Back at it... such a busy time of year on the farm with all the grass and hay that needs to be cut and baled and all the weeds that need to be sprayed. I already had to help pick up bales yesterday and that is a lot of times my job, but with my camera along to catch my most favorite subject and the warm breezes blowing through the pickup cab, and the flies biting my ankles, and the pollen giving me allergies... well, it's a mixed bag, but that rosary time while I am out there makes it all very wonderful and beautiful!
We are adjusting to being back home, and trying to carry forth all that we gained from our weekend retreat and how the Lord touched us and used us as His vessels and servants, and how we were human and made mistakes and were humbled... I was in a constant state of prayer - asking the Lord to humble me, and I was not dissappointed! If we did not make human and selfish mistakes, when would we experience the Lord's amazing forgiveness? 
Today we read Matthew's version of the paralytic, and how the Lord forgives his sins, and that translastes into his healing him to show that He has the power to forgive sins! "Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk?" But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" - He then said to the paralytic, "Rise pick up your stretcher, and go home." Wow! how many times have we walked into confession paralyzed by a problem in our lives, and leave the confessional jumping and leaping and praising God?!? Well maybe doing that in our hearts!
What would we do if the person ahead of us in the confessional came out in joyful tears and exclamation of JOY? Hug them, and cry with them, and praise God with them? "When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had been given such authority to men." Matt 9:8 The three people that had brought the paralytic to Jesus - his friends - must have run after him and praised God to the highest heaven with him, and fallen at the feet of Jesus and thanked him for healing their friend! Let us also bring our friends and family to Jesus for healing and forgiveness, if it is impossible to bring them to Church or to the sacraments - most especially the sacrament of Reconcilliation - let us pray without ceasing for them to come to Him and that doors may be opened for that to happen! 
Sweet Jesus, how I yearn to come to you and to be healed and forgiven... yet, why do I shun the confessional and the time there to lay my burdens at your feet? It is so hard to bare my soul to you, yet it is so foolish of me to try to hide from you what you already know about me. That I am human and selfish and I lie and I indulge myself and I am weak and sinful... I want to be free of these things so that I can be a better follower of you! Humble me Lord! Allow your LOVE and JOY to flow through and around me, and most of all allow me to minister to my family and to find the patience and understanding I need to put them first and to serve them. Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless, Barb the humble and fervent"No one can be forgiven without a beginning of love. Through the visible priest, the invisible Christ forgives our sins and opens again his heart to us. That is why those faithful who are eager to make some progress in the spiritual life not only confess but agree that a priest direct them in the difficult path...Confession, penance, contrition constitute the sacred patrimony shared by all priests and all the faithful. We receive three inestimable treasures: the certainty of being forgiven through the words of Jesus to the paralytic, repeated expressly for us, 'Your sins are forgiven'; a kiss of peace received in the very depths of our miserable hearts; a blank page upon which the most infamous man, having become once more like a little child, can begin writing his life anew... for it is never too late to become a saint." Francois Mauriac (1970)
Holy Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church pray for us!
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