"Come after me..." Jesus

The grandkids get a full stomach before school - grandpa keeps asking them - "Are these the best pancakes you have ever had?"  They answer with a "yes" every time!  It is good to have the house full of LIFE! 

Today the Lord is starting his ministry by asking some common men - fisherman -to leave all behind and follow after HIM.  Mark1:14-20 is the Gospel as we return to ordinary time after a long and glorious Christmas time!  Just as in the other times in life - if it weren't for the day to day ordinariness and even difficulties... the feastdays and special times in the Church wouldn't be near so wonderful.  If everything was all sweetness and celebrations than it would grow old... just as the Christmas tree, lights, decorations, stockings and even the Advent/Christmas wreath get to be old and it is now time to put them away until next year. 

It was pretty funny - when Grandpa made the last pancake with the last of the batter... it looked like a mouse complete with a tail!  David ate the mouse, but not before grandma could capture the cuteness. 

We just had the powerful experience in our parish of having a mission led by Deacon Ralph Poyo from Stubenville!  Carrying on from his sharing the beauty and Truth of our Catholic Faith... he left us to form into small groups and to pursue the call to "take up our cross and follow HIM" as disciples!  "The passion for simply abiding in the company of Jesus, the need continually to be with Him in every sense of the verb, is the very heart of discipleship."  Brother Simeon 

Jesus is calling his disciples to Him today in the Gospel and that requires leaving all behind - most especially their selfish desires - themselves!  This is so hard and the core of humility... to see that our personal needs and desires are not usually those of Christ, and we are called to die to self, and embrace our Most Cherished Cross, and follow after Christ! 

A cold day for man and beast!!! 

How do we know that will of God in our lives?  By taking avantage of the Sacraments - most epecially the Eucharist and Reconciliation!  By reading and praying over His Word - we find Christ there!  By spending time with HIM and Our Lady, Mary Most Holy is there for us to bring us to her Son.  I have found that the Rosary in my hand whenever possible throughout the day assists me in my prayers and brings me to Christ in the mysteries I meditate on.  How I love my hours of Adoration - sitting at the feet and in the presence of Jesus in the Monstrance!  Such powerful and closeness to Christ is not to be compared to this time!  I am so filled with wonder at the prayers that have been answered as I place all of my family in the monstrance with Jesus!  I do the litany of FAMILY as I name each one and place them with Jesus... with over 90 now on my side alone, and close to that on Pat's... this is quite a litany of LIFE and LOVE!  The times we take to do the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in the name of Jesus - this is huge for our path of discipleship!

David loves to help grandpa!

The 7 Corporal Works of Mercy

To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To shelter the homeless
To visit the sick
To visit the imprisoned
To bury the dead
The 7 Spiritual Works of Mercy

To counsel the doubtful
To instruct the ignorant
To admonish the sinner
To comfort the sorrowful
To forgive all injuries
To bear wrongs patiently
To pray for the living and the dead
It is always good to remind ourselves of these works of Mercy!  May we, as we grow ever closer to Jesus, do these in our lives and with our days.

Jesus, with your Mother, Mary Queen of Heaven and Earth, at your side... we long to fill each day with all that you call us to do.  We hear your voice over the roar of the sea of distraction - "Come after me..."  Yes, Lord!  We leave it all behind, and follow after you no matter the cost.  We are to give up our all, and to listen to your voice calling us to serve all in our domestic Church/family without counting the cost.  The hurts that come with LIFE are hard to overlook - we want to retaliate with anger, and hurt them in return.  May we "see" with eyes of Faith that we are called to use these times to die to self and return love and forgiveness rather than hurt.  Give us the strength this day to give our hurts to YOU, and follow your example of total giving of self for LOVE!  You, Jesus, show us how to LOVE,and through following you we find eternal LIFE, and become LIGHTS to those around us.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"It is you, O Lord, you are the only one; you made the heavens, the highest heavens and all their host, the earth and all that is upon it, the seas and all that is in them.  To all of them you give LIFE, and the heavenly hosts bow down before you."

Nehemiah 9:6

Mary, you certainly are a star of the week and may your LIGHT always shine as Jesus lives in you and loves through you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmVxRl5bc4Y  Cry out to Jesus by Third Day

A funny one to end with today...

Kids upstairs in the beds, night prayers, and school projects

Just tucked the three grandkids into bed and shared night prayers from the hall.  As great-grandma said this morning - "You have an empty nest, but not really."  John just left a week ago, and now we will have our upstairs bedrooms filled with grandkids for the next 4 nights!  It is good.  Mary and grandma had to get busy with her star of the week pictures for school.  One of grandma's favorite projects!  Mary laughed and laughed at the picture of her holding two frogs mouth to mouth in Michigan giving kisses!

This is how it turned out with the digitally altered picture she entered in the fair of the black eyed Susans by the barn!  Kind of special we think!  I think grandma got the most fun school project she could have asked for.  Maybe a little over the top,but that is us and our obsession with pictures!  Mary included Michigan, Cross Christmas, the fair, new baby sister, Rose Ida, and her washing dishes with Little Sister Hallel.  Life is good! 

Story time with grandpa was good too!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless

Herbie didn't get to sleep with Mary - he is down the basement on this cold night in Minnesota on the farm.

A talk to give on Pro LIFE...

Happy Feastday of the Baptism of our Lord!  I guess that it is time to put down the Christmas tree and decoration, but I am still filled with such JOY as the result of gathering with family- the fact that we had Maria, Joseph and their three here for over a week!  That is all I really wanted for Christmas!  And then to have some precious days with Hallel and get some real hugs!  Well, that was the answer to so many prayers from her mom - "Lord, I want a real hug soon, please!"  So powerful to get to Kansas City and see and touch and share with her - and for her to meet two new neices and a nephew.  Yes, Maria and her family couldn't make it, but maybe next year if she makes it back for her first ever family visit!  More to Hope and pray for!  I am sharing this amazing picture with you as I share today about the talk I have been asked to give tomorrow night to the Catholic Daughters about ProLife... it all started with the family I was raised in... we are up to over 90 now with 3 new additions just from our family as well as 3 more marriages in the last year too!  With 11 children to start with - such a model of LOVE of LIFE came from my parents!

All except Hallel!  I will also share how from the beginning of our marriage - I decided that I wanted to do more than just say I was ProLIFE - I wanted to do something about it!  I joined Birthright just months after we were married and learning to do a pregnancy test - I discovered that I was pregnant with our first daughter, Ruth!  It took us a few months to get pregnant, so I was overjoyed wtih the news.  We had always been open to LIFE, and my dream was to get pregnant on our honeymoon - all 3 of our girls practically had this JOY/surprise, but I did not.  It carried forth from there for me to work a night in the office every month.  I had one girl come in, who was thinking that abortion was her only option.  After sharing with her a letter that I wrote as if to her mother... she left and I didn't see her for months.  Thinking the worst - I got a phone call from her telling me that she was back and ready to have her baby.  Amanda Hope was born and she married the father... every Christmas I hear from them and get pictures of Amanda and her brother.  I got a very specail plaque when her graduated from high school and with deep joy at her saying YES to LIFE had allowed her to have this LIGHT to the world!  Amanda Hope was heading into nursing so that she could help those little ones that needed nursing/healing.  I sat in the car and wept when I opened that package and thought about all the LIGHTS that have been extinguished by those that did not know the Truth - every LIFE is from God and is a gift!  How can they be ended so thoughtlessly? 

Grandpa Pat with his grandson, Patrick and my dad with Bernadette!  Two men that have been open to LIFE and the call to bring LIGHTS into the world!  I must share tomorrow night the work of the Spirit in our marriage as Pat so wisely answered my question if we were being selfish to have a large family in the mess the world is in these days... "The world needs LIGHTS!" 

Yes, Lord, on this day of your Baptism and the world hearing from your Father that you are his beloved Son!  Mary said Yes and LIFE came into the world through an innocent baby - Lamb of God!   We long to share with the world your Truth about LIFE and LOVE -  the Cross!  Through the Cross we find eternal LIFE and happiness in YOU.  May we always be open to LIFE and take the effort we need to raise LIGHTS - sharing with great JOY the Truth of your Bride, the Church!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

The two that have been healed through prayer! 

"And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."  Luke 3

http://www.myspace.com/danielleroseofficial/music  I am listening to her song for The wedding of Cana...I was looking for True LOVE by Danielle Rose

Fun look back - farmkids in bibs

I love to plan photo shoots, and I called up to find out that Nancy was doing one with her family this morning.  I think that I passed on the bug.  This was taken 3 years ago when Therese was just 1 and David was about 7 months!  Simon is 4 and Mary is 3.  It is just so special to have these fun pictures with Roger the dog even sitting there posing somewhat. 

So adorable!!!  Now the 4 months between them has melted away and they are super close loving and caring cousins - they live too far apart Therese in Texas and David here on the farm - just 3 miles from our farm!

In color with some interacting between the kids!

Big sister with her baby brother... Cute and fun for grandma to have now for years to come.  Looking for what the future shoots will be!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

Therese 1 year picture!  I remember how badly I wanted to pull her hair into a topknot or something like that and get it out of her face!  Maria wouldn't let me and now I so appreciate the soft look of her hair around her face!  She looks like a baby from Le Miserables! 

"Mary protects us under the mantle of her humility."

JTerm at St Thomas is devoted to one class and for the seminarians that tends to involve travel.  But for the first year guys - there are 11 including John - it is a day long class they are attending led by a Deacon, who is teaching them about Church history.  John also told me that he is dressing in his cassock and surplice daily and assisting at mass, because they are the only ones there.  John did bring this home with him over the Christmas holiday to help out at mass, but it was never used.  He does admit that he is totally untrained yet in assisting, so he was looking forward to this time to be taught at the feet of those, who know!  John shared that he had tried out with the person in charge of the singing, and that he will now be put on the schedule to lead that morning and evening prayer as well as cantor at mass, so he is excited about that.  "I have discovered that my prayer is song a lot of the time!  That is how I pray, and feel the closest to God."  He is awaiting the arrival of a ukulele he ordered, to add an instument that he can sit around and work on.  It sounds like a good way to work on his left hand too, which was affected by the brain biopsy he had 3 1/2 years ago. 

John also was surprised that many had read his article in the Prairie Catholic even up there at school!  "I get a lot of good feedback about it."  One thing that really was huge in John's cancer/healing/seminary journey, which is ongoing to this day and beyond, is the humility piece!  John has on his back burner the book that he wants to write about it all... and while he was home on break, he showed me the outline he has come up with.  It was quite detailed and as I was reading through - every now and then I would laugh at this situation or that... mostly remembering the hard/humble situation that happened.  John, due to his times in front of people entertaining them over the years, was quite well known in this community.  To have him suddenly struck with brain cancer and the resulting new John - humility was a big piece!  John the Baptist speaks to us in the Gospel today - "Christ must increase; I must decrease."  When John asked half-heartedly for Faith this was the answer to prayer he was given!  Die to self so that Christ can live and work in and through you!  And that literally took him to the brink of physical death!

http://dnu.org/news/documents/JAN.2013MASTERISSUE.pdf  Once again the article about John from the Prairie Catholic

Walking in France with the help of his Little Sister Hallel at the beginning of this amazing journey!  Hallel has always been there for her little brother, and this is such an image of her love and care for him in his need!  The title of this sharing is taken from the meditation of the day in the Magnificat.  "Mary...meditation on her humility was a cloak or a mantle with which we could warm ourselves.  But since a mantle gives this service only to those who wear it and not to those who merely think about it, she said; 'Mary's humility will not help anybody except those who endeavor to imitate her.  Therefore clothe yourself with this humility.' "

This picture is the so powerful for our family!  It was 8 years ago just as we had taken Maria to the convent of the Poor Clares and she had gone behind the enclosure!  These two sisters have always been almost too close in age - just a year apart in school and 16 months in age... there was a bit of a mostly friendly competition between them.  But the realization that there would be this enclosure between them - they swallowed their pride and found a special way to show their love for each other!  It truly is a glorious picture of putting on the "mantle of humility" which our Spiritual Mother, Mary Most Holy, wears so beautifully for us to model after.  Clothed in humility she humbly said "yes" to this life-changing event of allowing Christ/God to enter the world in the humble state of a helpless little child/lamb of God!

Therese holds tenderly her new little brother, Patrick Joseph, who had just come home after 2 1/2 weeks in NICU after being born dead and coming back to LIFE and health through prayer.

Jesus, with your glorious Mother, Mary Most Holy, at your side... we love and thank you for showing us the power of dying to self, and allowing you to enter our domestic Church/family and the world around us... through our humbly allowing your Spirit to work through us!  Yes, humility is the most important virtue there is for us to become - HUMBLE!  It is so hard to give up our selfish desires, but this narrow path is what leads us to LIFE and LOVE as we carry our Most Cherished Cross.  Help us to be humble, O Lord.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halelluia

Bless-bless, Barb
















"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world."  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
Take the time to read her address to the prayer breakfast - out of this world amazing!
http://www.ewtn.com/New_library/breakfast.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QVXOy2d5G8  The Litany of Humility sung by Danielle Rose  The first time I read the Litany - I thought how can anyone pray for this!?!  Danielle shares in her I thirst album that explains that Blessed Teresa's order prays this weekly!

The sweetness of having a baby!

Little Rose is on her way to Nashville with her mom and dad for Young Farmers gathering there.  It seems that Ruth usually has a baby in tow on her trips.  Her and Paul have memories of taking along baby David on the river walk in Houston years back.  Ruth will never be alone - she will have a little sidekick whereever she goes.  I remember that the more kids that you have - if you want to go to a gathering or a meeting and hire a sitter - the baby will go along with mom.  #1 you are their only source of eating and #2 it just makes is easier on the person there with the others.  Rose is going to feel super special for the next week with mom mostly and dad some!

Here is my 4th baby, Susan!  John opened my hope chest the other day and found a paper Susan had written in 8th grade complete with pictures, and some of them that we hadn't seen before!  John read it aloud to me and we felt like we had a little insight into Hallel - she wrote warmly about her times at Cross Christmas Camp and Michigan!  She also talked about swimming being a great thing in her life.  She mentioned Schoenstatt Camp and how she loved her time there with the sisters and sharing fun and faith.  That was the first time she told me on the way home when she was about 12 - that she thought that the Lord was calling her to be a nun!

This precious one of Susan holding her baby brother, John!  I asked Pat who he reminded me of... "Rose!"  Yes, the dark eyes and big cheeks really are so much alike.   I say that Rose reminds me of the Verly girls, but also the Verly boy!  If I had known that John would be my last child... I would have had a major break down!  As it was... I had two boys after him that I carried for 5 months and lost them - they are buried at the cemetary and are named William and Robert Verly!  Then I lost a 3 1/2 month pregnancy a few years later - her name is Mary!  That was the last, and when I was in the ER due to the loss of blood for that one - I told Dr Laporte - "Well, I told you when I first came in for my first pregnancy that I would have 11 kids and now I have 5 with me and 6 in Heaven!"  "No!  I will never forget - you came in for her first prenatal visit and told me - 'I am going to have 12 kids!' "  Dr LaPorte told me.  Well, I was off by one, because the 12th one was never given to me!  I said to Pat the other day- "Why couldn't the Lord just let me have one more, so that people would know by looking that I hadn't stopped because I had my boy?"   "I guess you just have to write about it to tell the world."  from my husband, who has issues with my blog this is a crazy thing for him to say! 

When baby Susan came home... Nancy made crowns for all the girls/princesses!  Super special to have a house filled with such beautiful girls inside and out!  They are carrying forth the baton of LOVE OF LIFE into their families, and Susan/Hallel into her LIFE and LOVE as a Bride of Christ! 

Me with my first JOY of baby in the arms - sweet and precious, Ruth Ida!  I was hooked and longed for each one after.  The 6 in Heaven are keeping my eyes on Heaven and give me much spiritual support on my journey!  Watching out for their weak and lowly mom.  I am blessed by LIFE and LOVE!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

If you think I love LIFE and babies - my husband has me beat 10 times over!  He is the champion for being open to LIFE and raising LIGHTS for the world!