Thursday, July 15, 2021

Jesus to us - "learn from me"/dying to self and returning the love we have been given

9 years ago with mom and dad at my nieces wedding - all but my brother Philip!  A friend just lost her mother and I reflect upon losing both of my parents in the last year - nothing related to covid, yet due to the pandemic my father came here on the farm with me for the last 6 months of his life!  

I am just here after reading both the daily meditations my parents left behind for me including the prayer of The Church which dad and I shared together morning and evening with the 3p rosary and chaplet on the porch each day.  Truly our "farm monastery."

Michigan memories are very much with me at this time of the summer, as we would be there usually for 2 weeks including the 4th of July.  7 years ago little Bernadette at the Manistique, MI Lighthouse.
That same year in our wonderful cabin - the girls and their children.  I suffer without our family time there.  We have replaced it with time on the farm, and that is wonderful and much easier for the farmers that had to travel 11 hours each way to share time with us.  Hay was always an issue and constantly ongoing job.  True still today!
Josephine helping with the 3 little boys the last night of our family time.

We got up in the early morning to pick up bales of hay in the rain drops - trying to get them inside as we were to get up to 2 inches of rain!  It went around us again!  We only had 2 tenths in the rain gage this morning!  Pat and I went in to pray the rosary at noon for rain!  We are in a state of extreme drought! 

In order of age they boys by the grain bins - one of my favorite locations for pictures down through the years.
Black and white is also a tradition we love!
Out with Pat this morning in the pasture behind our place - moved the cows and calves into a different pasture with limited grass and water to drink..."maybe a week."  
The grass is greener on the other side of the fence for today.  Lord and Lady please hear our plea for rain!  
How I love this!  It is strongly followed by our domestic Church/family!  Due to my conversion into The Church with my family of 13 fifty years ago... I have made my love and Faith in Jesus and His Bride, The Church total and complete!  I embrace all that the Church asks of me and gives to me!  

Sharing that with my family along with the sharing of being open to ALL LIFE the Lord had for us including the 7 losses - we are now love one another and appreciate one another and respect ALL LIFE from conception to natural death!  ALL of us!  All 31 going on 33 of us!

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: Our marriage stories - "The world needs LIGHTS!"

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: The amazing story of the 13 becoming Catholic!

A table full of painters with grandma a few days ago!
painting Our Lady of Fatima and my grandmother's hand painted dishes on her birthday - July 10th
Sweet 6 year old Romeo with his painting of Our Lady of Fatima... she is deserving of the many purple flowers on the hillside.
My dad's prayer book today of St Bonaventure - The Journey of the Mind to God... saying that we can live with Him in paradise here on earth!  Today is the wonderful Gospel from Matthew 11
Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”  Matthew 11
Let all the people say:  Amen.  Amen!  - I know dad is!  I can hear him now!  How do we learn from Jesus?  He is the Lamb slain for us!  He is meek and humble and silent in the face of great suffering and death.  How we are asked to die to self and put others first ahead of us!  Yes!  So hard to do, yet what we are called to embrace with the help of Jesus in Word, Body and Blood, prayer, the Saints, our guardian angel, - we have so much help!  

The Holy Spirit at work in our hearts, minds and souls as we die to self and welcome His Fire of LOVE/LIFE/LIGHT!  Such a lesson to us that we are called to return the unconditional love and forgiveness we have been given my Jesus!  
From mom and St Benedict XVI today!
Dad's man, Brother Victor, today...
I love how Brother has shared the joy of music in prayer with me!  Today I found this, which is the stunning heart lifting version that Hallel and her Community of the Lamb sing - "Salve Regina" at night prayer in the darkened candle lit chapel just before they head to their beds each night!  LOVE!
Gregorian chant - Salve Regina




 

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