By Patrick Downes

Shanita Akana loves to sing her faith. So much so, a single CD could not hold all she wanted to say — or pray. So she has recorded and released two albums of spiritual music — the simple and unembellished “Verboten” and the more elaborately arraigned “Christian Songs Sung With Aloha.”

Both products of this Ewa Beach recording artist are labors of love. The musicians and many of the composers are friends. Her father contributed songs and inspiration. Local Catholic school children provided choruses. The generous liner notes overflow with personal reflections and grateful praise to those who inspired, supported, sponsored and contributed to these works.

Akana delivers both packages with a superb crystal clear voice that is vibrant and expressive — and the most photogenic of smiles.

Her passion for music that glorifies God and honors the Blessed Mother is honest and convincing.

Akana also has a gift for melody. Four of the songs are hers, two on each CD.

The title song on “Verboten” was written by Akana’s father, Ernest Aana, who was inspired by a television show about the Holocaust. (“Verboten” is German for “forbidden.”) It is a simple pro-life ode, hauntingly sung from the point of view of children about to be aborted who ask God for forgiveness for their mothers.

“Verboten” is the meditative album. All the tracks are sung mostly to the spare accompaniment of piano or guitar. The affect is prayerful, reflective.

Akana’s favorite song on this album is her own autobiographical composition, “This is Who I Am,” which is essentially a personal genuflection to the Holy Eucharist, a running theme throughout this CD.

“This is who I am,” she sings. “Close your eyes and feel, him who become real. Body, blood, divinity, blessed and broken for me.”

“I thank God that he has given us his son Jesus Christ, that we can feed off of his love and his sacrifice,” Akana explained in a telephone interview with the Hawaii Catholic Herald last week. “Sometimes I don’t have the courage or the words to defend my faith.”

So she sings.

The songs on “Verboten” include the Communion hymn standard by Michael Joncas, “Take and Eat,” Bob Hurd’s “We Are All Parts of One Body,” and “I Lift Up My Soul,” by Tim Manion.

“Jacob’s Song,” also from Akana’s pen, is a cry of sorrow and hope sung from smoldering personal experience.

When she harmonizes with herself a cappella in the classic “Ave Maria” by Jacques Arcadelt, the listener is given an idea of what cherubim and seraphim must sound like.

Another treat on “Verboten” is the Hawaiian hymn “E Iesu Ka Mohai Nou.”

Akana’s pop music versatility shines on the “Christian Songs” CD. The songs are all reverent and respectful, but a few bounce along joyfully to tropical island rhythms. One song slips into a bit of hip-hop so naturally, it’s as if it couldn’t help itself.

Well-known Hawaii liturgical musician and composer Robert Mondoy offers the thoughtful composition “The Lord Is My Light.” It features Mondoy’s trademark compelling chording and his fluid Hawaiian melodic sensibility. In Akana’s voicing, it is a beauty.

Local musician Patrick Dumadag Jr. also provides the song “Living Water.”

“I wanted original stuff,” Akana said. “These songs speak to me.”

The first song on “Christian Songs Sung With Aloha,” also an Akana composition, is a loving anthem to her parish and its patron, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

“You Are Mine,” a modern liturgy standard by nationally known writer and friend David Hass, is her favorite on this album.

While recording it she told her percussionist, “Be gently on the drums. It is a prayer first.”

Akana is in her third year as a teacher at Campbell High School in Ewa Beach, where she instructs a “peer education” course which deals with the teenage problems of pregnancy, suicide, drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Prior to that she was the youth minister at her parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, next door to the high school.

She still sings at her parish’s 5 p.m. Sunday Mass.

She and her husband John have three sons, the oldest of who will soon graduate from high school. She is blessed, she said, and in love with married life and motherhood, with her teaching career and her musical calling.

Akana hopes that listeners will be able to “experience the faith through sung prayer” and “come to know Jesus in an intimate level.”

“Music has a way to solidify your relationship with the Lord,” she said.

“I’m just a Catholic girl,” she insisted, and will choose Catholic music for its message over “hit” Christian tunes for their popularity.

“And if it touches me, it touches others,” she said.

“I love to sing my faith rather than preach my faith,” Akana said. “More than anything, that is really my calling, to sing the faith.”

Friends and relatives sponsored the recording and production. Cosmo Enterprise and the St. Michael Center for the Blessed Virgin Mary, both ventures of Honolulu resident Thomas Pereira, provided graphic design and packaging.

Both CDs are available at the Pauline Book and Media Center in downtown Honolulu at one for $15 and two for $25 and will soon be at Borders.

Or you can order them by sending an e-mail request to lyricjsa@yahoo.com, or by calling Akana at (808) 368-2696.