Saturday, June 24, 2023

A week of small and big things done with love/"What then will this John be?"/Each one is wonderfully made - +JMJ+

Lucy back from her big trip out to Oregon for her Uncle Kirby's graduation with Phd was magnet for the girls and Tom.  Rose holding her was gone for a couple days for 4H camp with brother, Luke.  Of the 23 grandkids there was a lot of coming and going.  There was a lot for meals and time on the farm, too!  

Lucy is 5 months and the girls were all around her - Maggie is 2, Evie and Joy are both 6.  The boys were gathered around a lego pirate ship.  Quite a difference between our 12 boys and 11 girls!  
Lucy is such a sweet and happy blue eyed girl!  11 year old Rose Again and 6 year old Evangeline Mary are 2 of the granddaughters that have the dark hair and brown eyes that all 4 of my girls had - their mother's Ruth and Maria!  
They got the pink memmo!  
Farmer hubby, Patrick, just in from baling with his birthday buddy, Romeo Joseph.  Pat will be 69 on Sept 15, and Romeo will be 9.  
Now the 2 redheads - 8 year old Romeo and 6 year old Joy.  Joy has a red haired grandpa and aunt and uncle.  Romeo is a kind of surprise, although there is some red on Pat's side.  
The night all the parents had a game night over at John and Bobbi's house... the 3 littles out on the porch with grandma and grandpa on a perfect night on Ruth's porch on the farm.  Grandma had the 20 grandkids and we had a movie night - the littles were not that interested and chased each other around the table eventually all in diapers.  I discovered that it is hard to get them together for a picture, so I did what I could...

As I was pondering our week of huge family - 14 sleeping at my home and 12 at Ruth's and meals for 25 dinner and supper.  The song of Small Things with Great love by Danielle Rose just came to my mind... "One drop in the ocean, one petal in the garden, one hidden sacrifice, one to give a life..."  My head is spinning and my heart is full.  

Danielle Rose - Small Things with great love.  

George and Hector are both 4 and only 3 weeks apart!  I didn't manage to get the 3 boys together, so I have a goal in 2 weeks when Maria returns before they officially move to Leavenworth, KS!  
The did clink their cups, but grandma wasn't fast enough.  It is still cute and shows how they got to be good buddies and played well together.  How grandma loves to have them get to be cousin friends!  Each day breakfast was at my home for the 14, and then they would gather at the farm for time in the pool, playing in their fort in the grove, games and just hanging out together.  Screens were not hardly used, except when grandma had the whole tribe on game night.  
No, this is not in December when we gathered for Christmas Camp - these 3 had on their shirts in June and grandma had to get a picture....Nancy with her youngest, 1 1/2 year old Regina, and Maria.

I am moved deeply by the words in Small Things in Great LOVE by Danielle Rose - "A child to give a home."  This speaks of the motto our family has lived by since Pat and my family with our 5 here and 7 in heaven, and now our girls and John - Open to LIFE and raising LIGHTS!  It certainly speaks of embracing Small Things/baby humans with great love."   Yes, it is a sacrifice on our parts to say "yes" to children and then to do all that it takes to raise them in The Faith.  That is our JOY!  Sharing our Faith as a Family add to that our Farm heritage!  Faith/Family/Farm!  

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

Maggie and grandma with one of Ruth's kittens on her beautiful porch.  Even with all that is going on at the Apartments, Ruth was very generous with her home.  We have feeding the 25- 30 down to a science.  We even had hamburger night with some of the burgers that Paul and the kids made and froze for Simon's graduation.  Still wonderful!!!  
Pretty 2 year old Magdalene with beach towel and flowers on Ruth's porch.
Tom and Maggie are 6 months apart...
Just as Maria drove away to pick up their oldest at a week of Teen Schoenstatt Camp.  They will spend 2 weeks in Sarona, WI at Joseph's parents' house, and then they will be here for some days before their big move on base at Fort Leavenworth, KS.  So many fake plans to go down there often as they will be half an hour from our nun, Little Sister Hallel, and her Community of the Lamb in the heart of the poor in downtown Kansas City, Kansas!  

Maria's 3 girls in skirts she made for them out of a huge skirt she found at thrift store!  We missed 15 year old Therese this week, but she will be back for some itme at the farm in a couple weeks.
Therese by the shrine in Sleep Eye at Schoenstatt.  No doubt they spent many hours here praying the rosary with Our Lord and Lady.  Schoenstatt was huge for my girls and now granddaughters - Rose and Berna and now Therese!  
First day of Summer in Manistique, MI where we would have family time over many years.  Now we gather on the farm, and Ruth and Paul host - thank you!  
George, Gina and Maggie with my dad's lift chair in out bedroom which we allowed my dad to live in for the 6 months he lived with me here in our "farm monastery" for the last 6 months of his life.  He was a Deacon in The Catholic Church for 44 years and I was blessed to share his religious life with him with Morning and Evening prayer of The Church , and chaplet and rosary on my porch each day at 3p for an entire growing season on the farm.  April 16- October 23, 2020!  
Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: The amazing story of the 13 becoming Catholic! 
The only picture I caught of the 3 all looking at me and none of them were fussing!  A precious gift to me.  There were many times I was too busy or in the pool or staying at my place with a sleeping baby or two, and missed many photo ops.  I think most know what a sacrifice that is for me.  I still have fake plans to get a family picture all with white t-shirts.  Get my three 4 year old boys together, and on and on!  
We managed to go to John's play... we had to take along the littles, and Maria and Nancy spent a lot of time outside with their two.  Tom made it for the whole play!  I had to leave and pick up men when the hay got tough about 20 miles away, and missed John's solo.  I am taking 11 year old Rose today at 2p!  Major Joseph said that John was the best of the actors and sang the best and that he liked the play!  Thanks!  The play?   Tuck Everlasting! 

Today huge memories connected to the Feast day today - the Birth of St John the Baptist!  I recall 14 years ago sitting beside John's hospital bed in Sioux Falls, SD just days after hearing that John had brain cancer!  So powerful to read the words then - "his name is John" from Luke 1.  Today the words that struck me after 14 years of cancer free - is “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

John' Spirit Juice Video - now the story of healing continues with wife and 3 children!  

Last dip in the pool on the hot day- grandma even got in and swam with the littles.
 
Our final meal had to have ice cream cones for dessert!  That is a family tradition that started on our family weeks in Michigan!  LOVE!  
Ruth's beautiful porch full with ice cream cones and happy faces.  I had just had a swim with Tom, Birdie and Jude on a hot sticky day.  Now sticky with dripping ice cream to top it off!  
LOVE our ice cream tradition for one and all!
Lucy with her first cone.  She only got a few sips of ice cream, but she loved it!  
Our centerpiece is the newest baby!  
Our final meal was a hit!  WE love our family and will very willingly do small and big things with love!  
Maggie and Hector enjoying their cones on Ruth's porch with the amazing view of pastures and fields on our farm in Marshall, MN!
Nancy and her George at Camden!
Nancy took a bunch to our special place in the summer - Camden State Park.  We were there daily when the kids were young!  Pat was a nonswimmer, and he really wanted his kids to be swimmers!  They all were, and all were lifeguards and the girls swam on the swim team!  Mission accomplished!  
The 3 in less than a year at Camden - Eve and Joy are 6 and Josephine is 7

Two cousin friends at Eve was leaving to spend time at our other grandparent's home in Wisconsin.
5 years ago in Kansas City shortly after John and Bobbi's wedding.  A month later 24 of us including 3 in the womb all flew to Saint Pierre, France for Hallel's final vows!  We have doubled our number of grandchildren since than, and as the Psalm was 139 today in Mass - each one is wonderfully made! Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34 plus many Little Brothers and Little Sisters!  

Responsorial Psalm

139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15

R.        (14)  I praise you, for I am wonderfully made.
O LORD, you have probed me, you know me:
            you know when I sit and when I stand;
            you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
            with all my ways you are familiar.
R.        I praise you for I am wonderfully made.
Truly you have formed my inmost being;
            you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made;
            wonderful are your works.
R.        I praise you, for I am wonderfully made.
My soul also you knew full well;
            nor was my frame unknown to you
When I was made in secret,
            when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth.
R.        I praise you, for I am wonderfully made.  Psalm 139

Danielle Rose - Wonderfully made









More Danielle Rose - she is amazing! 

He understands...

Small thing done with love...
nancy's Cross Stitch saints!
Sharing our Faith in our Domestic Church/family is so important!
8 years ago when Ruth's porch was here on my porch!  We traded places about 7 years ago.
My champion of LIFE and marriage and family.  A lot of the reason our son is John!  


Every mass we say these words of St John the Baptist when the Body and Blood is lifted up!  


Dad's man, Brother Victor today!

 Solemnity of the Nativity
of St John the Baptist
June 24
___________________________

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
________________________________________

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 holy 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
___________________________________
 
St John the Baptist, pray for us,
the He may increase and 
we may decrease.


 

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