Joyful Joy is 6 today!/Tom prays with grandma with 7 Sisters/"Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD..." - +JMJ+

Oh this precious girl lives up to her name - Joy!!  She is a wonderful farm girl that loves to go out and pick eggs barefoot and putting the eggs in her sundress skirt.  Not in this weather but the other 3 seasons.  Pat was describing her this way last evening, and I can so picture it.

Out with her older sister, Rose Again, and her baby brother Tom and one of the first kids they had this winter.  Joy loves her life on the farm and so much loves being a big sister.  She was #6 so we were all so happy and surprised when she got to be a big sister to sweet Tom!  

The day she was born 6 years ago - little red head Joy Jean!  She shares her birthday with her wonderful grandpa Larry Lanoue along with her red hair! 

Joy with her birthday buddy Grandpa Larry last year.

So special to share this special day!  Happy Birthday, Joy and Larry!  

Joy giving her newest cousin a kiss - baby Lucy is 12 weeks old now

Joy and Mr Fluffles, who is no longer around.  Life and death are both lessons we learn too well on the farm.  The LIFE part is a good and wonderful gift and the death part makes us sad and appreciate those that are pets for longer.  

Tom was surprised to be in church with grandma this morning as I needed to pray for Fr Denny in front of the Tabernacle.  The church was totally empty!  

Taking in the silence when usually there are many people all around us on Sunday mornings.  "This is different."

Not too sure why we are here.  Some of the words from the first reading - Jerimiah 20 today spoke to me of our time praying for Fr Denny with 7 Sisters - 

Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD... Jeremiah 20

I found myself singing some of the Praise and worship camp songs that I grew up with as a Protestant and Tom joined me!  Praying and praising in song!

Jesus in the morning, noontime and when the sun goes down

Oh it is Jesus 

My little prayer partner got more comfortable with being in the empty church with grandma...

He sat by me some.  

Played some.

Watched the custodians come through.

Watching and singing to Jesus with grandma.  He took my glasses and phone too so I couldn't do my usual Office of Reading and Morning prayer - hence we sand about how much we loved Jesus!  

Coming to take my glasses...

A strange angle of the ceiling light over my head.

He took a tumble and cried - grandma rocked him and he fell asleep.  So peaceful that grandma needed to pray for some extra time - special time together!  

I did the stations seated today on the 4th decade of Jesus taking up his Cross.  

Such a good boy and so easy and at home in church.  He has come to mass here every Sunday and Holy day since he was born.  How we love to share our Faith as a Family and add our Farm life to that and you have the whole package.

Tom is such a sweet little guy!  Give him his blankets, toys and books, and his grandma to sing and pray with him in our beautiful church!  

Praying twice - the prayers of children are heard by Our Lord!

Today in the Gospel we really are getting into The Son of God Truth!  'I am the Son of God'?
If I do not perform my Father's works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."  John 10

How can we doubt or struggle to believe?  It is all there for us to hold onto and KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that He is  our Savior and the Son of God!  The Holy Spirit is a burning flame of Truth in us that allows us to proclaim that Jesus in my Lord and Savior of the world!  

Dad's prayer of The Church today - He loves The Name!  

Reconciliation = Forgiveness! 

LOVE The Bridegroom!  I have seen The Gospel come to LIFE when Hallel and her Community come with their lamps lit!  Jesus truly is her Bridegroom and she is the Bride of Christ!  

Nancy's family and I are heading to KCK and spend time with The Community of the Lamb including our nun, Little Sister Hallel.  We are leaving early Thursday morning from Delano, and we have an Airbnb rented.  We will come back on Saturday for the Easter Vigil in Delano!  I would like to think that hubby could come up and join us there.  We have a family tradition of going out for a meal after the Vigil and Billy is already looking into where that would be up there.  So excited for our wonderful Holy Week and Easter Plans.  

Jesus, how we love and adore you for all that you are for us and how you thirst for our LOVE!  May we die to self so that you may live in us!  Come Holy Spirit!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34

  "I must become a great saint. 

My Jesus wants it." - St Bernadette 

 

 

"The world is content with setting right

the surface of things;

the church aims at regenerating

the very depths of the heart."

 

St John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Idea of a University (1852)

 

__________________________

 

A Prayer of Offering for Lent

 

My God, I know well, You could have saved us at Your word,

without Yourself suffering; but You did choose to purchase us at the

price of Your Blood.  I look on You, the Victim lifted up on Calvary, and

I know that Your death was an expiation for the sins of the whole world.

My Lord, I offer You myself in turn as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

You have died for me, and I in turn make myself over to You.  My wish

is to be separated from everything of this world; to cleanse myself

simply from sin.  Enable me to carry out what I profess.

 

 

Source: A Newman Prayer Book

Editor: VF Blehl, SJ (1990)
_________________________

 

+ Prayer + Fasting + Almsgiving +

Danielle Rose 

 

Clothesbasket kittens and Tom/Infamous cow from 2 years ago - #87 calf/Jesus is God! - +JMJ+

Framed so sweetly looking out the holes of their clothesbasket home...

With another blizzard scheduled for tomorrow - these 2 week old kittens truly are winter kittens and not spring kittens.  The mother cat luckily had them on the porch and they were put in this warm cozy clothes basket and this has been their home since birth, except when they are handled by the kids.

Safe and warm until 16 month old Tom reaches in and grabs them by paw of neck or tail.  They truly do seem to be made of rubber.  

The 3 white ones that are geting Siamese markings as they get a bit older.  

Tom grabbing the calico by the neck.  He giggles and giggles!  

Hello.

Awwww!

A curious looking kitten from the only world they have ever known in their clothesbasket.  Give them a few more weeks and they will be climbing out of the basket and have to go outdoors.  It sure better become spring weather soon.  

Tom thrilled to be in the basket with the kittens.

Such a lucky boy to have a basket of kittens!  Tom loves all the animals on the farm.

From Cow TV - Pat getting calf #87 to nurse.  This was the infamous cow that took Pat out 2 years ago when Pat accidentally got between her and her calf.  Pat's ligaments were torn off in his left shoulder - surgery a couple days later and then lots of physical therapy after some weeks in a brace.  He is now almost as good as new.  

She was gentle for Pat in 2023.  Just 3 calves and we will reach 90!  We are well over half way done with calving.  No injuries this year and we are so grateful as well as extra careful and vigilant with our Cow TV.

Hello world out there!  

I looked out to find this skunk digging in the big hole behind him in the snow piles in our front yard.  I think he is confused with winter continuing to go on and on.

Office of Readings today with lots of underlining from the Constitution of the 2nd Vatican Council.  This was when our family of 13 came into The Catholic Church!  We swam against the tide of all those leaving with the changes. 

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

Dad loves The Name!  

The Gospel today from John 8 - Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad."
So the Jews said to him,
"You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?"
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM."
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.  John 8

So powerful and beautiful to read in John about how Jesus is truly God and was always with HIs Father and the Holy Spirit!  I AM!!!  

The glorious Church which I  LOVE with my ALL!  I know that my dad and mom were sharing this totally with me!  Nothing is more wonderful and I continue to be blessed by all they left behind for me and I know we are united in The Eucharist each morning!  

Now Pope Benedict XVI today which mom left behind for me.  Each day I share this with my dear sister-in-law, Angela!  How I love that we also see eye to eye on our Faith!  

Dad's man, Brother Victor, today sharing about St John Climacus - it makes me curious to find his book - The Ladder.  

The Ladder of Divine Assent

Jesus may I die to self so that I may serve without counting the cost.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34

Danny Gokey

 

Jesus - " I came from God and am here..."/Fake plans give me hope and happiness/Thomas Robert and his namesake Deacon Robert - +JMJ+

Thomas Robert and his sweet hard working mommy, oldest daughter, Ruth Ida Rose.  They are watching the construction team taking the back porches off their apartment building from the dining room of the Parsonage.

Tom waving at Jacob Welu as he runs the fork lift.  So many are hugely interested in all that they are doing and many are speaking up looking for a newly remodeled resonable apartment to rent this summer.

Ruth has another busy day of running to Menards for lumber and doing jobs here and there in the apartments.  Tom gets to come with grandma after mass and water fitness all done by 9a!

His loving smiles and loving his old grandma fill me with such warmth and happiness! 

Yesterday they removed this tin that had been placed over the decks off the apartments...

Suddenly there was so much more light in the apartments and look at all the nice big decks that they will have to add to their indoor space!  So fun! 

Ruth exposing the brick walls in the kitchen for an antique effect.  She has a vision and does the work to get there!  

The plans for the decks and fire escapes - I now see how the 3rd floor apartments will be able to have an outdoor space too.  So cool! 

Our Quad group enjoying the coziness of the Parsonage last evening.  LOVE the view and knowing that Jesus is there in the tabernacle as well as in our hearts!  

Tom joining me in my prayer space... he found this picture of Pat and I taken in France in 2018 when Hallel had taken her final vows with 24 of us attending including 3 in the womb!  Our faces are aglow after our encounter with Jesus in The Eucharist followed by Adoration!  Tom so much loved our picture that he folded it in half hugging it!  

I am getting excited as Nancy called our nun in KCK and she said that we can come down for Easter!  They have fake plans to go on Thursday of Holy Week and come back on Holy Saturday.  They now have room for me in their new vehicle and Pat says that he can't go due to calving, so he has no problem with me going along.  How I would love to have a few days with both my girls at Lumen Christi and all the amazing masses and services they have to delve totally into what our Lord did for us to give us our Salvation!  I am asking the Lord for his plan for me!  HOPE it means that I can go along!  

Tom and his blankets on my lap while I am doing my morning prayer in my father's Prayer of The Church - well worn Lenten prayer book also marked with his underlining and circling and writiing.

Tom's tiny hand turning pages of my father's prayer book - I talked to Tom about his namesake Deacon Robert Cross, his great-grandfather and how Thomas Robert was specially named after him.  My dad lived here in my "farm Monastery" for the last 6 months of his life - so Ruth and Paul honored their son and me with giving him Robert for his middle name.  

To see him today touching dad's book - it made me speak to him about the beaty of my dad's listening to the Holy Spirit in bringing his family of 13 into the Catholic Church 51 years ago, and then answering the call to become a Permanent Deacon in The Catholic Church in 1976 with the first class of Deacons in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St Paul!  My dad, who had been a Protestant Minister before his conversion could then to everything he had done before - marry, bury, baptize, council... he only could not hear confessions or consecrate the mass!  

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

Dad baptizing our youngest child, John Patrick in 1989.  He baptized all our children and married me and most of my siblings!  

A kind of prayer happened as I shared with Tom this connection he has to my dad.  "Maybe the Lord will call you to serve him as priest or Deacon, or a Brother, sweet boy."  I am first generation Catholic and I love everything totally about The Church!  There are already 2 vocations - my dad and my daughter, Little Sister Hallel, who is a Dominican nun living this year in KCK!  How I pray for and hope for more vocations!  

I would love to think that Tom would treasure these prayer books someday!  My dad continues to teach me at his feet with all he points out to me every day!  

I was than totally amazed when he picked up this book of my dad's too, and just looked long and hard at this sweet humble monk with his sheep!  Brother Victor Antione writes a daily monastic sharing that was so important to my father.  Many times he would have me sit on the couch across from him and he would say; "Brother Victor said this... today."   Tom made the "Baaa" sound as he looked long and hard at the sheep.  Tom has many baby goats, and knows the similar sounds that they make.

Oh Tom, it would certainly be a wonderful life - to give your ALL to Jesus and love and serve Him without counting the cost!

My parents statue of Mary peeking over his shoulder.  

The Gospel today speaks so powerfully of Jesus being God and man!  After doing the Catechism in the Year with Fr Mike - I am so much more in touch with the mystery and power and just plain how amazing it all is!

Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me,
for I came from God and am here;

I did not come on my own, but he sent me."  John8:42 

  Jesus is certainly here!  He comes to me each day in Word, Body and Blood!  And in all those I encounter each day - including this sweetest of baby boys that loves me so much and I can share with him about his amazing namesake, who is praying for him from heaven!  

‎The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz): Introducing The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) on Apple Podcasts

Tom sure loves my big farm cat, Iggy!  And Iggy is starting to soften to Tom.

Eye to eye and petting him really nicely = getting to be friends!  

A great reminder to us!  

Pat had Tom and I go along to a neighboring town when it was Tom's nap time.  I guess he just took his nap in an awkward position.  Grandpa loves to have us go along with him and that is a good enough reason.  May we die to self and serve without counting the cost.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34

Mom left this daily meditations by Pope Benedict XVI for me  - today suffering = love!  

From dad's man, Brother Victor, today on humility.

To do the work of love is our sole occupation as we learn to love as Jesus did!  

You also, like living stones, are being built

into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,

offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable

to God through Jesus Christ. - I Peter 2:5 

"By our little acts of charity

practiced in the shade

we convert souls far away, 
we help missionaries,

we win for them abundant alms;

and by that means
build actual dwellings 
spiritual and material 
for our Eucharistic Lord."

St Therese of Lisieux

 

 

+ Prayer + Fasting + Almsgiving +

Danielle Rose - Pursue me 

about the Lord's call to a vocation!  She discerned the convent for some years and then discerned out and is now married with children.

About the monastery called momastery!  

 

Will Morrison