In September of 2005...Susan was preparing to go to Rome to study for the year with the Catholic Studies program at St Thomas - parent alert!... Do send your children into this program... it promotes the Catholic Church in the absolute best way! Back to Susan... It was their birthday time of year as they are two days apart...So I included Susan in many of Simon one year pictures, and got some wonderful keepsake results! Now with him in KC visiting Susan and the Little Sisters... I find myself there with them from moment to moment!
"There is nothing more mysterious than infancy, nothing so small and yet so imperious(intensely compelling). The infancy of Christ opened a way to us by which we can surrender to Him absolutely, without putting too much pressure on our weak human nature... When he is born, he rejects any gift that is not the gift of self..." Caryll Houselander
"In this reordering of our life, the resetting of it to the pace of the infant's life and the new simplicity that it imposed on it, we ourselves are made new; we are restored to the lost wonder of childhood..... In the service of the infant we are made whole." Caryll Houselander
"The child demands of us voluntary poverty, and giving up of self, which is poverty. As long as we have something else to give, we always cling to self; but the infant lays his minute hand on that and rejects everything else..." Caryll Houselander
"Christ came, and comes now, that we should have life and have it in its fullness, that we should be wholly human, wholly natural, wholly supernatural, that in all our loves He should be our life. If our mind and heart and eye are fixed not on self, but on the Christ-like in us, we shall realize the wonder of truth in His words "My yoke is sweet and my burden is light." (Matt 11:30) Caryll Houselander
In sharing a large part of this article called "The Little Way of the Infant Jesus" I am struck by how the way we are called upon to leave self behind once we become parents... is also so true of Hallel in her vocation to religious life! She must obey her authority and squash "self" underfoot! " Obedience to God's designs is in itself an act of worship. Worship without obedience is merely hollow flattery. Yet both worship and obedience are less than Christian if they do not spring from the one root, love of God." (see http://www.magnificat.com/ )
Susan/ Hallel was holding 1 year old Simon up with the clouds behind him as I snapped this one... I have used this one for cards and made angel wings to put behind him... So amazing! He is a cherished angel that we are gifted with... when he went in for preschool screening two years ago... he was detected to have autism... He was then started in preschool and has made strides, but continues to require that special love and attention... but don't all little ones need that!
Today Simon is 5 1/2 and will be going to kindergarten at Holy Redeemer this next fall... He warms the cockles of his farmer grandpa's heart by loving all the mechanical things around the farm... here he found a beach scarper and thinks that it is a digger.
The interesting "digger" at work... I just got a call from Simon and John and grandpa from KC... Simon had pancakes for breakfast... probably Krusties... and now they are waiting for a priest to come and do a private mass for them in the chapel...this priest friend of the community, has been praying for John and wants to meet him... John's a rockstar in the praying world, and world of faith and miracles! When we were there in the end of March for a week... even the Archbishop of KC had to come and meet John and shake his hand and look into his eyes and know that he is there in front of him healthy and cancer free due to all the prayers and John will admit it without reservation! "I am without cancer for 6 months because of prayer!" He will say often! Praise God!
Gospel of today must be part of my sharing today as it is the heart (Christ) of the community of the Lamb! Pat shared that they were up at 6:30a for morning prayer... the singing is rejoicing in my heart and soul!... and then an hour of adoration before breakfast of pancakes... "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light..." (Mt 6:19-23)
Open the eyes of my heart LordOpen the eyes of my heart...
I want to see you!
"The spiritual man must in everything give up his own self-will, resigning it to God, wholly pouring it forth into God and making it perfectly one with God's will... In properity as well as adversity, in losses, in calumnies( false gossip meant to harm your reputation), reproaches, scornful insults or contempt, in pains of body and anxiety and heaviness of heart, in grief and in interior desolation, and woe - in fact in every kind of affliction he must not only bear patiently and quietly with what God permits or commands, but he must also praise God, believing that he both can and will advance his salvation by all these things." Fr Francois-Louis de Blois (1566) was a Benedictine Abbot
Simon and Susan's shared birthday in 2005.... His first and her 20th... before she left for Rome to study for the year and to meet the Community of the Lamb and the beginning of the rest of her life! "Every infant demands and receives the most complete self giving that we are capable of. The perfection of surrender to God is Mary with the infant Christ." C Houselander
"The spiritual man must in everything give up his own self-will, resigning it to God, wholly pouring it forth into God and making it perfectly one with God's will... In properity as well as adversity, in losses, in calumnies( false gossip meant to harm your reputation), reproaches, scornful insults or contempt, in pains of body and anxiety and heaviness of heart, in grief and in interior desolation, and woe - in fact in every kind of affliction he must not only bear patiently and quietly with what God permits or commands, but he must also praise God, believing that he both can and will advance his salvation by all these things." Fr Francois-Louis de Blois (1566) was a Benedictine Abbot
Simon and Susan's shared birthday in 2005.... His first and her 20th... before she left for Rome to study for the year and to meet the Community of the Lamb and the beginning of the rest of her life! "Every infant demands and receives the most complete self giving that we are capable of. The perfection of surrender to God is Mary with the infant Christ." C HouselanderSweet Infant in your mother's arms
It is so easy to love you in this beautiful form of new life! Allow us to hold you close to our hearts always and totally give of ourselves to you and to one another! Thank you for the gift of our daughter's vocation and the expanding of our "family" to include all of these beautiful men and women! Give the 4 generations there with Hallel a taste of your joy and allow them to see you present in the Word and the Eucharist in powerful ways... Open the eyes of their hearts and allow the light to flood their souls! Jesus we trust in You! Amen and Halleluia! Bless-bless, Barb
Hallel and I at Ruth's wedding Nov 03
It is so easy to love you in this beautiful form of new life! Allow us to hold you close to our hearts always and totally give of ourselves to you and to one another! Thank you for the gift of our daughter's vocation and the expanding of our "family" to include all of these beautiful men and women! Give the 4 generations there with Hallel a taste of your joy and allow them to see you present in the Word and the Eucharist in powerful ways... Open the eyes of their hearts and allow the light to flood their souls! Jesus we trust in You! Amen and Halleluia! Bless-bless, Barb
Hallel and I at Ruth's wedding Nov 03
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