Pregnancy checking of the cows is always at least a month sooner... never has the snow been an issue in the 22 years that we have had this family job... Thanksgiving weekend has always been the date, and this year with our road trip out East - Pennsyvania - it is now between Christmas and New Years and it is the day! All the snow in the working area has to be moved by shovel... so much work and trouble... An afternoon of shovel work... thankfully today is close to freezing... a balmy 27 degrees - and the time to begin is at the height of the sun - 1p... all is going ahead in preparation!
This will be a new experience and I am sure that a once in a lifetime thing... It will not make us try to do this again... As the vet said about doing it now... "the window is closing", and for a lesser determined person than my husband - the resident farmer- it might have been closed, but he is prying it open for one last time... It well certainly, be an adventure... there is never a shortage of those around here! 
A family supper and game night even though some of us were less than enthusiastic....With so many people... it is OK for the weary ones to join the little ones that have crashed on grandma's bed...All is allowed, and our weaknesses and faults are forgotten and forgiven... Thank you, Lord!
Reading some amazing quotes of Venerable John Paul II today - "As Christians, we know that for us prayer is as essential as breathing, and once we have tasted the sweetness of intimate conversation with God, we do not hesitate to immerse ourselves in it with trusting adandonment." Too amazing! How wonderful to "know" our loving and forgiving Lord in such a powerful and personal way... prayer has truly beome as every breath that I take and every beat of my heart!
Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents! As my husband was saying at breakfast/morning prayer with John and my daughter, Maria and her husband and children... "This is such a hard Gospel for me... weren't the Jews looking for the Messiah. and isn't Herod a Jew... why would he try to kill God come to earth? " This is what power can do to a person! But to take the lives of the tiny innocent ones... 2 years old and under... that is what shocks and apalls me... but then abortion is also in that same category to me... how can these tiny helpless children that in some cases could survive outside the womb, be murdered and killed in cruel and horrible ways - torn limb from limb or pulled partially into the birth canal and have the brains sucked out of their skulls! I am sorry to be graphic, but it is that horrible in partial birth, and it is a fact that an abortinoist that had done thousands of abortions was watching one of the first ultasounds during an abortion... he watched the baby try to get away from the suction tool and silently scream realizing that this was going to grab it and pull it apart... yes, they feel pain just as you and I do!
Watching this transformed and changed him in the deepest truths of his life... He stopped doing abortions and showed this reality of what is happening to the "holy innocents" in the womb as they are treated without love or respect and are murdered to supposedly make the lives easier for the mother... yet,so many never recover and suffer from post abortion syndrome... always regretting and filled with guilt and regret! 
Such a powerful change did this man undergo - that eventually he went from a non practicing Jew to a Catholic in the conversion that he experienced as he watched a helpless innocent be slaughtered in the name of convenience! As he spoke to the world the truth - he realized that there is only one institution that upholds the value of life across the board and with no reservations... The Catholic Church! 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Nathanson ... I just googled this man that I have been speaking of and gained some amazing info about him and his life... this is the link...
Singing the opening hymn today to morning prayer... What child is this... the second verse was so powerful..."Why lies he in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail, the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary."
We cannot get away from the Cross and the pain and the suffering... even just days after the warm and fuzzy birth of our sweet infant savior! But was it truly warm and fuzzy? He was born in a barn and slept for his first bed in a manger that the animals ate out of! His father tried desperately to find a room in an Inn for his wife about to give birth and Joseph knew that this was to be the Messiah - God with us! Too hard and crazy for him to trust and to settle for the only shelter he could find...a barn! A barn filled with animals and smells and what we will be walking and working in today - their waste! We will all come in cold and dirty and need to shower! 
In talking to Hallel - Nancy shared with me about her simple conditions of living with no heat where she sleeps.. no it is not Minnesota with our frigid temps, but she asked Nancy to send her some warm socks and long Johns to sleep in.... She shared that the sleeping bag that she had taken with her had broken, so I think that it was wise for her dad to get her a warm one that is good for 20 degrees... then Nancy asked her about her bathing..."She told me that all she does is wash her feet in the unheated water and that they get cold, but warm up after some moving around and walking." No hot shower in the morning for her... I think that they can heat the water they use for a "Sister Shower" - using a bucket in a shower stall in a heated building... Poverty is truly embraced by them, and I think that they can have real empathy for Joseph, Mary and the Babe!
Look up and see the cats on their perch! Therese calling to them gets them to look, but not to come to her! Grandma has to lift them out one by one... only to have them return shortly! 
Hold on tight, Therese! 
They have adjusted one to the other... Now to the burning question of why we have to jump to the cross already! "In the Christ child, we see foreshadowed the suffering Savior. In the murdered children of Bethlehem, first of many martyrs, we see foreshadowed the futile effort of the power of sin and death to destroy the true power that will bring it to destruction,through the power that lies hidden in a child." See http://www.magnificat.com/ 
Psalm 8 We hooted when we read the part about the cattle as today is a big family job with our cattle... "How great is your name , O Lord our God, through all the earth! Your magesty is praised above the heavens: on the lips of children and of babes you have found praise to foil your enemy...What is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you should care for him? 
"Yet you made him little less than a god; with glory and honor you crowned him, gave him power over the works of your hand, put all things under his feet. All of them, sheep and cattle, yes, even the savage beasts, birds of the air, and fish that make their ways through the waters. How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!" Psalm 8
This is our "savage beast"... it is a battle around here with them usually winning! "The barbaric case of 'mistaken identity' becomes the source of incomparible exaltation for the Holy Innocents. For there is no greater glory than for a person to be mistaken for Christ himself. Perhaps the Lord had this in mind later in life when he declares that only those who change and become like little children can enter the kingdom of God. In our childlikeness, we are most like Jesus Christ. The blood of the Son Jesus that cleanses us from all sin begins to reach us and transform us today in a powerful way through the blood of the martyred Holy Innocents." 
Speaking with my son in law, Joseph, about the loss of my many children in the course of 6 pregnancies... the pain returned and I was weeping! How much more for the mothers and fathers that lost their cherished male children from 2 yo to newborn at this time in our Christian history.. how hard for Joseph to leave behind so many that would have to lose their precious sons, without warning them too... To know that they are the first martyrs did not give them peace while in this world but only later in heaven when they were reunited and could "see"the divine plan! I too, can see that altough my 6 are not with me here...it is the Lord's plan for my salvation for them to be in heaven praying for me and turning my heart, mind, spirit...drawing me heavenwards... Thank you Lord! You know how much I need that for my salvation! 
The activity of the house continues to draw me away from this intense sharing today! Soon I will be the caretaker of the 5 grandkids while my daughters join their dad, brother and husbands out in the cold and snow to do this family job! I will pile the kids in the sled and go to check out the scene with camera in hand... Therese is talking a tea party, and an adventure with Mary going out to intoduce her to Snowball the heifer! 
Nothing goes to waste -the dogs are always willing to devour the left over food! A few more pearls from the meditation of the day written by Francois Mauriac (1970)...won the Nobel Prize in Literature and is acknowledged as one of the greatest Roman Catholic writers of the 20th century - "The Mystery of the Holy Innocents"
"We cannot hold this Child responsible for the incomprehensible creation which he came to save but which, since hell-fire will continue throughout eternity, he did not save completely. Though Infinite, he has been swallowed up in a finite that is pock-marked with crimes. He establishes his claim in this world with two crossed pieces of wood; yet in the name of the cross, millions of martyrs and executioners have been raised up....
Therese showing grandma the scapular that she got from her parents for Christmas... She knows that her parents and her Godmother, Hallel, wear them... "We know that Mary and Jesus are always with us and this helps us to remember that always." her mother explains to her and I - we both agree with that! Therese shows me the cross that represents- "Jesus." Next she shows me a medal that is to remind her of Mary too! Too amazing and special! 
"people have been burned at the stake, crusades and wars have been unleashed, and human beings have been dominated by inhuman laws. The gentle Child shivers in the cold on the edge of a criminal world while angels promise peace to men of good will - a peace that can be discovered only after a full measure of suffering; but in the shadows of his birthplace Herod's soldiers sharpen their knives for a slaughter of the innocents that will apparently never end." Francois Mauriac
Therese showing me her elbow... Jesus, Mary and Joseph...the Holy Family continues to be very close to us.. we see that there is not all sweetness and light as you came into this difficult and hard world! Through the hardships of each day we learn to look to you and know that we are loved and forgiven and given the strength we need to go forward and serve those that you have given us in this lfe! How did your lowly manger in a barn turn into a cross so quickly? Life and its pain is a mystery - give us the strength that we need to find the joy of your resurrection and LIFE! Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!Bless-bless, Barb
Fond barn memories of years past - 1982... soon to have Nancy Anna..."The world and the events of history cannot be understood without professing faith in the God who is at work in them. Faith sharpens the inner eye, opening the mind to discover the workings of providence in the flux of events." Venerable John Paul II
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