Control Amazing Loving Mercy - CALM!

I had noticed these beautiful wild roses in the ditch yesterday, as I was moving some men along a gravel road that connects our place to the home place.  They looked so beautiful with varying colors from a hot pink to soft pink... I longed to stop and try to capture them, but time did not allow.  This morning heading back from the biggest GIFT of all - mass followed by Adoration - I talked to my husband to see if he needed any errands run in town.  "No, but did you see the hail on the way to mass?"  "No, it looked pretty good to me."  He then mentioned some land on that gravel road I had mentioned, that was hit by hail!  So I drove straight there to see.  I was also curious to see if those delicate looking roses had survived the pounding thunder storm and hail... well there they were looking refreshed and lovely.  Yes, there were a few petals missing here and there and the large drops of moisture only added to their glistening beauty!  Nestled along that dusty gravel road - they are now washed clean by the rain and given the water they need to grow and bloom for the time to come!  Yet in the field next to them - a soybean field you can see that the hail has hurt them some... they look kind of thin and that some of the delicate leaves have been pounded off by the hail!  It will affect the yeild come this fall, and is hard to take when many of the other soybean fields in the area look like there was not hail there.  Things you cannot control - like nature - can just seem unfair sometimes! 

Morning prayer read in front of Jesus today... was the beautiful reminder of just this - we cannot control nature!  It has not changed over the centuries with all the advancements of man... we cannot control weather, the sea, and much of the natural things that make up our world!  I smiled ear to ear sitting in the majesty of our newly rennovated Church with Jesus glowing at me from the monstrance and the newly polished tabernacle - I read the story of Jesus calming the sea - Mark 4: 35-41 used in morning prayer today!  It was at this time 3 years ago when that was the Gospel at Father's Day Mass!  That was the 21st of June in 2009.  So here we are in the midst of Father's Day 2012 and the 21st of June and it is there for me to be reminded with great joy of the CALM which came over me and remained with me no matter what!  I searched for the meaning that would fit with the letters from CALM - Control Amazing Loving Mercy - Yes, when we called Hallel and she reminded us from the Gospel - "Mom, this is the storm and Jesus is in control!"  It truly took all the fear away in that deep interior spiritual Cathedral of my soul and heart!  "Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Quiet!  Be still!'  The wind ceased and there was great calm."  Matt 4: 39  The wind - the fear of brain cancer - wanted to blow me over and make me doubt and fear... instead I clung to the boat - Our Amazing Wondrous Catholic Church with all that is has to offer me and our family - the sacraments, the Word, the devotionals-rosary which was my lifeline, the Angels and the Saints, and our domestic Church/family and that includes many that are our family not by blood but through that Church - and the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus Christ! 

The bean field looking not as full and healthy due to the hail!  All we can do is trust and do the best job we can in caring for the land - some things are out of our hands - we can only trust and hope!  Jesus, in your Gospel today you teach the Truth of being a Christian - "I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the good and the bad, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust... So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."  Matt 5: 43-48  That pretty much is hard to do and we need you to dwell within us and allow the Spirit to fill us with the fruits -

I went to google the fruits of the Spirit and found this cool visual!  It is so summery and healthy and just plain good for our souls to be filled with these wonderful fruits as the result of allowing the Spirit to work in our lives, and to get our selfishness out of the way!  Come Holy Spirit and be our guest now and always! May the CALM we have as we face the storms of LIFE reveal to all without saying words that we belong to YOU.  May your LIGHT shine for all to see, and give us these fruits especially within our domestic Church/family.  There with those that we live the closest to - these fruits are most needed and are tested the most.  Jesus, we long to see your face in all those that we meet this day and forward! Jesus, we trust in you.  "They were filled with great awe and said to one another, 'Who then is this whom even the wind and sea obey?' "  It is the LORD!  Amen and Halleluia! 

Bless-bless, Barb  This is a picture of Danielle Rose - a rose for Jesus!  Wow! 

"The purpose of prayer is perhaps less to obtain what we ask for than to become someone else.  We should go further and say that asking something from God transforms us,little by little,into people capable of sometimes doing without what they ask for... Now we understand why God seems to delay: not in order to test us arbitrarily, but to compel our desire to become more intense and to become truly like his... The purpose of prayer is to bring this desire, which leaves a man restless and disturbed, to becoming a feeling of hope..."  Fr Bernard Bro, OP

"Should you not fear me, says the Lord, should you not tremble before me?  I made the sandy shore the sea's limit,which by eternal decreee it may not overstep.  Toss though it may, it is to no avail; though its billows roar, they cannot pass."

Jeremiah 5: 22

Another Danielle Rose picture entitled - Jesus!!!!

Soon we will gather at the sandy shore of amazing Lake Michigan - Jesus, you are in control!

Finally a great one year picture of Augustine taken by his mom- She called this one "the flirt!"  Safe travels tomorrow little Bandzuch family - we are looking forward to a CALM week in Michigan with you all!  Once again - Jesus, we trust in you!