Romeo's First Communion on Easter Sunday, and Luke's two weeks later -still Easter with ALL! Chilly Holy Saturday

I asked for pictures of 7 year old Romeo dressed up for his First Communion tomorrow on Easter Sunday in Salem, Oregon!  Looking so wonderful - my heart swells at his sweet look and how handsome he is for his Lord!  

Eyes shining with the love in his heart of this huge step in his lifetime!  How this grandma prays that he will always hold onto The True Church and partake of the Sacraments he is given to help him on the journey down the narrow path!  

Thank you, Maria for spoiling your old mom!  My prayers will be with Romeo tomorrow as he receives Jesus for the first time - "This is my Body broken for you... take and eat!"  It means so much after adoring his Cross yesterday and what he did for my salvation and for Romeo's!  

From head to toe - knowing how important this day is, and how special he is to our Lord!  

The Librandes always have to do a silly one to make it complete.  Sigh!

Happy 95th today to Pope Benedict XVI!  2 years ago on this day I brought my 95 year old dad, Deacon Robert Cross here to the farm to live with me on hospice for the last 6 months of his life!  He had foretold that he would come here and live with me if anything happened to mom about 20  years before!  Thanks to Covid - it came to be true!  I was the lucky one!

Easter in KC with Hallel 5 years ago!  How we miss the warm sunshine this Easter.  We will have our daughter home in a little over a week for time on the farm with all of her family except for Major Joseph!  All 32 of us will gather around Luke Lanoue for his First Communion on May 1st!  

Colored Easter Eggs at the Verly house this morning!  Prepping for the Easter Bunny cake competition with the 15 grandkids tomorrow at the farm, too!  

Today is this girl's Feast day - St Bernadette is kind of smaller than usual due to Holy Saturday, but I am sure that humble Bernadette is just fine with that in heaven as she awaits her Risen Lord!  

An Easter gathering 4 years ago... LOVE to see all the little faces happy to be together!  Nancy and Bill with their 6 will be here mid afternoon today!  So exciting as there will be 21 of us at the Easter Vigil tonight for our family tradition of sharing the Vigil and then going to Applebees for a celebration together in the middle of the night!  He is risen!  

She is happy to bow low today for her Jesus and Our Lady of Lourdes - Mary, Queen of Heaven and Easth!

I arrived between 1:30p and 3p on Good Friday to pray for Fr Denny with 7 Sisters.  There was a huge traffic jam going through town as 450+ people had gathered for midday Good Friday services!  The Cross stood through my prayer time, and allowed me to begin and end my stations on the 4th Decade - Jesus carries his Cross!

5th decade of my rosary here at the foot of the Cross - "Wounded, I will never cease to LOVE."

Peaceful LIGHT - my Jesus, thank you for your LOVE for me! 

"Behold the wood of the Cross, on which died the Savior of the world!"

"Come let us worship and adore!"

Birdie Barbara and the Cross after mass...

Embrace our Most Cherished Cross which has become the Tree of LIFE!  

Birdie will be 2 on May 9th.  She already has a lot to say, and quite loudly!  She also got an entire tub of pretty little girl dresses handed down to her from above - that is older granddaughters that have outgrown them.  

5 year old Joy with The Cross - still happy to pose for her crazy grandma!

Birdie and Jude look up to Joy, so I am happy that she shows them that even when you are 5... it still is a good thing to give grandma pictures as a gift that keeps on giving for years to come!  

I have been thinking and praying a lot for Hallel and The Community of the Lamb, who are having a retreat over the Triduum and Easter with 40 young adults!  We had fake plans to try to go to be with Hallel for their wonderful celebrations through the night to Easter JOY, but were asked to wait as they are busy and their small heavenly chapel is full.  

So, we are happy to share our family of Tradition of Vigil and going out after with the 21 here!  Knowing that all 32 will be here together in a few weeks having huge meals and family time for 4 full days!!!  Overjoyed at this gift on the horizon!

From Nancy and Bill just now - leading up to Easter tonight!  This was Holy Thursday - their oldest Augustine is now serving on the altar- "Fr says that he could do it without help, but he wants the young boys to be close on the altar and consider the call of the Priesthood!"   So good and right!

Adoration on Holy Thursday - Jesus gives himself to us in His Body and Blood!  

REAL PRESENCE!

Bill with assistant Josephine making his traditional Easter pies from growing up in PA!  

Learning from the BEST - her wonderful dad, Bill, who is a great cook!   He will be cooking the meat for our Easter dinner tomorrow - Beef Tenderloin!  My mouth is watering!

Ham pie!  After Bill coming into our family 12 years ago - it is something I now look forward to, also!  Who says that you can't have new family traditions as your family grows and widens to include others!  We are truly blessed!  

Birdie and Grandpa last night after we shared Good Friday services, and had our last fish sandwich for the year.  Pat will miss his spicey fish from Arbys!  

The Lanoue bunch with baby Joy 5 years ago.  Today Ruth is hosting the Lanoue Easter dinner at the farm.  I am sure that baby Thomas will not be put down!  How we love our new LIFE!  They also have 9 baby kittens and 15 baby chicks along with baby kids and baby calves!  Easter celebrated with LIFE everywhere!  

95 today and each day with my mother - I read his wonderful meditations of the day!  He truly does pass on The Faith and we "see" his LOVE for Jesus, Mary and The Church!

The world would have been so much less without his gift! 

Andrea Bocelli for your Easter listening!
 

Benny's sharing today!  So powerful and amazing!  

Dad's man, Brother Victor, is celebrating with us this Holy Saturday!  

 Holy Saturday is sacred as the day of the Lord's rest; it has been called

the "Second Sabbath" after creation. The day is and should be the most calm

and quiet day of the entire Church year, a day broken by no liturgical function

and is chiefly a day of solemn vigil for the Lord’s resurrection. 

HOLY SATURDAY

"Holy Saturday is the day of God’s silence. It must be a day of silence.

We must do everything possible so that it is a day of silence, as that Day,

which was the day of God’s silence. Jesus placed in the sepulcher shares with the

whole of humanity the tragedy of death as a silence that speaks and expresses love

as solidarity with all those ever abandoned, which the Son of God reaches filling the

emptiness that only the infinite mercy of God the Father can fill. God is silent,

but out of love. In this day love, that silent love, becomes expectation of life

in the resurrection. We think of Holy Saturday: it will do us good to think of

the silence of Our Lady, “the Believer,” who in silence awaited the Resurrection.

Our Lady must be the icon for us of that Holy Saturday. To think much of how

Our Lady lived that Holy Saturday, in expectation. It is a love that does not doubt, but

that hopes in the Lord’s word, and which becomes manifest and splendid on Easter day."

 Pope Francis, Wednesday Audience, 03/23/16

 

 

"The last day of the Holy Week:  a fruitful stillness before the breathtaking action of the night.

Perhaps only the greatest Russian writers have succeeded

in painting it as it is, a pause, a last moment of waiting,

made holy by the Lord's rest in the tomb.

 

The Church is waiting at the tomb and weeps. 

She sees where the Lord has been laid, where the woman had

buried Adam, where man is buried where he had come to grief

through her evil counsel. She sees it and weeps. She weeps at the

Lord's tomb, as the Lord wept for Lazarus: for sin which killed

the giver of all life. But her tears are soft, and she is at peace. . . .

The death of Adam has lost its terrors in the tomb 
of Christ. The death for obedience' sake has snuffed out sin.

No longer does a massa damnata blunder on from sin to sin and death

 to death, but the body of the obedient Christ rests in hope. 

A foreboding of the happy chance of fault which merited

such and so great a redeemer. It is a foreboding of the

blessedness of suffering earning 'the name which is above

all names', and the 'glory of God the Father', which makes

the seers — men and the Church — at peace and full of hope."

D. Aemiliana Löhr, The Great Week

 

 

 

“Today a great silence reigns on earth,

a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because

the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God

has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have

slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search

for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep."

From ancient homily, Liturgy of the Hours, Holy Saturday

Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday - YouTube (7:47 mins)

 

"... Holy Saturday...the more I reflect on it, the more

this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: 

we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing

in the full light but walking toward it full of trust."

 

- Pope Benedict XVI, Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977

 

Happy 95th Birthday, dearest Pope Emeritus!

April 16th

We love you and pray for you!

A field to celebrate Easter JOY!

Dad 2 years ago just before he came here to live and share our "farm monastery" - he continues to bless me as I sit at his feet using his well marked prayer book - He and mother and I share our Faith with no reservations!  Jesus, we trust in you.  bless-bless, Barbara and the 50 - 33 here and 17 in heaven including our parents.

3 years ago the Notre Dame Cathedral burned - dad was very prayerful and sad about it!  I know that he is praying more perfectly from heaven now.  

Eric Clapton - Holy Mother!  Wow!!!