Cut off what keeps us from HIM - The Saint that is just me

Last night Simon and Luke sharing some time - super sweet!

A homeschooling friend/mother of 4 had this on facebook this morning with a sharing of her two oldest dealing with annoyance with each other.  They speak in terms of their journey towards Sainthood - "Mom, I need your prayers. I need to figure out how to actually love him when he makes me so angry."  The sharing led me to this amazing song by Danielle Rose - the Saint that is just me

I just watched the video while she was singing and found many pearls!  Usually I start the song and then read my blog to the background music... it is truly worth watching as there is much there more than her amazing words in the song.  The readings for today are also very difficult - St James in the first reading is pretty much fire and brimstone on the subject of wealth and how it leads to hell!  This is always a hard thing for me.  I admit that I am very comfortable in my life and just looking at me you know that I am overindulgent when it comes to putting things in my mouth.  I know that I need to give more and do without more!  This is a something that I need to cut off from myself as it is preventing me from being the Saint I am being called upon to be in my life.  Lord, I want to do better - help me!  Then in the Gospel Jesus also is very graphically hard on our sinful natures...  He is telling us to get rid of those things that come between His being in control of our lives!  "Cut it off"  "Pluck it out"  He tells us!  We all have those things which are selfish and wrong which we make excuses for in our lives.  My kids have been my conscience along the road pointing out to me things that I should not be doing.  Now that is humbling and really makes you pause and put a stop to those things!  I also have the 7 little angels in heaven watching over me, and that makes you pause when tempted also!

Simon is now 9 and his baby brother is just about 4 months.  It is kind of crazy that Ruth and I had our 5 children in almost the exact same amount of time - maybe a week or two off - talk about patterns from one generation to the next!  Simon has heard it said that he and Luke look a lot alike and he was showing me that they share the same eyes.  I loved having the chance to capture the two of them together.  They will share life always as siblings with all the ups and downs they will encounter.  Hopefully they will bear one with the other and always take their hardships to prayer having Faith in Jesus, and His Bride, The Church!
St Catherine of Sienna today in the Meditation of the Day spoke of how we are called - "Cutting off what is not God's LOVE"
"How true it is then... that within the cell of your soul you will find the whole of God.  And he bestows such sweetness, refreshment, and consolation that no matter what may happen we cannot be shaken, because we have been made big enough to hold God's own will.  How?  By getting rid of all selfish love, by getting rid of everything that is not God's will." 
Wow!  That is so amazing isn't it?  To realize that we are large enough to hold God in that temple/cell within us - that really makes me want to sweep it clean and to make all the effort in the world to cut off and pluck out the sin that I allow to creep in and dirty up the place!  May I take a hard look at myself, Lord, and make a move to cut, and pluck, and give without counting the cost!

Luke and his grandpa leaning on each other feels good!  It is so delightful to have our little Luke now here to share LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT with on the journey of Faith/family /farm!  It is humbling and beautiful to realize that God knew little Luke in the ways we are starting to from the moment he was conceived in the womb - see Psalm 139!
             9" If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you."

The 5 sharing a meal together... Each is a special child of God, and they are very aware of this.  Both Simon and Mary have had their first reconciliation and felt the LOVE and mercy of God!  Why hide our weaknesses and sins - Jesus, knows them already!
Jesus, the hard words in your Word today are like a spotlight that has been placed on our inner places where we have become lazy and think that they are hidden from you in the darkness in those shadowy places.  But YOU see all!  Nothing is hidden from YOU - You, who have counted the hairs on our heads and known us from the moment of our conception in the womb and before!  We cannot fathom your infinite love and forgiveness for us!  Help us to look critically at our lives and cut off and pluck out all those things that are sinful and lead us away from YOU!  May we give of ourselves and die to self so that YOU may live and move and breath within our inner temple/cell - may we contain God and then take that Spirit forth into our lives - may we come often to YOU in the confessional and lay all those things humbly and with great contrition at your feet!  Why try to hide anything from YOU - YOU know all!  Lord, I hear you calling me to come to be reconciled to YOU in the sacrament of reconciliation and then go forth from that healing to do better in my life.  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Amen and Hallelujah

Bless-bless, Barbara Luke - hiding from the wind yesterday - so cold - behind a small wall in the barn.  Lord, please bring the warmth with March!
"I tell you, you will find there the gentle mercy of the Holy Spirit, the aspect of God that gives and is nothing but love.  Whatever the Spirit does is done because of love.  And this movement of love you will find within your own soul, because our will is nothing but love, and its every affection and movement comes from nothing but love."  St Catherine of Siena (1380) is a doctor of the Church
1 " O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there."  Psalm 139

Mary reading books to Luke...

Another wonderful song by Danielle Rose - Wonderfully made - Psalm 139