able to do all that I would have liked it was a lovely feast. Feast days are such an important aspect of living the domestic church. When my oldest was young our whole education schedule was wrapped around the liturgical year. Feast days were days off and we always attended Vespers and Liturgy. At the time we belonged to a mission and my hubby was the only Reader for a time so we attended everything. My son always looked forward to the feasts of the church, mostly because he had the day off school I'm sure, but at least that's something.

It's important to me to have my children celebrate the feasts of the church. It's how we follow the life of Christ and honor his visitation on humanity. It never made sense to me that most people only celebrate Christ's birth and resurrection. What about what happened in between? I want my children to know and celebrate all the feast of the church. I'm slowly, very slowly working my way back to the rhythm of the liturgical year. What I was able to do with one I find more challenging to do with three. I say three because my oldest gets up and makes it to church on his own. We are blessed to live on the church property, so we can just walk down the hill.

Even though we were not able to make it to services for this feast this year we did observe the feast at home. For each of the 12 Great Feasts of the Church I always read about the feast, the children color the icon, we do an activity and often times I have something in the kitchen that we make. I also try to teach them the troparion for the feast. The problem here is that I'm still not great at all the tones without the aid of the choir. So we solider on and do our best.

All these things are wonderful tools to help teach about Christ, his visitation and why and how we, as mere humans can become more like Him. I think if you want to keep Christ in Christmas then we need to keep all His feasts and through these experiences we are more able to attempt to reflect his humanity and experience true joy that only He can bring.

Troparion - Tone 4
O Christ God, You have ascended in Glory,
Granting joy to Your disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Through the blessing they were assured
That You are the Son of God,
The Redeemer of the world!