Our meeting will begin on Thursday, October 26th at 3:30pm and conclude with lunch on Saturday, October 28th. The conference center is located at 513 W. Fullerton Parkway Chicago, Illinois 60614. There are several transportation options to the Cenacle from the airport. Please visit the Cenacle website for specific instructions on how to make transportation arrangements and for driving directions.

Volunteers are still…

The Back Story

It has been said that home is where the heart is. Home is remembered as the place where one flourished and is remembered with joy; when one has lost their home, that joy is mixed with an ever-present sadness and longing.  In 1915, a ten-year-old Osanna Panian left home and escaped what is now known as The Armenian Genocide; she survived and walked over the mountains into Iran and life as a refugee. Was she just lucky that she survived what Winston Churchill later called the first holocaust of the twentieth century? Or was it Providence? 

Osanna is the Latin version of the Greek word hosanna. It’s a popular girls’ name in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but it is also a liturgical word with Hebrew and Aramaic roots meaning “Save me!” or “Help me!” When sung in the liturgy on Palm Sunday, this beseeching cry has the feel of a profound prayer for deliverance.  Osanna Panian was given this liturgical name because she was born on Palm Sunday in 1905. Little did anyone know…