The Pat and Barb Verly family and their 5 children, in laws and grandkids along with many prayer warriors have been drawn together by John's cancer... sharing daily for 8 months started this blog- Family Soul Story - Our faith, family, farm and now our cancer journey called HEALING have colored and deepened our world. WE continue to share and depend on the support of our prayer warrior community, that has lowered us into the Lord's presence for His healing!
Stepping in the house to find Joy in a soft warm sweatshirt, and snuggly baby kitten to give grandma some special birthday pictures along with bunny ears... today our Joy is 4! We have fake plans to get together for a birthday supper on the farm tonight as we head into Triduum and kids off of school for the next 5 days!
Kitten tickles
What JOY I have when I am gifted with special unexpected pictures to cherish at these special landmarks of our domestic Church/family life! We are blessed to so closely share in the day to day life of our farm family. Hubby having a shoulder repair tomorrow - how we will depend upon them to do the work while he recovers.
Sweetness and smiles! Happy Birthday sweet Joy Jean! You certainly bring JOY into our lives! No joy in the readings today, but there was a close one.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving: “See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive! For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.” R. Lord, in your great love, answer me. Psalm 69 -about as close to Joy as we can get on this day leading up to The Passion of the Bridegroom.
Joy arrives 4 years ago today - surrounded by her beautiful family.
Joy's family taken on Labor Day weekend... still wonderful and Joy is the only one who was born and lived always on the farm. The year before she was born Ruth and us traded places. The little red barn with the sign on it's front is now ours, and Paul dutifully changes the words to speak my words for the world to read. For the occasion of our family all being together this summer...
All around my dad on Labor Day was truly Farm Family Time Supreme. As dad died a few months later it is most cherished by me! I am in the process of working on a butterfly and Cross for my Easter tree and this will make the final cut for sure!
A picture of SOFT! I am soon to go to a funeral at 1p, and I have been working on this here there and everywhere!
I had the Joy of being there watching cow TV when Joy came in with her birthday balloons - they had gotten loose in the garage, and Ruth had to climb on a ladder to retrieve them from the rafters.
Birthday cake and tightly gripped balloons!
Spring tulips and a joyful smile!
Ready for a centerpiece now...
baby kitty makes for soft loving smiles and birthday hugs!
Now warm smiles for a cold day - flowers for spring on the horizon.
Looks like a spring birthday girl! Today there were some gems in both the books my parents left behind for me!
Being fed while keeping an eye on the cows...
Powerful words from Pope Benedict XVI and mom about how we are face to face with our Lord in Confession and how we regain the "youthfulness of the heart." Yes!
Kenosis ikon is very familiar from our beloved Community of the Lamb! I will definitely look at it with more understanding after sitting at the feet of Brother Victor - thanks, dad!
LOVE how he takes us with him into the life of a monk! And all that he teaches me on the way! The Bridegroom Hymn as mentioned...
I need to go to mass and it is a gift to have in the midst of this day of the Bridegroom leading into The Triduum! Thank you, dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! How I love you and long to be better for you in this world. Bless dear Joy with a wonderful year ahead, and thank you for our domestic Church/family sharing Faith/Family/Farm. Be with dear hubby tomorrow as he has surgery to repair his left shoulder. Praying for healing, Lord, as you lift both your arms up to have nails put through your hands as you hang on the Cross for us! As Little Sister Alma said today from France..."We pary that the surgery goes well - he is with Jesus in his week of suffering!" Jesus, we trust in you. Amen
We love you so much Joy! Bless-bless, Barbara and family
Through his wounds we are healed! So powerful this Triduum!
Stepped into the house while I waited for Pat to take a cow to be butchered. "Today is my last day with a 3 year old." Ruth announced as she hugged her youngest, Joy. "Tomorrow is your birthday, Joy, and you will be 4!"
These two are very close... Joy adores her wonderful mommy! They bake and garden and care for the animals and share their days together.
Joy came with grandma and grandpa to Ruthton about 20 minutes away. Joy told us that she wants a purple and green bike that goes as fast as a motorcycle, and a phone for her birthday. The phone will have to wait a dozen years or more, Joy!
A tease of the photo shoot that I quickly did in front of the huge picture window. How I love the sunlight there. Baby kitten with her eyes now open also is better in some that I will keep for tomorrow.
As we traveled... Pat, I and Joy while the cow was in the trailer...we did morning prayer of The Church on my phone. As I was reading the first Psalm 43 - Longing for the Temple, Joy was excited to hear her name...
Psalm 43 in morning prayer! "My name!" How wonderful is it when a young child hears her name in the mass or in the prayer of The Church?!? So beautiful to have them "see with the eyes of their hearts!"
The second Psalm taken from Isaiah 38 also had her name twice... my dad had underlined it even.
Dad loved his JOY! It was cute when I read the reading from Zechariah 12 - "I will pour out on the house of David..." Joy exclaimed; "David!" Her brother Big David is also often in the readings, and a special way that the Word comes to life for them.
When we prayed our petitions... knowing that the prayers of children are special and very powerful... As the Psalm prayer above says - "Lord God, hope of all the earth, hear the humble prayer of your children as we sing your praises. Pour out your Spirit on us so that our lives may bear fruit abundantly." Joy sweetly prayed for grandpa, dad, mom and siblings that are working with the cows and calves "that they be safe."
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Mercy Me
The Palms from Palm Sunday as we enter The Church - The Cross backlit by the bright warm sunlight streaming in the widow behind the altar and tabernacle yesterday as I went in to pray ahead of mass.
The Cross beckons these days of Holy Week so powerfully and deeply!
Pondering this today... I recalled this powerful message left behind for John in his bedroom next to his crucifix. How we were experiencing that Cross and LOVE as a result when our 3rd daughter went behind the enclosure to discern a call to be a cloistered nun! "This is how one loves!
“This is how one loves”
When Maria left for the monastery on January 1, 2004, she left this sign in her brothers room next to his crucifix on the wall. When she discerned out of the monastery five months later she made a stations of the cross in the Grove for us. This crucifix was on the big maple tree by the garden where we started and finished our stations. If ever there was a picture of an old rugged cross this would be it! Truly this is how one loves!
This is truly an "Old Rugged Cross" if there ever was one! While my father was living here with me for 6 months on hospice as we come up upon the year mark of that happening... dad shared with me that when he was barely 20yo in the army. "Some of the men would kid me and call me 'The Old Rugged Cross.' I was anything but old, but with a last name of Cross it was a way they kidded around with me, I guess." Then dad would start to sing - The Old Rugged Cross
Alan Jackson - the Old Rugged Cross
Loved my time at his feet before mass... the Church was filled with many coming for confession and the rosary. Fr Denny was busy in the confessional right up to the minute mass started, mass, then stations of the Cross, then back into the Confessional with long lines of penitents. Very powerful to witness after a year ago being shut in away from The Sacraments of The Church!
The LIGHT of the world!
I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 49 the First reading from mass today shares The Truth!
Having had the gift of Reconciliation just a few days before... my sins are very real to me and I felt the need to revisit an especially "evil night" from many years ago. It had been haunting me lately, so I felt the need to once again ask for forgiveness. Armed with that humbling and hard failure - even the thought of Jesus carrying all my sins to the grave is overwhelming, but add to that all the sins ever committed or ever to be committed... HUGE and impossible to imagine! It puts The Cross and his suffering in such a perspective of PAIN and SUFFERING UNIMAGINEABLE!
I found myself concentrating on the left shoulder of Christ lifted up for me burdened with ALL our Sins! Knowing someone, who is not able to lift up their arm due to an injury - this speaks of healing on many levels!
The words of a Poor Clare cloistered nun, Mother Mary Francis
We have a duty to relate our little disappointments to the suffering of his Passion. We shall never sweat blood. We shall never be nailed to a cross. It is very unlikely that anyone would ever spit in our face. It is extremely difficult to imagine that anyone would ever strike us on our cheek. We shall not have to carry a cross and fall under it; we shall not have nails through our hands. But we shall always have many little things to suffer. WE must not allow ourselves to forget that he knows them all. He took them upon himself . He just didn't endure them as something that human nature could not escape. He wanted to experience them.
A word from Hebrews today in the Office of Readings!
Mom's daily readings book by Pope Benedict XVI has been especially good lately! May we allow the Holy Spirit's flame to burn away all that distracts us in this world!
St Paul to the Hebrews calling us to lay aside our sinful ways and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus! May we learn from Jesus to endure our Cross and embrace our Most Cherished Cross and follow Him down the narrow path with our eyes focused on reaching heaven forever with Jesus, Mary, that Saints and Angels and our dearly departed loved ones, who are praying for us more perfectly now from heaven!
St Paul showing us how to look at the Cross and see with the eyes of our hearts - "This is how one loves!"
The way of The Cross - the Second station - Jesus takes up his Cross! The Stations of the Cross written by Mother Angelica
Traveling the Way of the Cross after receiving Jesus in His Body given for me in The Eucharist. 2nd Station - Jesus takes up the Cross
Lord, I am weak and lowly and overwhelmed by the weight of the Cross! It seems all I can do it drag it with great difficulty and barely make any progress down that narrow path staggering with my weak legs and arms! May I die to self so that you may live in me and your Holy Spirit may set fire to my heart, mind and soul with your LOVE/LIFE/LIGHT! Jesus, we trust in you. Amen
Brother Victor shares a Saint John that I have never known before, and allowed me to enter into this "life of tranquil stillness"/prayer away from the world for 40 years! After this he wrote - The Ladder!
I need to discover this Ladder of Divine Ascent! I am continually learning at the feet of my father and his man, Brother Victor-Antione!
John Climacus - The Rungs of His Ladder of Divine Ascent
On renunciation of the world
On detachment
On exile or pilgrimage
On blessed and ever-memorable obedience
On painstaking and true repentance
Fuzzy but cool to ponder... are those angels or fallen angels pulling some off the ladder? I am a chicken of heights, so... Jesus, I trust in you. Bless-bless, Barbara
Noticing the full moon lately - this is a beauty indeedDanielle Rose- True love - The Cross!
Rose at work creating a visual reminder of The Glory of The Cross!
From the outside looking in... The wood of the Cross fills this week with anticipation and appreciation of what our Savior took on our flesh and endured for us!
In my many books left to me for Lent - 7 each morning - I read and am amazed and then kind of lose track of where I was led deep. Today I knew that there was a powerful sharing on how we are called to suffer in order to experience True LOVE - the Cross! I finally found it in mom's Pope Benedict XVI daily, Benedictus, Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI! Mom had lovingly read it daily for 10 years in a row! I have to admit that he is very intelligent as was my mother, and there are many days that I am confused and overwhelmed. The last 2 days, however, have been powerful and filled with Truth!
Every word and thought is a pearl today... the bell that it rings within me is that of how marriage calls us to die to self - "the Big Cross" - so that we may embrace our Most Cherished Cross and find it to be the Tree of LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!
Yesterday was also a wonderful reminder of how we find True Happiness when we ask the Lord to reveal his plan for us! The world's thinking that we should pursue "our dreams and desires" is selfish and the happiness we find there is fleeting and superficial. Every card I make for my grandkids or young people making a TEC retreat or graduating from HS... I always point out that the Lord has a wonderful plan just for them, and what JOY they will experience if they leave all behind to follow HIM! I especially remind them of the beautiful option of being called to religious life or the priesthood. Such an amazing call to give their ALL!
Danielle Rose - Pursue Me
Watercolor butterflies with JOY for my Easter tree!
Big Dave helping his old grandma cut my lilac branch/Easter tree. First time with a power tool! An electric saw in place of the usual back and forth saw.
Breaking off last years' lilacs as soon they will burst forth in my house and there will be leaves by Easter Sunday!
David's 5 ducklings are growing quickly and a sure sign of spring on the greening grass.
Simon herding the ducklings as we enjoyed a nice Sunday afternoon. A family job called all away except Joy and I - she napped and I watched cow TV.
Mary's 2 bottle goats were out enjoying the sunshine and following their adoptive mother, Mary, around the yard. The family went to get a yard ready for the 40 cows and calves to be able to get outside into that sunshine, too. Many hands make for a quick job, and it is reported that they look wonderful this morning - enjoying the fresh winds and the warm sun.
Joy and grandma working on a butterfly for my Easter tree of her birthday card as she will join the 2 other 4 year olds in 2 days!
Teaching her to use skin color on faces, hands and legs rather than black or blue.
Lots of painting going on as we are now into Holy Week.
Cow TV showing the chickens visiting the cow barn just across the way from their new chicken house. Ruth says that so far they are laying their eggs in the house, and going back there at night to roost and sleep. But the cows are kind of stirred up when they get into their pens.
Combined effort of Joy and grandma... Evie was 4 on Nov 1st, Josephine on May 10th, and Joy will be 4 on March 31st. They will all be 4 for a month and a half!
I will use this for her birthday card!
Overlapping with John in the middle of the night! How we love Jesus - adoring Him!
Such powerful readings at mass today! I have fake plans to go to mass tonight, and share in Jesus in Word, Body and Blood! The first reading today from Isaiah 42
Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my Spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations, Not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench...
"My Lord, and my God... I love and adore you and give you all the praise and glory to the highest heavens!"
How I love to read this meditation by amazing Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty... Breaking open our Vases - as the Gospel is Jesus dining with the risen Lazarus, his sisters, Mary and Martha...Mary anointed his feet with scented oil and dried them with her hair!
My day is getting away from me, so I will share them in picture form rather than typing these beautiful words here... I love how this infinite tenderness and gentleness - much like the spotless Lamb!
So beautifully written and speaking of how we should approach this Holy Week and give ALL the love and honor and glory to Him!
Joy's Birthday card on my Easter tree for a few days and then it will become her card!
Each year I do a cross and a butterfly... two years ago John's wedding and Hallel's final vows in France!
Evie and Joy babies 4 years ago! Also the Cross I made last year in honor of my mother, who had passed away just weeks before Easter!
This year, of course, my dad will have the honor of The Cross for 2021 as he died 5 months ago here in my home after being on hospice for 6 months! Such a powerful and for the most part peaceful as we with the help of hospice modeled a "natural death."
John and Bobbies' Engagement 3 years ago...
The 6 grandchildren and 7 children in heaven with Jesus and Mary. There are thankfully no updates to add this year. Thank you, Lord, for interceding and allowing our newest granddaughter, Maggie Rose, to stay here and add more love to our domestic Church/family. Due by C-section on May 12th!
My butterfly for last year - Ruth and Paul on the farm! How we love and are grateful for our young farm family making our farm alive and actively feeding the world!
The butterfly Joy made for our tree - 2021! Soon the buds and leaves will burst forth in time for Easter Sunday! LOVE my Easter tree year after year, and how I can have these precious keepsakes to recall the wonderful blessings year after year, as Jesus is in control of my life and sharing our Faith as a family is our greatest gift! Bless-bless, Barbara
Holy Week “If you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him. If you cry with Him, you will have joy with Him. If you die with Him on the Cross of tribulation, you will possess the eternal dwelling place in the splendor of the saints. And your name, written in the Book of Life, will be glorious among men.” – St. Clare of Assisi
