Merry Christmas to All

Just wanted to wish anyone that drops by here a Merry Christmas!

I went to our children's Christmas event back on the 16th. The event itself was great but there were a couple people in the pew behind me discussing how great it would be to wake up tomorrow and have it be December 26th! It reminded me of that movie "Skipping Christmas". It also made me very grateful to be looking forward to Christmas this year and celebrating the birth of our Savior.

May all of you find peace and joy in knowing that, indeed, our Savior has been born!

The Inexhaustible Cup

 
I took a few minutes this afternoon to run through a couple of the blogs that I frequent (see the list/links at bottom left). Since today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception many are posting article about Our Mother (Jesus' words, not mine! cf John 19:26-27). Over at "The Way of Our Fathers", Mike Aquilina had posted short piece entitled "Immaculate" to which a poster made a comment, "I’m sure you will find the 'Akathist to the Theotokos' of value, as well.

I tried to use the link but it was a dead-end so I started poking around at Monachos.net and found the right link. Give it a read, I think you'll enjoy it, too.

Then I did a Google search on "Akathist to the Theotokos" to see what else I could learn. I am not real familiar with the icons of the Orthodox Church though I find them beautiful. Our pastor had a beautiful one painted for our parish Church. So I started looking at the Google "hits" and found the beautiful icon above, Theotocos The Inexhaustible Cup. There is a wonderful story of recovery from "drunkenness" associated with the icon you can read here. The link also has the "Akathist", or hymn, associated with the icon which I think you will find equally beautiful.

I have been collecting religious items to eventually adorn the quiet room I intend to construct in my home and this icon will definitely be a part of it. Gotta run over to eBay now and find it!