Calving has fully started with Pat struggling with his surveilance camera.. we were so spoiled last year, and now it is fuzzy and blinks on and off- we cannot figure out if it is the weather or just being a year in the barn... today is a very amazing feast day in the Church - St Peter's Chair!
These pictures were planned to show the two girls with their new short hair and the "dog ears" that grandma had put in their hair complete with matching ribbons... it turned into much more than that, and it was fun to watch it ebb and flow from this dyanmic to that with the 5 kids in and out and the cats in the belly hold... of course the snowy backdrop is also a fun and pretty element. Today we awoke to the glory of sun shining on the frosted trees and bushes and the white snow laden branches on the pine trees... Fairy tale beauty! 
Deep snow...little legs... "grandma I need your hand to get through"....We made it to the barn for an adventure learning many new things as they watch grandpa working with the two new calves that were born overnight!
Davey loves to watch and "help" grandpa and do everything that grandpa does... He drives tractors, and gets them stuck, and then gets them out! That makes grandpa second only to God! Today on this feast day of our Church and all that makes it the Truth that we are to trust and follow in our lives... handed down from Pope to Pope since St Peter. We are reminded of all that makes the Church what it is today... the humanity mixed with the spiritual! The mystery of our Church is something that I do not find the need to question... I see the truth and wisdom in all that we are asked to take to heart for our happiness by those in our Church down through the ages!
I love the way that Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (1914) talks of our Church in the meditation of the day today - see http://www.magnificat.com/ "Human affairs, human sins, and weaknesses as well as human virtues, have all contributed to the Power of The Church. So grows a tree, even in uncongenial soil. The rocks that impede the roots later become their support; the rich soil, waiting for an occupant, has been drawn up into the life of the leaves; the very winds that imperiled the young sapling have developed its power to resistance. Yet these things do not make the tree."
Jesus, how I love our amazing, and wise, and humble Church. Yes, we have been humbled by the human weaknesses that weigh us down, and we plead with you to help us come out healed and willing to follow more closely your wonderful plan for your Church! Thank you for the Chair of St Peter, and the human men that have taken on the burden of leading your Church. For Venerable John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI in our lifetime - we are forever blessed by their wisdom, and humble service! "Perhaps it would be a good thing if every Christian, certainly if every priest , could dream once in his life he were pope, and wake from that nightmare in a sweat of agony." (Ronald Knox) Thank you for these brave men that said "yes" to the astronomical call to serve the world as Pope. Be with them, and guide them, and give them the strength and wisdom that they need to love and serve you in your Church. Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless, Barb"Beloved: I exhort the presbyters among you, as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed. Tend the flock of God in our midst, overseeing not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the unfading crown of glory." I Peter 5: 1-4 The first reading from mass today - the words of St Peter himself to us about the call to be Pope - he being the first! Jesus said to him in the Gospel today - "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.... You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Matt 16: 13-19
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