A table full, water coloring, tubbing, taken aback.../"Take up your mat and walk." - +JMJ+

Picking up Tom this morning with my most favorite view from The Parsonage.  It feels so good to be following my back to normal routine of mass, water fitness, and then pick up my buddy.

Always need more than one and Tom is trained by grandma to look and to smile big.  

he was not happy to not be leaving with grandma right away...

Mom gave me a tour of the new bathroom/laundry room they added in the basement.  An antique hutch that would not fit down the stairs - they had to take it apart and put it back together again.  Ruth is using it to store her towels for the bathroom.

Some drawers they came across stacked with artificial flowers created by Mary - is a DIY storage for the laundry supplies.

A new spacious bathroom also laundry - to the left here is a shower that isn't in the picture.   And of course a mirror to added for weddings and getting ready in the mornings!  

A cute wrought iron bench - you can see Tom helped (?) mom with the painting.

Some cute paintings that will be hung on the wall above the bench.

Tom comes in and sits at the table to have an ice cream sandwich, and help grandma eat her breakfast sandwich.  He also noticed this very heavy ball - it is a prehistoric grinding tool we found while picking rocks with migrants probably 20 years ago.  One man said something in Spanish and tossed it to Pat.  So cool!!!

Happy 2nd day of spring - and this is how it is out there.  You see deer by the hundreds trying to feed, and pheasants also all bunched up trying to find food.  That snow covers it all up for them.

Tom eating grandma's breakfast and handling a piece of history - prehistoric grinding tool of ancient man in our area.

John came with the 2 oldest, Jude and Birdie and soon they were in the tub with Tom.  

Not the usual quiet day at grandma's house.

Tom didn't last very long - it was nap time.

Sharing the soap and bubbles with Tom.   But I am tired and I want my nap now.

My JOY sharing Morning Prayer of The Church with John!  When he was going through brain cancer, seminary and his single years - we would join together in the morning to share The Prayer of The Church on our phones.  How wonderful for him to suggest that while his two played in the tub that we share morning prayer together!  LOVE! 

With all the activity - Tom didn't last sleeping in the pack and play - first time coming to sleep on grandma's bed while I did my prayers for the day. 

Peaceful sleep on grandma's bed while I do my prayers and meditations from St Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Venerable Fulton Sheen. Pope Benedict XVI, and Brother Victor Antione, and then my father's well marked Prayer of The Church.  I am so blessed to share prayer with my parents!  

Another one of my joys  - water coloring with the kids!

The Gospel today was a familiar powerful one of the man sick for 38 years to the point that he was unable to get down to the pool first when it was stirred up.  

Gospel Jn 5:1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
"Do you want to be well?"
The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

I am reminded of John 14 years ago when he was sick. Jesus told him to pick up his mat and walk after having ataxia after a biopsy to discover his type of cancer in his brain.  

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: John's cancer stories 

John's Spirit Juice video - his story continues with wife and now 3 children

A spaceship with 4 Astronauts, and a flag and boosters firing underneath.

Usually it is just Tom - so it was like stepping back in time to have a table full of grandkids sharing lunch and grandpa pop.

My house is now quiet as Jude and Birdie have gone to the other grandparents, and Tom went home with his mom to put away the groceries and hopefully take a nice peaceful nap before their house fills up with his 6 older brothers and sisters!  My beads and following nap are beseeching me.

Tom and my kitty Ignatius - Iggy.

Pleading eyes - Lord, I plead with you to help me to die to self so that you may use me as your hands and feet and voice of Truth!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34

 “Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist,

and the Eucharist in turn

confirms our way of thinking.” – St Irenaeus

 

 

"The Mass is that which makes

 the cross visible to every eye;

it placards the Cross at

all the crossroads of civilization;

it brings Calvary so close that

even tired feet can make the journey

to its sweet embrace; every hand may now

reach out to touch its Sacred Burden, 
every ear may hear its sweet appeal,

for the Mass and the Cross are the same.

 

In both there is the same offering of a

perfectly surrendered will of the beloved Son, 
same Body broken, the same Blood flowed

forth, the same Divine Forgiveness.

 

All that has been said and done and acted

during Holy Mass is to be taken away with us, 
lived, practiced, and woven into all the 
circumstances and conditions of our daily lives."

 

Venerable Fulton J Sheen

Calvary and the Mass: The Ite, Missa Est

 

The Sick Child - Edvard Munch

 

+ Prayer + Fasting + Almsgiving +

Will Morrison - Reckless love

Danielle Rose