Inspired!!!! Come Holy Spirit each day of our journey

Pat with the girls on his birthday many years back... probably about 28 years back.  I just love to step back in pictures and recall the simple days of our nest years.  No other more special choir than the voices of little sweet beautiful girls with long brown hair and bangs singing you excitedly happy birthday in the glow of over 30 candles!  Pat's birthday being Sept 15 - a lot of times we would have to pack up dinner in the back of the van and bring it to him, as they would be doing silage or some other fall work.  Maybe this was a rainy birthday - it looks dark outside...  It would be a wonderful adventure and celebration to bring him dinner and eat together out of the back of the van, too!  Just being with dad on his birthday was the best for us.
One of the best things I ever did was become a friend of Scott Hahn!  What joy I find in all he shares knowing how his journey began with a strong hatred for the Catholic Church and feeling that all we need in the Word of God/Bible!  Here is a Pope Francis quote he shared today!

Pope Francis: "The Word of God precedes the Bible and surpasses it. That is why the center of our faith isn't just a book, but above all a person, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.

It is precisely because God's Word embraces and extends beyond Scripture that, in order to properly understand it, the Holy Spirit's constant presence, who guides us 'to all truth,' is necessary. It is necessary to place ourselves within the great Tradition that has, with the Holy Spirit'...s assistance and the Magisterium's guidance, recognized the canonical writings as the Word that God addresses to his people, who have never ceased meditating upon it and discovering inexhaustible riches from it.

In fact, Sacred Scripture is the Word of God in that it is written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Sacred Tradition transmits the Word of God in its entirety, entrusted by Christ the Lord and by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and their successors, so that these, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, might faithfully preserve it with their preaching, might expound and propound it." 

Pope Francis really reminds us of all the powerful work done over the years by the biggest brains guided by the Holy Spirit to bring us the Truth from The Word!  I love and am fed and am filled to overflowing by those "inexhaustible riches!" 

 Precious pictures of the 4 girls before John... Halloween 1987- the corn stalk grass skirt year! 
If we truly listen to the Gospel today we see that there is room for nothing else in our lives - just Jesus and His Bride, The Church!  Hear, O Israel!  The Lord our God is Lord alone!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Mark 12: 28-34  These are the two commandments that are first and second and hold all the Truth for us!  Why do I add Christ with The Church - the two have become one!  The Church is there to assist us in reaching eternal life/heaven/ and accomplishing the total embracing of these commandments in our lives!  There is so much each moment of each day that assist us on our way down the narrow path carrying our Tree of LIFE - Our Most Cherished Cross - down the narrow path to LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  I just came across a novena I want to join in on posted by a dear young Catholic mother/TEC friend... A novena in honor of Blessed Pier Giorgio - http://www.frassatiusa.org/index.cfm?load=page&page=256  An inspiring young man, who lived in this more recent generation and from whom many can gain inspiration and strength to love and serve God better in our lives!  I am a nut for the Saints, and gain so much in having them with me on my journey!

In our home we had a picture book of the lives of the Saints, and often in the evening we would gather and read of their lives.  Some were very graphic and hard to hear, and it seemed that some of them were the kids' favorites and they would ask for them over and over - St Rita, St Maria Goretti.  They taught us that no matter what you face in life, with the help of Jesus and His Bride, The Church - you can persevere and make it through.  That the pain and hardship you face - even martyrdom- is a powerful witness of total LOVE!  How much more will the world be changed by suffering and dying for our faith than by caving in and denying the Truth? 

Out to watch gates in the cold snow... a while back and today! 

Jesus, come Holy Spirit and bring us more fully to YOU.  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Bless-bless, Barbara Luke
"I would feed them with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them."  Psalm 81 from mass today - that would be the Eucharist! 

I am back after a couple hours out in the 19 degree temps and about 6 inches of snow!  Hard to believe they are predicting 60 in a couple days, but I want to hold them to it!

I still have to sneak pictures when his back is turned!  Some things never change.  Come Holy Spirit and dwell within us bringing us to a better place of dying to self and giving without counting the cost!  Amen and Hallelujah

 A cold blanket of white makes for a lot more work - the calves keep coming - 3 more overnight and gets us just about to 100 on the cold cold ground!

Pat feeding the bulls - I don't know who looks at my pictures and adds stuff, but it is kind of freaky and dramatic too!

Newsboys - God's not dead

Now with a video of Narnia to God's not Dead - enjoy!