Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Led forward down the narrow path by my children!

I am forever amazed at how as I have grown from mother hen with all my baby chicks to now mother of prayer as they go off and find their own domestic church/family... I am touched and amazed at how my children take me ever deeper into my Faith!  It probably truly started when our 3 oldest asked us to make a Together Encounter Christ retreat - each one asked after they returned from making their own.  Finally after the 3rd daughter, Maria, asked me - I could no longer say that I was fine with my faith and really didn't want to make a 3 day retreat with a bunch of strangers.  Thanks to their asking and praying for us - we both made a TEC retreat a few months apart and now we have discovered that this is a very important ministry for us as well as a ever deepening walk of faith as we grow deeper and deeper into HIS Disciples and less and less of "me."  Yes, it is an ongoing battle against selfishness, but we are armed with the spitirual armor daily with our prayers and sharing of the Gospel for each day and now I am going to daily mass with my son, John!
When Susan/Hallel came home from the discernment house in St Paul after spending the year with them discerning her vocation... she knew that she was not to stay with them and felt this pull to be with the Community of the Lamb.  She also knew that she needed daily mass and time spent in prayer in front of Jesus in the monstrance or tabernacle... we would go into the church very early - at least an hour before mass - and pray in front of the tabernacle before mass.  I was telling John today that when my kids are needing and wanting and making a way to go to daily mass - that I then find the ability and need to join them!  My kids take me deeper!  Pat is busy many mornings and therefore it doesn't work for him to go with us or for us to go together, so without the incentive of one of my children going - I cannot see myself getting there regularly.  It is just so beautiful for me to be getting to mass daily with my son as he is on his knees before his KING and asking for direction as he enters seminary in a few weeks to discern a call to the Priesthood!  "Why did God spare me?"  is the burning question for John.  He knows that he questioned his faith and asked to be shown that the Church and all it upholds is real and True, and his brain cancer battle with the healing now is the way that he found that Christ truly is the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE! 

I feel such peace and calm come over me as I look at Christ in the monstrance and place all of our family with Him there.  I know that just as he listened and answered John so he continues to show him the path ahead of him.  It is crazy amazing at how the doors have flown open for the last month.  John is awaiting the results from his last test and then he should be getting the official word of his attending St Paul Seminary at St Thomas in a little over a week!  I will no longer have him here to get me to mass with him every morning, and maybe I will continue to get there.  But I will forever hold very close to my heart the wonder of being allowed to share in the discernment and LOVE for Christ and his Church!  I have had the special mother-gift of being able to walk after my children as they go down the narrow path carrying their Most Cherished Cross!  I am humbled and unworthy but so grateful!

"O Splendor, Glory Bright,  Brought forth as Light from Light!  O Day, all days enlightening!  Angels with one accord cry, "Holy, holy Lord!'  To you, our everlasting King."  The hymn from morning prayer just speaks of how we ADORE HIM! 
Jesus, we love and adore you.  I am so humbled and blessed to have my children bringing me to YOU, and they bring me to my knees beside them!  Is there anything more wonderful than this?  I can not think of hardly anything, Lord!  Except for when we are all together in Heaven praising you together with all of our loved ones!  "Now the way to reach Christ is not hard to find: it is the Church.  Rightly does Chrysostom inculcate: 'The Church is your hope, the Church is your salvation, the Church is your refuge.'  It was for this that Christ founded it, gaining it at the price of his blood, and made it the depository of his doctrine and his laws, bestowing upon it at the same time an inexhaustible treasury of graces for the sanctification and salvation of men." St Pius X on this his feastday!  Wow!  Sharing the faith with my husband, children, parents, children in law, grandchildren, siblings... it is such a blessing and grace to share with them the belief in the Truth of His Bride, the Church!  The True Church - here on earth  to get us to Heaven where we will be forever united praising HIM with the Angels and the Saints!  How I love the Saints too!  Jesus, we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-bless, Barb
"Why then are you afraid to take up that Cross,which leads to the Kingdom?  In the Cross there is salvation; in the Cross there is life; in the Cross there is protection from your enemies; in the Cross there is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross there is spiritual joy; in the Cross there is the fullness of virtue; in the Cross there is the perfection of sanctity.  There is no health for the soul or hope for eternal life except in the Cross.  Therefore take up your Cross and follow Jesus, and you will attain eternal LIFE."  Venerable Thomas A'Kempis


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