Canning with the 2 oldest and 13 grands/the two youngest together - so fun!/"he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness"

Oh my!  Grandma had to step away from the stove to capture these two sweethearts!  Our 2 youngest grandchildren are just one month apart and now able to sit together on the floor and smile!  Tom is on the move with army crawl while Regina is stuck in one spot as she has not figured out how to move like her mother, Nancy, before her.  Nancy never did crawl, but stood up and walked slowly at a year old.

Grandpa in for a quick lunch with his arms full!   How he loves the little ones, and they love him in return.  Tom already wants to be in grandpa's arms when he comes in to say hello in the mornings on the farm.

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Tom 9 1/2 months and Regina is 8 1/2 months

Canning day brought Nancy home for the day.  Our tomatoes are late this year, and we had a small canning with only 3 pails of tomatoes for our spaghetti sauce.  Only 40 quarts is small for us - there are a lot of tomatoes still to ripen ahead.

Best buddies - Rose and Bernadette having our sauce on a mountain of spaghetti for lunch along with the 11 others - even Tom had spaghetti for lunch!  

Side by side putting our sauce into jars - my two oldest sharing conversation and making food for our families over the next year.

Too cute!  Tom is so cute in making the "brumm-brumm sound when he sees a truck to play with or a tractor outside.  We must keep an eye on his when he is walking outside.  "Where is the baby" when a tractor starts up.

Sauce, grandpa and a finger in the ear.

The calves getting weaned off their mother cows, who are pregnant with the calf they will have this winter.  The cycle of LIFE!  

Over to the farm and the feed lot to be fed until next May or June and then to the meat market to feed the hungry world.  

Now that our statue is back - I love to go over and greet them each morning after mass. Mary with me gives me so much peace and JOY!  

Pink flowers for Our Lady - the name of the statue on the plate in front - Mary the Mother of God!  

John, Jude and Birdie stopped out for time with cousins and ice cream!  Grandma likes to spoil the grandkids and our tradition is ice cream in cones or bowls.  Jude likes chocolate!  

Jude and George are just 6 weeks apart in age and they have Maria's Hector between them.  Yes, 3 boys in 6 weeks!

Jude with a chocolate goatee. 

Two future sauce eaters... Tom even had some for lunch!  Ruth uses probably a couple jars a week!

Small canning for us, but nice as we were less overwhelmed and hectic.  Nancy says she will come back for future tomato canning.  We like the help and the fellowship shared.  With kids going to school next week our help will be less.

Contented with their hard working grandpa, Farmer Pat.

Canning day with grandpa, and thankful for the Truth he laid down before our marriage and that our Domestic Church/family lives by - "Open to LIFE and raising LIGHTS!"

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

The girls got into face painting and after swimming they are a bit washed out.  JoJo and Joy are less than a year apart.  Jo will be going into First grade in Delano, and Joy will be going into Kindergarten at our beloved Holy Redeemer School where her mom and sibs and grandpa and sibs all went to school ahead of her along with her 5 older siblings!  Now Tom will keep his parents young, as he has school ahead at HRS! 

Canning ring jewelry as their moms wore it back in their day!   

5 year old Joy looking dazzling with her bracelets, and face paint from the older girls.

So fun for me to relive now with the grandkids our special times with family canning days.  They are great memories on the farm!  

Applesauce canning about 30 years ago!  There is something special about making food for our families together.  

Birdie a year ago as we were canning spaghetti sauce with about twice as many tomatoes.

Pat loves onions, and usually tries to add extras to the recipe.  Well, If he is willing to cry and cut - what can we say?

Nancy with Jude a year ago turning the colander 

Birdie a year ago - 1 1/2 and loving her pasta with our fresh sauce!  Her face and fingers tell the story.

Oldest grandson, Simon, modeling for the younger ones how wonderful is a mountain of spaghetti with our wonderful homemade sauce.  The tomatoes were growing on the plants just that morning.  That's fresh!!!  Jude looks impressed indeed! 

My hour of prayer for Fr Denny with 7 Sisters in the St Joseph's Adoration chapel as there was a funeral at the Big Church.  Special time with Jesus!  

I have been knowing lately that I need to get to the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the near future.  It has been a while, and there are some things gnawing at me.  St Paul today to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 4 - the first reading at mass this morning reminds me of how futile it is to keep your sins in the dark..  Jesus knows them anyways, so it is so good to lay them at his feet and ask for the Unconditional LOVE and forgiveness Jesus has for us!  

Therefore, do not make any judgment before the appointed time,
until the Lord comes,
for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness
and will manifest the motives of our hearts,
and then everyone will receive praise from God.  I Cor 4

Ruth showing Nancy her projects for the new Airbnb that she and Paul are working on across from the Catholic Church.  Her farm sink from a grove nearbye.

The buffet that will be in the entry for guests to sign in and get information.

Getting some grandpa pop off to the side.  

Table and 6 chairs for the kitchen...

Cousins 

Grandpa and Simon getting ready to give the weaned calves some medicated water to keep them healthy.  Joy wearing her new shoes for school, which starts on Tuesday.  Exciting times!  Ruth will only have Tommy to join her in her projects at the new house.  

Gearing up this month for a special one of Mary!  This feast day is on Pat's birthday along with grandson, Romeo, who will be 8 this year.  September 15th 

Jesus, I love you and long to give my all for you.  May I die to self so that you may live in me, and I may be your hands and feet and voice of Truth.  Carrying/dragging my Most Cherished Cross to find LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and hallelujah

Dad making me smile today in the Office of Readings - well marked with his sharing the LOVE of The Church we share with no reservations!  I was so blessed to have my father, Deacon Robert Cross, live with me here in our farm monastery and share his prayer with me for the last 6 months of his life on hospice.  

I read the Office of Readings and Morning prayer as part of my prayer for Fr Denny each Friday.  Why?  Because as a priest and deacon you are asked to do morning and evening prayer of The Church each day.  When Father Denny first came to our parish some years back - I was sitting in the Adoration chapel when he came in to pray after mass and he took out his phone to read it on there.  Cute alert!  So now I join him on my phone in Adoration chapel.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 54 - 34 here with us and 20 in heaven.

SECOND READING

From a sermon on the beatitudes by Saint Leo the Great, pope
(Sermo 95, 2-3: PL 54, 462)

Blessed are the poor in spirit

It cannot be doubted that the poor can more easily attain the blessing of humility than those who are rich. In the case of the poor, the lack of worldly goods is often accompanied by a quiet gentleness, whereas the rich are more prone to arrogance. Nevertheless, many wealthy people are disposed to use their abundance not to swell their own pride but to perform works of benevolence. They consider their greatest gain what they spend to alleviate the distress of others.

This virtue is open to all men, no matter what their class or condition, because all can be equal in their willingness to give, however unequal they may be in earthly fortune. Indeed, their inequality in regard to worldly means is unimportant, provided they are found equal in spiritual possessions. Blessed, therefore, is that poverty which is not trapped by the love of temporal things and does not seek to be enriched by worldly wealth, but desires rather to grow rich in heavenly goods.

The apostles were the first after the Lord himself to provide us with an example of this generous poverty, when they all equally left their belongings at the call of the heavenly master. By an immediate conversion they were turned from the catching of fish to become fishers of men, and by their own example they won many others to the imitation of their own faith. In these first sons of the Church there was but one heart and one soul among all who believed. Abandoning all their worldly property and possessions in their dedicated poverty, they were enriched with eternal goods, and in accordance with the apostolic preaching, they rejoiced to have nothing of this world and to possess all things with Christ.

Therefore, when the apostle Peter was on his way up to the temple and was asked for alms by the lame man, he replied: Silver and gold I have not; but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk. What is more sublime than this humility? And what could be richer than this poverty? Though Peter cannot assist with money, he can confer gifts of nature. With a word Peter brought healing to the man who had been lame from birth; he who did not give a coin with the emperor’s image refashioned the image of Jesus in this man.

And by the riches of this treasure, not only did he help the man who recovered the power to walk, but also five thousand others who believed the preaching of the apostle because of this miraculous cure. Thus Peter, who in his poverty had no money to give to the beggar, bestowed such a bounty of divine grace that in restoring to health the feet of one man, he healed the hearts of many thousands of believers. He had found all of them lame; but he made them leap for joy in Christ.

The entire sharing from St Leo today!  So good!! 

"You may be sure that of all the moments of your life,

the time you spend before the divine Sacrament

will be that which will give you more strength

during life and more consolation

at the hour of your death and during eternity."

 St. Alphonsus

"Making my meditation before the picture of the Blessed John Vianney, he seemed to say to me with an interior voice:  'The secret of my life was that I lived for the moment. I did not say, I must pray here for the next hour, but only for this moment.  I did not say, I have a hundred confessions to hear, I but looked upon this one as the first and last. I did not say, I must deny myself everything and always, but only just this once. By this means I was able always to do everything perfectly, quietly and in great peace. Try and live this life of the present moment. Pray as if you had nothing else whatever to do; say your Office slowly as if for the last time; do not look forward and think you must often repeat this act of self-denial. This will make all things much easier.' ”

Fr Willie Doyle

Diary entry: 08/13/1913

 

Danielle Rose 

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