From the Gospel for today kind of sums up the discussion that we just had upon rising this morning..."How can you believe, when you seek praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?" John 5
Last night was our final night of teaching confirmation for this year... it has been a hard and frustrating year and once again we are reminded of the importance of sharing your faith within the home - the Domestic Church! There is no replacing it! The small things that we try to do with great love... seem to fly up into the air and evaporate. We hope and pray that they are seeds that can take root in the soil prepared, but many times we come away feeling that we have not connected in any way, shape or form!
There are some young people that are shining lights, and we know that they are getting the instruction not only in word but also in action in their homes... It shows! I am not tooting our own horns, but I am saying that this is the most important thing in our families and in our lives... Our faith in Jesus Christ and His Bride the Church! 
Where to start? Attending mass as a family every weekend, and many of my girls attend daily mass whenever possible. My little 3 year old granddaughter, Therese, has attended mass most every day of her existance - from the womb and beyond. Her mother has her kneel down after mass and look at the tabernacle and pray/talk to Jesus, her Lord and Savior! Such a beautiful sight to behold.. a mother with her arm around her little girl and praying together to the Savior of the World. You can really get inside of her lifestyle and approach to putting her faith central in her family life and now wife life.
Taking in the beauty of the clouds! Then to carry that Christ within us forth into our families and the world around us. Maria has always limited TV and internet in her home... like it wasn't there at all for the first few years of their marriage. They read together a lot, and pray together at night and at each meal. She also liked to go to the Nursing Home and go around with candy at Christmas or a card that they made.... it was powerful to go along with them and see the faces of the people light up, when a sweet little girl came and gave them a hug and spoke to them and gave them a small gift! There was one lady that had been praying for John and also had a crucifix on that my mother in law had given her years before - Maria had studied a year in Rome, and gotten many of them blessed by John Paul II- he is to be beatified this weekend! To know that they are cherished that much by some is a very powerful thing to behold! 
We found the saints to be hugely inspiring in our home! We had faced many losses of pregnancies together, so the pain of loss and the suffering we shared as a family was hard, but we found hope in reading the lives of the saints. They faced suffering and death and still loved God and rejoiced to be called to heaven with the one person that they loved beyond all else - the Trinity! We can face all that comes our way and be better for it as long as we rely on the Lord - Our Strength!
I guess that it just comes down to putting our faith first in our lives and asking Jesus and His Church to be the center of our families! The 3 "Fs" are my motto for life - Faith, Family and Farm! The faith and the family are so interrelated that they really cannot be seperated! And that is as it should be - They should not ever be seperated!!!!!!!!!!!
Lord, show us how to put you first in our lives and to find the real Truth! May the other distractions of life- school, sports, relationships, familytime... all be filled with you and your love. We can find a good balance as long as we are realizing that before anything else we need to love and worship you as you are God and the Creator of all! With the coming of spring after 4 months of brutal winter...we are filled with wonder and awe at the world and can see your fingerprint on the coming of new life! Use us to spead the life and love that you have shown to us within our domestic Church - our family, and also with those that we come in contact with. Jesus, we long to find the Way, the Truth and the Life - you are that and you promise to show us the Path that you have laid out before us as we follow after you carrying our most cherished Cross. Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless, Barb
"You should not be concerned about anything for this present life except to make God reign in your heart by his grace and the fullness of his love. You should be living for him; the life of God ought to be the life of your soul.
You nourish the life of your soul with God's life by occupying yourself with this holy presence as much as you are able. What characterizes the life of the saints is their continual attention to God; this should also be true of souls consecrated to God, who seek only to do his holy will, to love him, and to cause him to be loved by others.
This should be your entire peroccupation on earth; to accomplish this should be the goal of your work. Hence, help those you teach to look upon sin as a shameful sickness that infects their souls and makes them unworthy to draw near to God and appear before him. Inspire them with love for virtue; impress upon them sentiments of piety, and see to it that God does not cease to reign in them. Then they will have nothing to do with sin, or at least they will aviod serious sins, which cause death to the soul.
Often recall to mind the purpose of your vocation, and let this inspire you to do your part to establish and to maintain the kingdom of God in the hearts of your students. Do you refect that one of your best ways to procure such an advantage is, first of all, to make God reign in your students in such a way that they no longer act or have any inclination except by God?"
St John Baptist de la Salle (1719) pray for us on this your feast day! And thank you for giving us some direction for sharing our faith in our homes and as teachers of the faith! I think that he speaks with authority as he was a French priest who founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools and he is the patron saint of Teachers! Wow!
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