Tonight after adoration with Pat and his mom, and supper... I returned home to actually make a point to check out EWTN, and found an old Mother Angelica Live show on... Feeling that I have gotten to know and love her so much with now in the midst of reading her book - I fell in love with her direct and no fooling around humor! How she loves and protects the Church, and all the wonderful ways that The Church stands for and upholds LIFE! After the show there was a news break, and I shouted for joy to hear that my beloved Venerable John Paul II is to be beatified on May 1st - the first week after Easter - the feast of Divine Mercy.It used to be St Thomas Sunday - doubting Thomas... as Jesus comes and appears to him to prove that he is truly Risen! In the year 2000 Pope John Paul made it also Divine Mercy Sunday, in line with his cannonization of St Faustina, who received an order from Jesus to show the world his endless mercy for all! This is so cool, and so appropraite for him to be beatified - Blessed John Paul II on Divine Mercy Sunday! I just know that I can pray to him in heaven and that St Faustina came to him and thanked him for helping her get the message out to the world that Jesus is standing there with his heart burning with love for us with unconditional and endless forgiveness! They are arm in arm rejoicing when any of us sinners accept his MERCY!
As a new Catholic, the Pope was not really something that I payed a lot of attention to, but when I married a strong Catholic farmer 6 years later - one,who had told his sisters years before that he would not marry anyone that wasn't Catholic. We were married in August of 1978, and two months later John Paul II became Pope and my total hero! How I loved him, as did so many throughout the world whether Catholic or not! For my entire married life up until 2005, when he suffered and died in the public eye with such dignity and strength of faith with the slow loss of movement due to Parkinsonism... I was devoted to Him and the Truth he supported and taught us in powerful ways - for example the Theology of the Body! He faced many of those that wanted the Church to change it's stand on life or family, and there was no way that he could ever do that! He fought and stood up for the Truth in such a dynamic and powerful way! He represented the Culture of Life, and faced down and pointed out with force the Culture of death! He went to confession every day, and carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and took it to the deep place of the desert in prayer. How many times he would be shown deep in PRAYER, and you felt the depth of it, and the reality of his communication of LOVE with His Savior and and the Queen Mother of God!
I will be working in the morning early, so might rise early to write briefly... I just was so overjoyed with the news, and it is very interesting that he is on the fast track and will be beatified a few days shorter time than Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Jesus, thank you for the gift of these two amazing saints here among us. I am forever changed and enriched by both of these amazing people that walked the earth with me. It is so interesting that they were recognized by many, as very good followers of you. Allow their example to touch and encourage others to embrace and follow the culture of life. Rid the world of darkness - sin and death. Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless, Barb"As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live."
Pope John Paul II"The future starts today, not tomorrow."
Pope John Paul II
"Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church. "
Pope John Paul II
"Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence."
Pope John Paul II
"Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."
Pope John Paul II
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