Touch that tassel, and be healed!

One of my favorite pictures from El Paso 16 months ago... in the first few days of Patrick's life while recovering surrounded by nurses, doctors, mom and grandma along with thousands of prayers and dad on his way home from Afghanistan!  Maria had mustered her strength to get up out of her bed in SICU at the hospital and get moved across town to Divine Providence where Patrick had been taken at a few hours old to get the cool cap put on in the best NICU in town!  I traveled in the front seat with the driver as the nurses and doctors hovered over Patrick in the back of the ambulance.  My phone rang and it was my ever vigilant husband and son, who were on their knees praying without ceasing for our newborn grandson - born dead after being without oxygen in the womb for 20 minutes, and brought back to life.  He had been having seizures in those early moments of new life, and they felt that cooling down his brain activity and allowing him time to heal would be important to give him the best chance at life and healing.  Pat was calling to suggest that I baptize our new grandson...so that is how I first walked into NICU with nurses, doctors, ambulance personel, and family surrounding many incubators filled with tiny life!  I was given a vial of sterile water and with tears and deep emotions of shock I took the water and made the sign of the cross on the forehead and head of Patrick saying these words - "I baptize you, Patrick, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen"  He was from that point on clinging to Jesus, and was a new member of The Church - innocent and washed clean of all original sin!  We had placed our Patrick into the arms of our Jesus and trusted that He would care for him and please, Lord, heal our little lamb, Patrick!

We were told to our shock at about the time this picture was taken that Patrick was the sickest baby in this unit filled with tiny premis!  How could that be?  We have heard since of babies that didn't make it after the start that Patrick had, so we are calling him our little miracle.  He no longer needs to take seizure meds, walked early, and is advanced for his age in many ways - he has been called normal and has gotten glowing reports every step of the way!  We certainly were holding onto the tassel as we cried out in our agony and fear!!  It reminds me of a wonderful red knit prayer shawl I was given during John's cancer journey - I feel His healing love and concern around me when I wear that - the warmth of knowing Jesus is listening and answering..."Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed."  Mark 6: 53-56

Another favorite - Joseph returns from a very hard time in Afghanistan!  Patrick's needs brought them together to face the battle together for LIFE!  That touch is so important as we band together to find strength in the midst of those challenges and times of suffering and loss! 
I have had many occasions lately to hear of families that are suffering.  It seems that many do not have that contact with faith and belief that their family is to be centered around Jesus and His Bride, The Church!  As a result they are lost in the darkness and much harm is done as old wounds are carried within and although it is probably the last thing they want - there is a vicious cycle where they do similar hurtful things to their own children!  Such an impossible cycle to break unless we reach out and touch that tassel and find healing!  Pat and I in our discussion this morning came to the wonderful realization that it is never too late!  These hard stories of families broken and wounded does not have to go on and on to eternity... at any point along the way there can be that encounter with the Mercy and LOVE of our Lord - as He unconditionally forgives us and armed with that healing we can in turn reach out to those in our lives and share that LIGHT with them.  I would think that after the past and all the hurts - even to the point of shutting them out of our lives - the dramatic change of heart could be accepted and the healing could begin!  It is never too late!  Also we need to hold deep in our hearts this Truth I have gained from the Lamb and is the motto of the Community of the Lamb - "Wounded, I will not cease to love."  All those times of pain and suffering at the hand of another - we need to hold onto this and the Lamb without blemish slain for you and me - Jesus Christ!

After a week of miraculous strides Maria was able to hold her son for the first time, and nurse him!  They couldn't believe that he was able to eat on his own!  Many babies struggle with that and are on feeding tubes for a long time...  Our miracle boy!
Pat, John and I shared our evening prayer - the office we have put on our phones last night before we each headed to bed!  So wonderful on that 5th Sunday of Ordinary time!  This morning we were up early as John was heading to Jackson for work - while he ate his breakfast I read morning prayer out of our wonderful Magnificat - St Scholastica, pray for us!  I was super pumped to read the Gospel of Jesus healing - we all have a deep special place in our hearts about touching his robe/tassel and being healed... I have shared numerous times my special night or Cora Jesu (Heart of Jesus) where they placed a scarf around the base of the monstrance and you could hold onto that as you knelt before Jesus in the monstrance in Adoration - touching the hem of his garment!!!  I was also so wanting to share this with my men this morning - that John was walking out the door as I finished, but they both were deeply touched!
"Armando is an amazing 8 year old boy...
Armando cannot walk or talk and is very small for his age.  He came to us from an orphanage where he had been abandoned.  He no longer wanted to eat because he no longer wanted to live cast off from his mother.  He was desperately thin and was dying of lack of food.  After a while in our community where he found people who held him, loved him, and wanted him to live, he gradually began to eat again and to develop in a remarkable way.  He still cannot walk, or talk or eat by himself, his body is twisted and broken, and he has a severe mental disability, but when you pick him up, his eyes and his whole body quiver with joy and excitement and say: 'I love you.'  He has a deep therapeutic influence on people..."  Jean Vanier is the founder of l'Arche, an international network of communities for the mentally disabled.

The amazing visual object of PRAYER given to Patrick in the first days of his life by an old man at a mass for him... he had a grown son named Patrick, who had downs syndrome, for whom these beads had been prayed with probably hundreds/thousands of times - to the point that it has been mended over and over!  I wept just to see this most precious gift - then to hear the story behind them a week later from his daughter!  I see this as a "tassel" from his cloak there to be touched and healed! This glorious prayer was a lifeline for me with both John's battle with brain cancer, and Patrick's traumatic birth! 

Jesus, it is never too late to reach out and touch the tassel of your healing and unconditional LOVE, forgiveness and Mercy.  Yet, once we are healed we are called to reach out with the same LOVE and Mercy to all those around us.  Yes, maybe we have made a mess of our lives in many ways - most especially treating those closest to us in our domestic Church/family worse than others in our lives that aren't so close.  Why is it, Lord, that we are most hateful to those the closest to us?  It is never too late to change for the better, and to show the same healing you have extended to us, in our weak and broken state, to those that maybe hurt us and broke us!!!!  So very hard to do, O Lord!  Yet, how powerful could it be to come back changed and whole, after we can barely reach out to touch weakly, and sickly, and brokenly that tassel on the cloak of Christ?  Just holding and allowing Armando to know that there is love after being abandoned allowed him to become LOVE for others!  Yes, those we have hurt might reject us over and over, but we must continue to reach out to them and ask their forgiveness.  It is never too late to change and be healed and then take that new healing and attempt to change our hurts and mistakes with that newness of Christ alive in us!  Jesus, may your Spirit live and dwell within us, as we blessed with all the ways that the Church ministers to us.  Just today we have the wonderful virgin, whose prayers are and were so powerful interceding for our needs and our families!  Jesus, we are so blessed by YOU and your Bride, The Church!  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Amen and Hallelujah

Bless-bless, Barbara Luke

Nancy and I visited John at the seminary last year the day before she had Bernadette!  John is once again asking the Lord for direction in his spiritual journey!

Jean Vanier continues to address "All Who Touched Him Got Well"

"What many people do not always know is that they have a well deep inside of them.  If that well is tapped, springs of life and of tenderness flow forth.  It has to be revealed to each person that those waters are there and that they can rise up from each one of us and flow over people, giving them life and new hope.

That is the power of Armando.  In some mysterious way, in all his brokenness, he reveals to us our own brokenness, our difficulties in loving, our barriers and hardness of heart.  If he is so broken and so hurt and yet is still such a source of life, that I too am allowed to look at my own brokenness and to trust that I too can give life to others.  I do not have to pretend that I am better than others and that I have to win in all the competitions.  It's OK to be myself, just as I am, in my uniqueness.  That, of course, is a very healing and liberating experience.  I am allowed to be myself, with all my psychological and physical wounds, with all my limitations but with all my gifts too.  And I can trust that I am loved as I am, and that I too can love and grow."

Joseph returns from Afganistan to touch his son!

Third Day - Born again

Our Joseph plays guitar and sings just like Third Day!  This is for him!