Happy Feast Day, John! "St John the Baptist was called from his beginning, and so are we!" Fr Tony

Visiting with Ruth and Tom out on their beautiful porch yesterday morning - I was impressed with the busy farm I now only visit from time to time.  Yes, I help when big family jobs come up, but that might be in the house making meals and watching the baby and older kids while Ruth does the farm work.  

Yesterday the bales were coming on the yard one wagon after the other and tractors were unloading the bales, then turn around and go back for more.  7 month old Tom thought that it was all very interesting with the roar of engines attracting his attention in the sun.

5 year old Joy is now a big sister to 7 month old Thomas Robert.  Such a lucky girl to have the JOY of being a big sister - nothing better than to have many siblings rather than things!

Such a beautiful spot to take in all the farm activity from a safe place and a wonderfully stunning spot with all the green fields and pasture landscape.  Ruth's vision of this porch makes me well up with emotion!  

Happy to finally get something from this late planted garden!  Some radishes show me that it might be a good year after all.  

Simon checking the pastures as part of his summer job of working on the farm for the summer.

Thanks, Simon, for all you do to help out on the farm!  

Mary 9 years ago with her fair calf.  She continues to show beef at the fair, but now is a goat farmer - raising meat goats!

9 years ago when Ruth and Paul and family lived here and were working on their fair calves. About 6 years ago we traded places and now they live on the busy active farm, and are a huge help to their aging old farmer Patrick!  How we love our young willing and able farm family now with 7 kids to grow up on the farm.  It is fun to see Joy, who was born there after they moved, out collecting chicken eggs and petting her bottle calf while she feeds it a bottle.  That girl is a true farmgirl, who loves the farm.

Two sided wash by Simon and Mary....

Now grandpa giving Rose Again a lesson on getting close to your fair project and making her nice and cooled off and clean.  Rose just turned 10 and is the official in charge of the bottle calves that grandpa added to the herd - about 12 of them this spring.  Rose also has a mind to recall cow numbers and history about them.  She amazes us with her memory and knowledge.

Getting all the soap off with a cold hose spray! 

Starting the day with mass this morning on the Solemnity of the Birthday of St John the Baptist - a major Feast for our son, John!  He has many Johns over the year to celebrate.  When they question Elizabeth and Zechariah about their son's name - it makes me recall our own son's name...

For our 4 daughters our name for a son was Luke, but after all that time (9 years between John and Ruth) Luke had been overused - Luke Duke and Luke Skywalker to name a few.  So we, influenced by JPII to name him John - as Zechariah said today when asked - “John is his name,” 

4 years ago we were in KC!  John and Bobbi were seeing Hallel for the first time since their wedding on June 2!  Nancy and Bill lived in KC and we stayed with them, and grandpa Pat and I had brought some of Ruth and Paul's kids down for cousin time!  Big Dave, Luke and Rose!  Pat loves to get the family together no matter how much it takes!  

Hallel could not attend John and Bobbi's wedding on June 2, 2018.  We went down 3 weeks later to share pictures and time together - we are always aware of her prayers for us and that allows us to find happiness even when we have to sacrifice time with our nun in big family occasions!  

We have discovered that Kansas City is very hot and humid and is called the armpit of America!  Nancy and Bill and family lived there for 3 years and our Community of the Lamb put down roots there in the heart of the Poor in KCK!  A real blessing and JOY was the pool in Nancy's neighborhood!  She lived one block away and spent her days there.  4 years ago Rose and Bernadette cooled off with smiles.

Now we have a pool on the farm, which makes all those hot jobs we have to do have a wonderful cool down at the end so that we can face the next hot job!

Open table with The Community at Lumen Christi Monastery/Light of Christ 4 years ago.  John and Bobbi were at the JOY table!  

The Little Brothers were building their monastery at the bottom of the hill 4 years ago - The Light of Mary the Mother of God Monastery!  We are so happy and grateful to have our Community where our daughter/nun found her calling just 7 hours away in KCK!

Sharing The Solemnity of the Birth of St John the Baptist shared in Nancy and Bill's Church - Sacred Heart in Shawnee, KS.  

Fr Tony preached about how John was called even from his conception in Elizabeth and there was a plan for him from the beginning.  He then reminded all of us that we are all called also to bring the Gospel to all those around us.  "You are chosen also."  Yes, Lord, may I share your Truth without hesitation."

All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,
“What, then, will this child be?”
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.
The child grew and became strong in spirit,
and he was in the desert until the day
of his manifestation to Israel.  Luke 1

8 years ago on Ruth's porch on the table she made!  Maria and the kids had just arrived from Fort Leonard wood.  They will be here soon for a few days as they are moving from the West Coast to the East Coast.  I guess I am going to see Charlottesville, Virginia and the country between here and there.  Pat will be up for the challenge I have no doubt!  

Yes, he loved and shared with us the Lamb of God!

Solemnity of the Nativity

of St John the Baptist

(Transferred Feast this year to June 23

due to Solemnity of Sacred Heart on June 24)

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Today's Entrance Antiphon - Jn 1:6-7; Lk 1:17
 A man was sent from God, whose name was John.  He came 
to testify to the light, to prepare a people fit for the Lord.

"Fortunate is John, who through the spirit of God deserved
to express his joy before he uttered any infant cries. 
Fortunate is he who deserved to possess divine benefits before
he got human goods.  Fortunate is he who deserved acquaintance
with heaven sooner than with earth.  Fortunate is he who deserved
to announce future events before he saw any present ones.  Fortunate is
who could receive God before he was received into his own body, 
Fortunate, yes, outstandingly fortunate, is he who acquired merit before
he knew how to seek it.  Fortunate is he who did not come to grace
through toil but was enabled by grace and then proceeded to his labors." 

St Peter Chrysologus 
Hat tip : Magnificat, Vol 20, N0. 4/June 2018
Magnificat Home

Painting by Marie Ellenreider
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Today's Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia! You, child, will be called prophet of the Most High,

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.  Alleluia, alleluia!

"Happy birthday of John the Baptist. His birth is the culmination of an age, an era, a Covenant. He is the last of the Old Testament Prophets. His birth signals an end and a beginning. The Book of Hebrews says By calling this covenant “new,” [God] has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear (Hebrews 8:13). 

Hence John would later say, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must increase; I must decrease. (Jn 3:29-30).  Today John the Baptist is born who will usher in the new by answering the most significant question ever posed:  "But where is the Lamb?'"

Msgr Charles Pope

Pastor ~ Holy Comforter - St Cyprian Parish ~ Washington, DC

 

“Behold the Lamb of God

who takes away the sins of the world.”

(St John the Baptist is quoted at every Mass)

 

Prayer after Communion (Today's Mass)

 

Having feasted at the banquet of the heavenly Lamb,

we pray, O Lord,

that, finding joy in the nativity of Saint John the Baptist,

your Church may know as the author of her rebirth

the Christ whose coming John foretold.

Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

 

St John the Baptist in the Desert - Philllipe de Champaign

 

“I want to show you a sun that shone more brightly than all these, a soul that was truly free and detached, cleaving only to the will of God. I have often wondered who is the most mortified of the saints I know, and after some reflection I have come to the conclusion that it was Saint John the Baptist. He went into the desert when he was five years old and knew that our Savior and his came on earth in a place quite close by, one or two days' journey perhaps. How his heart, touched with love of his Savior from the time He was in His Mother's womb, must have longed to enjoy His presence! Yet he spends twenty-five years in the desert without coming to see our Lord even once; and leaving the desert he stays to catechize without visiting Him but waiting till our Lord comes to seek him out. Then when he has baptized Him he does not follow Him but stays behind to do his appointed task. How truly mortified was his spirit! To be so near his Savior and not see Him, to have Him so close and not enjoy His presence! Is this not a completely detached spirit, detached even from God Himself so as to do His will and serve Him, to leave God for God, and not to love God in order to love Him better? The example of this great saint overwhelms me with its grandeur.”  

 St Francis de Sales

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Click here: St. John the Baptist - YouTube 
Click here: Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist - Catholic Culture 

St John the Baptist, pray for us,
the He may increase and 
we may decrease!

By embracing our Most Cherished Cross we find LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  

So true! 

Happy memories of putting cloth diapers on the line.  My nest years were filled with loss and JOY!  I now have my 5 here with me and 7 in heaven praying and helping me down the narrow path! '

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

God used him as he continues to do with you and I and our John! 

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: John's cancer stories  13 years later - healed and the new John now with Faith he longs to share with others!

Spirit Juice video he made in Chicago some years back - his story continues now with wife and children! 

Small things with great LOVE!

Lots of reminders of the small things we do with love and faith! 

St John Paul II is my total hero of LIFE and of family!  I know he is working hard from heaven with St Mother Teresa of Calcutta and my parents!  Use us Lord to your honor and glory for LIFE and marriage and family!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Hallelujah

John and Bobbi's wedding day 4 years ago - the little girls with the wonderful flowers arranged by Pat's sister, Mary and her daughter, Ida!  I think that St Therese and Mary our Spiritual Mother were honored and touched by the sweet girls and the gorgeous flowers including peonies picked from local gardens.

As women we have such wonderful Saints and the Queen of Saints to model for us how to LOVE totally and completely - dying to self so that we may be His hands and feet and voice.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 51 - 34 with us and 17 in heaven including our parents.  

John and Bobbi with their 5 Godchildren on their wedding day!  They take this honor very seriously indeed! 

My father today in the Prayer of The Church!  How dad loved The Church and mom and I totally share that with him!  To "see" his marking to share that with me is my JOY!  Thank you, Dad for bringing all 13 into The Church 50 years ago - all 17,800+days has been a gift to me!  I am truly called to be in The Church and share that Truth no matter what each day!  Jesus in Word and Sacrament of the altar!  

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

Now the daily devotions my mother left behind for me by Pope Benedict XVI!  With a new schedule that includes daily mass each morning these reflections are very powerful and uplifting to me!  

Danielle Rose 

Danny Gokey