"Lord, you hear the cry of the poor;
you strengthen their hearts;
you turn your ear
to protect the rights of the orphan and the opressed..."
I had just sat with legal pad in hand, and poured myself onto the paper... page after page as I prepared for an unexpected talk that I will be giving tomorrow night... It surprised me how it all flowed out in torrents!
Just before the psalm last evening... they shared a story of St Martin of Tours, whose feast day it was... "St Martin is perhaps best remembered for tearing his warm cloak in half and sharing it with a shivering beggar, only to discover later in a dream that the beggar was Christ. He never lost his love for the poor for a life of personal poverty in service of the Gospel." See http://www.magnificat.com/
Today in the Gospel - Luke 17:26-37 - Jesus is speaking to us! How I love it when He does that... for we truly are His disciples - his followers - so His Words are a gift to us...directing us and I can just sense the love and shepherd-like concern that is behind his guidance! One thing that I find facinating today is that He speaks to us of the "flood." How it came unpon the unsuspecting and "destroyed them all." To me that flood is a sign of our Baptism in which the waters of Baptism wash away the evil and the stain of "original sin", and we are brought into His Church... No wonder that this is done within days of our birth, and no wonder that the promises made by parents, Godparents, and family and friends that day mean SO MUCH!
I was so overjoyed a few months ago to have my sister tell me that her daughter, my Goddaughter, had made a huge step in her life... getting away from an abusive relationship. She was now away and in a house of her own with her 3 kids and very much in a better place in her life! I shouted for joy, and shared that I had been daily praying for my Godchildren, and that this was a total amazing answer to prayers! I also have been updated on another Godson, who facing college had some hard decisions and relationship issues... He is now in his second year of college and much happier with himself and content with his situation... Prayers can only help!
Jesus speaking to us once again today; "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it." We totally felt that the control was ripped out of our hands, and that really is what brought us peace in the midst of the storm... we could not control this cancer nightmare, that we found ourselves in the middle of... God was in control! And to know that He was in control... how can we ever have cause to worry?
I remember early in the beginning of allowing the reality of this horror sink into our minds and hearts... John Verly, a strapping healthy in every way 20 year old farmboy, who was blessed with a God given ability to be in front of people and entertain them... had a tumor in his brain of Lymphoma cancer... the same cancer that had taken the lives of his aunt Mary at age 28 and his grandfather Verly! Now that is terrifying and we felt like we would at some point wake up from this nightmare! Please Lord, we would pray together and apart... make this whole thing be a terrible mistake, or better yet... a Miracle and may it forever be gone! 
At some point in this early phase of SHOCK! John said to me; "Mom, this would be a good place for me to die... I have no one depending me for family or job, and it would be just a good timing if I should leave this world." So brave and so hard to sit and listen to him say that! Not that he ever gave up hope or fight, but he was a pillar of acceptance and peace and calm... The "storm" had been calmed for him by the prayer support he could see on our caringbridge site...see http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/johnverly But we also had huge support among ourselves as a family... with constant prayer and sacraments to give us the calm of the storm! John was annointed within the first few days, and had Eucharist brought to him daily, and we clung to the rosary and to morning and evening prayers! We had so much to help us through and the Word and the Banquet of Life filled us with Christ, and His control of every situation that we faced and continue to face! 
What a gift this painting was to find! How I long to have it in a place of sight and daily rememberance that Christ is maker of heaven and earth and you and I, and He can take it all in hand... we have nothing to fear! Today in the meditation of the day Monsignor Guissani (2005) speaks about losing our life to save it: "From the moment, when that man was stretched out and nailed to the cross, from that moment the word sacrifice became the center, not of Christ's life, but of the life of "every" man, the destiny of every man depends on that death."
"From the moment Christ died on the cross, the word sacrifice became a huge word, a great word, and it revealed - as when the sun rises, like a sun that rises - the the whole life of every man is woven of sacrifices, is full of shudders of sacrifice, is, as it were, dominated by the need of sacrifice...." Wow! The words... "shudder of sacrifice" just speak to me so deeply! Watching my son going through so much over the last year and a half... there were tears at times due to the pain and the agony, and there were shudders also with the reactions to a medication or the body racked with worry or pain... thankfully his youth and health protected him from that, but just the knowledge that he was missing a year of college to undergo this nightmare was an emotional hardship!
Yet, I have to say that he was so strong and brave... armed with the prayers and the sacraments and his family of faith supporting, and loving him, and sharing in the deep mystery of this sacrifice of all sacrifices that he and his family was called upon to give without counting the cost! I had not really put the word sacrifice to it all until this morning and reading this meditation... I had called it "the Cross", but to really put it into the terms of what happens on the cross - the total Sacrifice of the Lamb slain for us! Now that is a powerful image, and reality for us to realize that we are called to give our all to Him, and TRUST! 
I suppose you have guessed that these were taken last winter... John was here at home between radiation and going to begin his stem cell transplant. The goofy hats - he and Nancy had made for our family Christmas, which we had more around new years so that all of us could gather and celebrate... minus Maria and her family and Hallel. In actuality at this time last year... my parents were rushing to be here from 11 hours away with a relic of Venerable Solanus Casey - Fr. Solanus spent his life in the service of people. At the monastery door as porter he met thousands of people from every age and walk of life and earned recognition as "The Doorkeeper." He was always ready to listen to anyone at any time, day or night. Many miracles were attibuted to him while living and since death!During his final illness, he remarked, "I'm offering my suffering that all might be one. If only I could see the conversion of the whole world." His last conscious act was sitting up in bed and saying, "I give my soul to Jesus Christ." He died at the age of 86 on July 31, 1957 at the same day and hour of his First Holy Mass 53 years earlier.
We had such high hope for John's total healing with the relic, and we gathered at 8a mass on Sunday the 14th of November... Fr called John and his family out into the aisle to annoint John for the 3rd time, and to hold the relic on John's head and repeat the words asking this humble man,who had been a healer on earth and continues to be...to totally and without doubt heal John! The church was full that morning as we had gotten the word out on our site that this would be happening! People ask why can't just anyone lay hands on John for healing... why would you go to such lengths to get a "relic" - usually a small piece of fabric from the clothing that the person wore, or sometimes a piece of bone or something like that... this was fabric... of some dead person and pray to them for this healing? Because it makes total sense to go to someone, who is a Healer, and is standing in the presence of our Lord to ask for that healing! I have not the faith to heal... do you?
In the midst of all this - the most wonderful of all gifts- a new grandchild, David Joseph, was born just days before Christmas! The wonder of it all! Sometimes the tears just well up when I think about all that was "blessing" our family left and right! The healing did not take place, in the way that we had hoped and prayed, but I have had so many speak of the power of that moment in church... all had hands raised towards John and his family was all around him with hands placed on him! We put our total trust in Him, and we were changed as were all that were there to support him in prayer! There was a different plan...the healing has taken place... just not instantly! Jesus, we trust in you! 
I must go... Jesus, we love you and need you and give all to you! WE are yours! Every moment of every day and night we cling to you in prayer! Each beat of our hearts and every breath that we take as your disciples is a prayer of thanksgiving and petition. You are our LIFE, our TRUTH, our WAY, and our LOVE! Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless, Barb"It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts 20: 35
Pat came to bed saying that this was such an amazing picture... May you rest in His peace this day!
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