One of my favorite subjects is the little red barn that Ruth and Paul have on their small farm just 3 miles from us... the sun rises just behind it - standing from the house or as you drive in the yard... so wonderful to stand and watch as the rising sun paints the barn and the spring landscape with rosey flaming light! Today the words of the Meditation of the day by St Catherine seem to be fitting with the rising sun. She is addressing the words of Christ in the Gospel for today - "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8: 31-42
Today is the glorious story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the firey furnace! They refuse to worship the golden statue and are thrown into the blazing hot furnace... "Shadrach, Mechach, and Abednego "yielded their bodies rather than serve any god except their own God." God "looks ino the depths" of obedience, he enables his faithful to walk in fire unhurt. "The truth will set you free." We beg the "Son of God" to accompany us in our flames. see http://www.magnificat.com/ 
"As the young men were thrown into the furnace, - Daniel 3 - so also is Jesus thrown into the pit of death by powerful enemies. Just as they were preserved by God, who is more powerful than any king, so also is Jesus delivered from death by God, who is more powerful even than that most terrifying of enemies, death, which prowls the world seeking to devour all the living. Life, not death, has the last word."
Part of Ruth and Paul's "farm" is a wonderful hilly pasture behind their house complete with pine trees and a creek winding through it... we went back for a fanciful hour with two kids and two cats... I wonder if the wind was blowing their tales to the left... they are mother and daughter though. I just got off the phone with John and he was telling me about the dream that he had about his sister in France last week - he woke up with a wet pillow from crying in his sleep but also when he woke up and missed her so terribly..."I was in France I think, because I remember a lot of blue people. We were in the green Cathedral together" - a level area in the midst of a hill that they have made into an outside cathedral and where we celebrated mass quite a few times the week we were there - "then I was on the plane leaving and weeping actually in my sleep. I think that was the first time that I have ever done that." As I write this the tears are rolling down my face, and John cut our conversation short because of my bursting into tears at the feeling of empty arms for my sweet youngest daughter! We all miss her a lot! Maria just called for her address as she is sending her a note with a picture that Therese made for her Godmother... I told her to send along my love! 
This is quite disjointed and rambling today and filled with phone conversations with my children... The journey of life is one made so deep and powerful by the ways that we have been called to share - by the fact that we are born into this world in our families - leads us on a journey of life and faith that we are given with that birthright! WE are forever tied to them by blood and faith. Two powerful ties but the faith part is what gives us the graces to love and serve and be merciful to them as our Lord has been merciful with us! We are given the graces to recognize and resist the false gods that surround us!
Jesus, we are filled with so many emotions when it comes to the family that you have given us on this earth. Our parents, our siblings, our spouses and the family of theirs that also becomes ours, our children, and then the families that we come to share in as they in turn marry, and the grandchildren... our circle of loved ones becomes ever widening and encompassing... Such a wonderful gift to share closely and lovingly in the lives of so many, yet there are struggles too. Give us the ability to trust in the Truth that will set us free. Free to give of ourselves without counting the cost, and to embrace the most cherished cross...our families.
The cross that is the lifegiving force in our lives... "For there is revealed such warm love, such gentle persuasive teaching filled with life-giving fruits, such generosity that he has torn open his very body, has shed his life's blood, and with that blood has baptized and bathed us. We can and should make use of that baptism every day with continual rememberance and great love." St Catherine of Siena Lord, may we be baptized into that great love within the wonderful family we are born into - our Domestic Church! Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and Halleluia
Bless-bless, Barb
"I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace."
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart." Hellen Keller
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