24th Sunday of Ordinary time/"Read Isaiah 40-55 to study how we are to follow the suffering Christ"/"Barbie's special verse Isaiah 55:1!"

We are back in the church basement for breakfast after 20 months away!  It made me smile to see the little ones happily eating and running around as if we had never been away!  To see Ruth's middle kids get a cart and help pick up the dirty dishes - Luke and Rose Again seemed excited and happy to be back in our wonderful family gathering place after a long time away.

Fr Denny had mass this morning and gave us an assignment of reading Isaiah 40-55 -" Read a couple chapters a day this week to remind ourselves of the suffering Servant - Jesus!"  Pat was super cute to remind him at breakfast that Isaiah 55 was THE VERSE of our conversion story!  "Barbie and her dad love Isaiah 55.  She thought that the Catholic Church as a mysterious and scary place - can you imagine that?"  How I love to share my story!

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

Dad's story on Journey Home!  Listen and be amazed from my own father - his conversion story that brought 13 into The Church - all receiving our First Communion on midnight Christmas Eve 50 years ago!

Fr Denny stopped by to chat.  Such a dear friend, who has been our special friend priest through our 20+ years of TEC retreats and now our parish semi-retired priest.  

Ruth telling him about a JPII retreat that Ruth, Nancy and oldest daughter, Mary, are going on this week in Michigan.  Grandma will be chief cook and bottle washer on the farm.  Happy to step in for them to have this wonderful experience!  

A chance to catch up face to face after we kept everyone at arms distance with masks, too.  So nice to feel like we are back at normal!

This girl starts school tomorrow!  So exciting!  As Ruth shared with Fr Denny - "I will be alone every other day with all the kids at school and then in two months this new little one will be here to keep my company once again starting over again."  Many prayers for Ruth and baby boy to both be healthy to the day he arrives!

This accidentally arrived here instead of Maria's home in Fort Lewis, WA.  "You should read it.  It looks like a really good book."  Well, yesterday was the day, and wow!

This collage is in my office where I write most every day... it seemed like a good backdrop to St Michael, who is especially called upon these days, and for this powerful book thanks to Maria and a misshipment!  A woman, who finds herself in a life of prostitution after the war, and then to prison after killing her pimp, and finally meeting some  Dominican sisters in Prison and finally finding that she is called by the Lord to be his spouse, a nun!  I am a bit over half way and love it as she is now in formation and the journey to become fully professed nun in this order that shoots off the Dominicans just as Hallel's Community of the Lamb is an offshoot Dominican.  

This group follow the example of St Mary Magdalene, who loved Jesus after he healed her of many spirits and a life of evil.  They feel that she is the same Mary - a sister to Martha and Lazarus and want their order to follow the LOVE they had in their home for Jesus - Bethany!  A beautiful book, and most of my day was spent reading as I was feeling down after a most difficult day before and morning.  My difficulties are put into perspective by those of these poor abused women!

It reminds me of a book written by my mother which took place during WW2 - a German officer and a girl taken to live with him against her will!  

CatholicDiagramTeacher.com - A user friendly site for Truth Seekers -

Clarimonde-A-Novel-rev1.pdf (catholicdiagramteacher.com)

Mom describes her book as a story of Faith in a dark time.  

Up from her nap with 3 blankets out of her bed and her little Lamb!

LOVED the LIGHT streaming in from their wonderful huge picture window.  Such a perfect height for them to take in the world outside... school bus, cars and pickups, people and kids walking home from the Catholic School just a half a block away!

Jude brings his puppy and nursing shawl/blanket, and Birdie brings her 3 soft blankets and Lamb to the window of light and activity.

Arms full of softness...

Soon we headed outside on a summery day!

Simon and soon to be 17 Simon baling...

Dropping the bale - I was there to haul the bales home as we were about 10 miles from our farm.  The rake driven by Simon, baler by Pat and my pulling the bales -getting home on one trip!

Simon helping Pat take the baler off so that they can use the tractor to put the bales on my trailer.

Doing the coordinated dance of baling with all the jobs that needs to happen 

Time to pray as I slowly bring the bales home!

. Alleluia, alleluia.
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord
through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

This Hallelujah says it all today before Jesus tells us in the Gospel... Mark 8

He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me. 
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it.”  Mark 8

Jude entertaining us with his "drum" playing with stick and bubbly wand.  He would then clap with us and take a bow saying; "thank you, thank you."  So Smart!

Future percussionist!  

Then he would take off his hat and wave the stick over it like he was doing magic!  He is very entertaining and both of them are so smart!  Today when Father Denny said "Amen" - Birdie said "Amen" clear as a bell and numerous times they would day "all done" after prayer or song... wishful thinking I think.

Muddy farm boys a few years back - good clean (?) fun!

 Checking cows and water in pastures with hubby last evening. 

Today the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary!

 

The Lord's Day is the lord of days...

but today also remembering...

 

"O name of Mary! Joy in the heart, honey in the mouth,

melody to the ear of Her devout clients!" - St Anthony of Padua

___________________________________________

 Feast of the Most Holy Name 
of the Blessed Virgin Mary

September 12

O amor mei nomen matris Dei ~ St. Anselm
"Oh name of the mother of God, thou art my love."

We venerate that name of Mary because it belongs to her who is the Mother of God, the holiest of creatures, Queen of heaven and earth, the Mother of Mercy.

In accordance with Jewish custom our Lady's parents named her eight days after her birth, and were inspired to call her Mary. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary follows that of her Birthday, as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus follows Christmas. Our salvation begins when an archangel speaks the name of Mary.  To be Christian is to carry on that Annunciation unceasingly. 

Annunciation ~ Benedetto Bonfigli

 

"I want what is good for myself; I beg the same for you. 
Now there is no other way to bring this about

than to ask the Virgin Mary constantly

to come to you with her glorious Son.

Be bold!

Ask her to give you her Son, who in the

Blessed Sacrament

of the altar is truly food of your soul.  ... 

 

Readily will she give Him to you, 
still more readily will He come to you, giving you strength

to make your way fearlessly through this dark wood. 

In it large numbers of our enemies lie in wait, but they

cannot reach us if they see us relying on such powerful help. " 

 

 St. Cajetan (+1547)

 

 

"God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or maria [Latin, seas]. He gathered all His grace together and called it Mary or Maria . . .This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the Saints call the 'treasury of the Lord.' From Her fullness all men are made rich." ~ St. Louis de Montfort (+1716)

"This most holy, sweet and worthy name was 'eminently fitted to so holy, sweet and worthy a virgin.  For Mary means a bitter sea, star of the sea, the illuminated or illuminatrix. Mary is interpreted Lady. Mary is a bitter sea to the demons; to men She is the Star of the sea; to the Angels She is illuminatrix, and to all creatures She is Lady ." ~ St. Bonaventure (+1274)

 

“Well may all, shepherds and flock alike, fly with fullest confidence to the protection of the Blessed Virgin.  Let them not fail to call upon her name with one voice,  beseeching her as God’s mother, publicly and in private by praise, by prayer, by the ardour of their desire: ‘Show thyself our Mother.’ ~ Pope Leo XIII - Adiutricem populi, Sept. 5 1895

 

"Saint Bernard says, and we say with him:  Look to the star of the sea, call upon Mary ...  in danger, in distress, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary.  May her name never be far from your lips, or far from your heart ...  If you follow her, you will not stray; if you pray to her, you will not despair; if you turn your thoughts to her, you will not err.  If she holds you, you will not fall; if she protects you, you need not fear; if she is your guide, you will not tire; if she is gracious to you, you will surely reach your destination." ~ Benedict XVI, address at Heiligenkreuz Abbey, 9 September 2007

More on the Name of Mary...

Click here: ~ The Most Holy Name of Mary Devotion ~

Click here: THE HOLY NAME OF MARY

Pray the Litany of the Most Holy Name of Mary.
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Jesus - Mary - Jesus - Mary - Jesus - Mary

"The invocation of the sacred names of Jesus and Mary is a short prayer which is as sweet to the mind, and as powerful to protect those who use it against the enemies of their salvation, as it is easy to remember." -  St. Thomas a Kempis

 

"Jesus and Mary, I LOVE you.  Save Souls!"

Gifts from son and parents - I am richly blessed!  Bless-bless, Barbara

Danielle Rose

Zach Williams