A great new picture from Maria's blog - Patrick climbing up in the teacher's chair and starting to color along side the other two homeschoolers! Patrick is only 17 months! He was holding his crayon correctly and truly joining in with his siblings! His strides are giant steps for any little one, but for this grandma, who was given the privilege of being with Maria and he for his shocking traumatic birth - it is so much more to see him even being advanced for his age! I am in awe of God and His miracles that are all around me! Now the word of Maria's pregnancy calls upon us to be praying with another expectation of a miracle baby in September! There is much that ties me to my 3rd daughter, Maria. It seems that we share a disposition to miscarriage, and she discovered before she married that she was poly cystic through her taking Creighton Model NFP.... so I am thinking that I now know why I was prone to miscarriage too! Maria, in reality is expecting her 6th child, as she had two losses between David and Patrick. Not only did she have to experience what I prayed none of my girls would have, but I was with her both times. We are planning a trip to Texas to see our little family in a few weeks and that is going to take a lot of prayer and a lot of Trust on my part... I admit I will be worried to go and be with her in her first trimester again. When she got pregnant with Patrick shortly after her 2nd miscarriage - she told me that she didn't want to see me for 3 months, and I felt the same way. So Lord, help me to trust and go with love and joy to be with my newly pregnant daughter!
Daughter, Nancy, is approaching her 5th month of pregnancy #3. All her hopes and dreams for a good Catholic husband and wonderful children are coming true for her! She has some struggles with her pregnancies in how she feels, but otherwise seems to be the model for having healthy wonderful children about every year and a half! Being single with her own job and life has made her adjustment to dying to self for her kids and finding value in being a stay-at-home mom a bit harder... yet she is very happy and now shares some special crafts and sharings on her blog - http://www.dosmallthingswithlove.com/ Lately she has shared some of the more "yucky" and uncomfortable parts of her life with insight and humility. I love that the best, and feel that it is good sharing that can truly help others find the small slice of heaven we are allowed to find in our domestic Church/family. What do I see as miracles for Nancy's life? I see that she waited and hoped and prayed for her spouse, and had to watch sister after sister find theirs... she kept to her values and was richly blessed right in the midst of our family crisis - the storm of her younger brother, John's brain cancer - by William! Tomorrow will be John's 4th birthday - the day his own stem cells were returned to his body after the "bomb" of chemo wiped out his entire bone marrow/immunity! He had to get his baby shots again!!! Talk about a miracle!
Picture perfect! So many blessings and more on the way! So many prayers that are needed and given with great hope and trust! I take that job very seriously, and I am so in love with the time of contemplation I am called to with each new day! Starting the day with prayer with my husband/my most Cherished Cross is a wonderful place we have gotten to after years without that! I know that my girls are at a better place with this, and they shared prayer throughout their dating/engagement/ and now marriage! Open to LIFE and trusting in HIM. How I must do this with the lives in the womb- Trust! With history nagging at me to make me worry and doubt... I must hope and trust that each life is a miracle and we hope they can join us here and bring their light into our world!
Grandpa will miss his little special helper, Augustine, today!
I have a kind of hopeful plan for John's birthday tomorrow - it will depend upon the weather as well as whether John has meetings for his job tomorrow night... I would like to go down and make him supper in his apartment and spend some good time with him. Time will tell. I am thinking about him a lot right now after the concerning news we got in Rochester that there is some difference showing up in John's brain, and what will that mean? I am determined to keep praying for ongoing miracles for John that his Psalm 30 may continue to be lived in him - knowing that he is asking and following our Lord as He leads him down the narrow path as he carries his Most Cherished Cross.
"I cried out to you, O Lord.
I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,9 “What will you gain if I die,
if I sink into the grave?
Can my dust praise you?
Can it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me.
Help me, O Lord.”
11 You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
12 that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:8-12
You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
12 that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:8-12
John's greatest JOY is sharing his miracle of finding Faith through brain cancer! He will "not be silent." When we read this psalm on the way to one of his talks - we were blown away with how this expresses his journey and healing!
My wonderful Most Cherished Cross/Patrick, loves all LIFE - His wisdom led by the Holy Spirit is the basis for our domestic Church/family - "The world needs LIGHTS!" To now see the beautiful new lights entering the world as our daughters embrace their Most Cherished Cross and find LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT is the most wonderful family heritage I could ever hope for! Thank you, Jesus! It is a new and unexpected way for Patrick to be "fishers of men"(Matt 4 - the Gospel) and definitely the Cross has not been "emptied of its meaning" (I Cor 1 - the second reading) as we embrace all LIFE that we are given and are determined to raise them as LIGHTS for all those around them! "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing..." Isaiah 8 - the first reading from mass today.
A smile sheds much light in our lives - may we learn to turn our frown upside down!
Jesus, every person's story is special with your fingerprint upon us and the "miracles" that come from your love and Mercy towards us! May we humbly realize that we cannot go it alone, we need to die to self so that YOU, O Lord, can live in us! Our lives in our domestic Church/family would be so much happier and healthier if we could only give without counting the cost! Just as the Lamb of God showed us - "Wounded, I will not cease to LOVE!" This is so hard to do, yet we are called to trust in YOU and to share the Truth without hesitation in all that we say and do. May we take up our Most Cherished Cross, embrace it, and find that it is covered with much fruit as it is truly the Tree of LIFE! Jesus, we trust in YOU. Amen and Hallelujah
Bless-bless, Barbara Luke
I miss my little ones today... the smiles with their eyes and snuggles are missed the most! This special lamb says "Our Father", "Hail Mary", and "Glory Be"! Lovely, and LOVING, and feeling LOVED by Jesus and Our Spiritual Mother, Mary Most Holy... a most cherished moment indeed!
"I must die to myself continually and accept trials without complaining. I work, I suffer and I love with no other witness than his heart. Anyone who is not prepared to suffer all for the Beloved and to do his will in all things is not worthy of the sweet name of Friend, for here below, Love without suffering does not exist." St Bernadette
Bernadette relates the incident:# "As we could not go any further, my two companions went through the water in front of the Grotto, so I was left alone on the other side. I asked the two others to help me throw stones into the water to see if I could cross without taking off my shoes and stockings, but it was no good. So I came back in front of the Grotto. Hardly had I taken off my first stocking when I heard a noise as if a sudden wind blew. I turned my head and looked at the meadow and I saw that the trees were still. I went on taking off my stockings and again I heard the same sound, and as I lifted up my head to look at the Grotto, I saw a Lady in white. I was a little frightened and, thinking it must be an illusion, I rubbed my eyes, but in vain. I still saw the Lady. Then I put my hand in my pocket and took out my rosary. I wanted to make the sign of the Cross but I could not lift my hand to my forehead. Then I was seized by a great fear. The Lady took up the rosary she held in her hands and she made the Sign of the Cross. I tried again to make it and this time I could. My great fear went as soon as I had made the Sign of the Cross. I knelt down and said the rosary before this beautiful Lady. When the rosary was ended she beckoned me to go nearer but I did not dare to. Then she disappeared. I set about taking off my other stocking so as to cross the narrow stream in front of the Grotto and went home." Feb 11, 1858 After being there and seeing the statue in the grotto - this is most beautiful and powerful to read in her words!
Her namesake, Bernadette Bandzuch, and grandma sharing the rosary... so beautiful and blessed!
Matthew West - My name is Child of the One True KING
Watching the March for LIFE on EWTN - Matt Mayer was just singing this on stage! Pray this in our hearts for all LIFE!
Matt Mayer - Holy, holy, holy
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