For 2 years the pictures that I took while John and I were in Rochester for 5 weeks in Jan of 2010 for his stem cell transplant were stuck on John's computer... just yesterday I was able to get them onto a flash drive and was gifted with them. There are many feelings whirling around in my head and heart this morning... The pictures of our final battle do not get me in this state of heart and mind,but they do seem to fit with the sharing... The Gospel today is very powerful in the area of Jesus reaching out to heal those that have been ill for a long time... there are many things within each of us that are so tightly interwoven in us that we hardly are aware of the "illnesses" that are keeping us from being totally HIS! The pride issues, and the selfishness that we choose to not see, the way we treat those that are the closest to us... The large numbers of "ill, blind, lame, and crippled." It is so interesting that the man has been ill for 38years... Something came across my radar a few minutes ago that goes very deep for me, and my experience with this person and the insight that he gave me into this ongoing situation was almost at this exact amount of time ago... 38 years! I was a nurse at General - HCMC in Minneapolis, and I worked with a male nurse called, Bill. He had been a monk at St John's and was openly gay. He became a good and close friend and he shared much with me about his former life there, and the infection of accepting and living homosexual lifestyle there at St John's among some of the staff as well as fostering it among those attending college there. My friend, Bill, kept in touch by Christmas cards for a few years after I married and moved to Marshall. Then the sad Christmas letter from a mutual nurse friend informing me that Bill had died of AIDS on November 3, 1993! He had contracted AIDS going to the bathhouses in the Cities! I felt so sad to know that he had lived out his sexual preference in defiance of the Wisdom of our Church, and the having this desire is a call to a life of chastity and purity as much as if you are called to embrace the life of a sister, brother or priest. The fact that he had been a brother and still had lived out an active homosexual sex life...so sad! I loved the man, Bill, as a sensative and special man, but I hated the sin and was so sadened to know that his final days so early in his life were the sad and painful result of that sin! I pray for his soul, and that there was confession and conversion of heart in the midst of his final days, and that he is working towards heaven with prayers in purgatory! Jesus, hold my friend Bill close to your heart burning with love for him!
http://blog.cardinalnewmansociety.org/2012/03/08/pro-gay-marriage-movie-to-be-shown-at-catholic-college/ This all came bubbling out of me due to reading this article this morning... I am so saddened and angry at St John's and St Ben's for their blatant disregard for the Truth and continually over all these years promoting homosexuality - lived out and encouraged! There was the time that the Archbishop was invited to say mass there and those that support gay marriage wore ribbons to show their support - directly in opposition of the marrige act that the Archbishop is promoting that marrige is between one man and one woman! There is a group to help those that are wanting to do what is right and just - http://couragerc.net/ I know that this might sound condescending, but having the homosexual tendencies is really a call to such a deep and powerful faith life... Much like Hallel and her call to religious life - her life is filled with HIM in prayer and sacrament!
I watched this young mother showing her girls a devotion to Jesus... this was the anniversary of Roe vs Wade in January 2010! Another way that the Church asks us - "Do you want to be well?" How can life be taken so casually as to kill the unborn?! It does shock me to see how far we have gone with sin and evil, and the way that so many are blind to the Truth! We now have our first ever blind calf! It is totally blind, and Pat has been talking to some that have experienced this - a farmer that calves out 300+ cows! It is a very time consuming and difficult situation... it takes a long time for the calf to learn how to stand and it needs to be always close to its mother...in a small pen so that it can nurse as it needs to. It will never be able to go out on the large pastures as the other pairs do. Pat has been told that you "either hit it over the head now, or give it to the Amish to raise." Why the Amish? Because they take the time and energy to care for it. I keep hearing Pat say that he isn't giving up on it, so it is a ongoing new experience around here. The calf was hard to deliver too... it's legs were back underneath it, and Pat took quite a while to get it in the right position and to come out. That darkness that it only knows is quite something to think about... even my mother in law, the 92 year old farmwife that she is, said; "The poor thing." I have yet to see it, but it only makes sense that the same kinds of things that you encounter with human babies would happen with animals too! Today as Jesus approaches the blind as well as the other ill... it just resonates with the experience we are having with this blind calf. 
Jesus, so much is making us sick, and you are there asking us if we want to be well... We try and try to listen to the Truth, and there is so much leading us down false paths. We are blind to the Truth. We are in the dark and can not find our way without you. The Way is narrow and hard - our Most Cherished Cross! We need to embrace it, and find the resurrection after the death! "Rise, take up your mat, and walk." You tell us... "Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked." The light floods our eyes and gives our entire inner self the ability to "see" and follow the Truth and the LIFE! "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light." Matthew 6:22 May our eyes be directed towards the wisdom of your amazing Church! May we realize that the rules they set out for us are there to help us follow you and get to heaven. To be saints! Jesus, hold all those that are blind close to your heart burning with love for them. Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and Halleluia
Bless-bless, Barb"In a very basic way, I believe with all my heart and soul that being a faithful, committed Catholic is one of the happiest, healthiest ways to go through life, and to spend eternity. I don't know what I'd do without my faith... I've always seen part of my work as a priest and a bishop as trying to expend the experience I had as a child, of a happy, loving family and parish... I happen to have an upbeat, fearless, embracing view towards culture, and I sometimes worry I'm not getting across that I'm not at all blind to the fact that there's a lot of diabolical, evil stuff there, and we have to be continually vigilant. I'm not blind to the sin of the world. But we have to balance that with the steadfastness that allows us to keep trying and never give up... God knows there's enough pain and failure and frustration out there... Yet the amazing message of Christianity is 'You can win!' In fact, Christ has already won, and so all the suffering and heartache we see around us is transitory. We can persevere, knowing that we are in the hands of a loving God."
Cardinal Timothy Dolan
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