The day that I became Barbara Lynn Luke is not recorded at all in photos... It was my confirmation day into the Catholic Church at a huge adult confirmation at the Cathedral in St Paul! I along with my parents and about 6 of my younger siblings were being confirmed with lots of other people. With my new and excited eyes it seemed that the entire stunningly beautiful glorious Church was filled with people in a long line going forward to have the Bishop lay hands on them! I think that my parents were so overwhelmed and carried away themselves that the idea of getting pictures just wasn't on their list! It shows me that I can still have a wonderful picture in my own mind and heart and soul that is probably much better than pictures could ever do them justice!
This was those early Catholic years called the "Farm" years... kind of funny now as I have been blessed with being a large farmer's wife, and our farm in Wisconsin, that my parents bought as a project to get us 11 kids out of the city for the summer... was basically a delapidated building site that we put windows in and painted and then had a big garden... I do know that for a while they did milk cows in the barn again after we sold it! So........
I am getting carried away with thoughts of my early Catholic days, because today is the feastday of my patron Saint Luke! When I was around 20 my entire family - mom, dad and us 11 kids joined the Catholic Church! I was just getting accepted into nursing school at St Kates in St Paul and thought that St Luke, since he was a physician - I had read Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell - and he also gives me some beautiful views of Mary... Thanks to him we have the Hail Mary as well as some of the mysteries of the rosary that are in no other Gospels! There is so much of the early days of Mary and Joseph and yes even Mary's pregnancy in Luke! I love to meditate with joy as the two pregnant women come together - each praising God for the life within them... Elizabeth in her old age with John the Baptist, and Mary with the Savior of the World! And John leaps in the womb of his mother at the first meeting of his God in flesh! Too wonderful! I should have my Bible here this morning and tell you where this is all found... look in the first few chapters of Luke, and be forever grateful that St Luke gave us such a wonderful view of Mary and her journey with Christ from the very beginning!
Graduation from ST Kates in 1974 as a new nurse and a new Catholic! Just the year before my dad with 13 other men had been chosen to begin the process of becoming the first group to be ordained in the archdiocese as permanent deacons! All that he did as a Protestant Minister now he was going to be doing in the Catholic Church! His gift of preaching was now to carry over to our lives as Catholics and would touch many over the years...Right up to preaching at Nancy's wedding and it was such a amazing blessing to the couple and the family! He has also married us, baptized our kids and ministered to the homebound as well as continue with his ministry for alcoholics! Talk about seeing the Lord's hand on our family once again! Our entire spiritual Journey is like an amazing story of God's guidance and LOVE and Truth! And it continues to this day for Barbara Lynn Luke!
Christmas card pose by our newly acquired "farm" in my brother Phil's pickup that didn't even run... isn't it great! You can't miss the early 70s!
Today this took on a whole new meaning for me... thinking of how Luke in his Gospel is able to accomplish this!
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has annointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the captives go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." Luke 4: 18-19
Yes, the Word is capable of doing all these things! It is Christ in our midst and it gives us life each day to go forward and to proclaim liberty to captives! May their ears be opened to the Truth!
O, the 70s! How we love them!
"St Luke highlights Jesus' proclamation of God's healing word to all sorts of sinners and sufferers, from the grieving widow of Nain... I had to look this up as it was not familiar to me.. Luke 7:11-17...Jesus enters this town and sees a funeral procession passing of a widow, as she is burying her only son..."When the Lord saw her, his heart was filled with pity for her , and he said to her, "Don't cry." Then he went over and touched the coffin and told the man to rise and "The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother." ... "to the semi- comical tax collector, Zacchaeus, to the dramatic and anonymous woman who washed his feet wtih her tears and wiped them with her hair." see http://www.magnificat.com/
"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, Announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation." Isaiah 52:7
Lord, thank you for St Luke and all that he has meant to me in my journey, but by far for the amazing Gospel and Acts of the Apostles... that he has given us You to walk with us and guide us along the way!
Today in the Gospel St Luke tells us about when Jesus sent out the 72 disciples in pairs to every town... Luke 10:1-9... Once again it is so special when the Lord speaks to us..."The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs amontg wolves...."
Once again my children's book of saints... so important for our kids growing up to realize the gift the saints are to us as we realize that we can persevere against all that is hard in life and Christ is always there with us - carrying us when times are hard and we are weak!
"His symbol is the ox, the animal of sacrifice, because he begins his Gospel with the history of Zachary the priest, offering sacrifice to God. He speaks of the priesthood of Christ. He also speaks of the wonderful works of God in beginning his Church, and about St Paul's actions and miracles which he himself witnessed (Acts of the Apostles)." Picture Book of Saints
A new discovery yesterday... the joy of milkweed pods to open and scatter everywhere! OOOPs!
Speaking of new discoveries... I thought that this was too amazing by now St John Henry Newman (1890)...
He is speaking of the New Creation that the 72 proclaimed:
"The Creator came as if he were a creature, because he took upon him a created nature - and as, at the first, Eve was formed out of the side of Adam, so now, when he hung on the cross, though not a bone of him was broken, his side was pierced, and out of it came the grace, represented by the blood and the water, out of which his bride and spouce, his holy Church, was made. And thus all the sanctity of all portions of that holy Church is derived from him as a beginning; that he feeds us with his Divine Flesh in the Holy Eucharist, in order to spread within us, in the hearts of all of us, the blessed leaven of the New Creation. All the wisdom of the doctors, and the courage and endurance of the martyrs, and the purity of the virgins, and the zeal of preachers, and the humility and mortification of religious men, is from him, as the beginning of the new and heavenly creation of God." St John Henry Newman
I thought that was just too amazing not to share!
Everywhere!
Once again, Lord, we are before you in our humble state of life... we are weak and unworthy of your LOVE for us... but you love us no matter what! Use us this day to take your amazing Word to heart, and bear it forth to the world as we serve you in each other. Give us the special graces we need to bring forgiveness and service into our small churches - our families! We are yours and it gives us great joy to see your fingerprint on our lives and on our families! And we should never forget to pray for more harvesters to be called by you, and to shout to the heavens with a soul rending..."YES!" Jesus we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
What a joy! To be able to make wax paper leaves again with little ones!
Bless-bless, Barb... with sister, Marty,and baby sister, Paula... many moons ago."I do not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant be healed." Luke 7:7
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