Friday, January 3, 2025

Jan 4th my first giving birth day- Ruth is "half way to 90"/Farm family heading to KCK and our nun!/Holy Name of Jesus/the Lamb of God +JMJ+

I know that today is January 3rd and a big holy day for our Church as the First first Friday of the year as well as the Most Holy Name of Jesus!  This is so special to me as my dad had such a devotion to the Name of Jesus.  He underlines for me through his prayer books left behind for me after his 44 years of being a Permanent Deacon in The Catholic Church after bringing our family of 13 into The Church 53 years ago on Christmas Midnight Mass at the Cenacle Convent.  

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

The 13 at The Farm about the time we converted into The Church - my dad had been a Protestant Minister for the first 20 years of my life!  I the oldest of 12!  

My wonderful father, Deacon Robert Cross, loved and honored the Name of Jesus!  
Combining baby Jesus, His Name and His coming to us in Body and Blood in the Eucharist!  
New Yeats with John's family and both sets of grandparents!  
The New Year begins with the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God!  In 2004 we brought Maria to the Poor Clare Monastery to begin her discerning of a call to religious life behind the enclosure - cloistered.  She discerned out after 4 months.  She is now married with 7 children and married to Major Joseph...

Letter From the Editor

 Love Dear Reader, 

I love you - words that are echoed endlessly around family and friends. We say these words to communicate something. The question is: what are we trying to communicate? Some say it's a good feeling, or simply that “love is love”. The first leads to a lack of endurance, because feelings don’t usually last. The second is simply a circular definition - which leaves room for it to communicate anything one wants. These definitions lead to a confusing and inconsistent good feeling. Some claim that this is exactly what love is today. However, I would argue that we have misdefined the greatest of the virtues - and would propose the renewal of its forgotten definition. Love is often thought of as a good feeling. It is so much more. It is the thing that keeps marriages together and creates the greatest saints.“To love is to will the good of another.”(CCC, 733) This is claiming that love has to do with the will and not feelings, and it has to do with the good of another. So, what is the good? Ultimately, it is Heaven. So, to love is to will that another become a saint. I heard this quote a while back, and I believe that it really complements the CCC’s definition. “Love is not a feeling. It is an act of the will. It takes over when feelings fail - When the beloved one is no longer even likable.” This definition asks much of us who claim to love one another. Love isn’t the conveying of a good feeling or whatever we want it to be. It is an act of the will - a willing of the good, sainthood, of another. To some of us this may not seem to be a life-changing definition. It is, though! This definition helps us to understand how we can love those we don’t even like - those who have hurt us - our enemies. It leads us to love our family even when we don’t feel like it. It leads to enduring relationships with spouses, friends, and ,above all, Our Lord. “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” -Mother Teresa 

Merry Christmas, Thérèse Librande 

1 Thérèse is a junior in high school who is often found babysitting, water coloring, or working on her many projects, one of which is this newsletter. She is the eldest of seven energetic siblings and a military kid who has lived in over ten states. She currently resides in Fort Riley, Kansas  

It seems appropriate to add here a wonderful Editorial written by their oldest daughter, 16 year old Therese on the topic of True LOVE!  

A beautiful greeting...

Our 2 oldest grandchildren home on Christmas Break with Neumann, and over for Brunch after mass on New Years day.  I admit that I am a bit distracted with my farm family for multiple reasons... tomorrow is the birthday of Ruth, who is my oldest child.  My first giving birth day 45 years ago now.  As her husband Paul reminded her - "Half way to 90!" 
Usually we have brunch after mass at the farm, but I hosted on Wednesday, New Years Day.  Fr Denny joined us!  Ruth and Paul know Fr Denny well from Teams of Our Lady.  He is also our beloved reason for TEC being so important and big in our family!  Our 3 oldest girls made TEC first, and each one invited us.  I could no longer say that I was good with my faith life, and attended 26 years ago followed by Pat a few months later.  It has been huge for our marriage and family!  
How I love matching sisters or cousins!  4 year old Birdie and soon to be 2 year old Lucy on New Years day after mass!  LOVE!  
Such a picture of Holy Reverence!  Heaven comes down to earth as Jesus, the Lamb of God, comes to fill us with his Body and Blood!  
At home in our Church as they come every Sunday and Holy Day!  We are noticing the Jude is more reverent now that he is going to mass at HRS each week!  LOVE our Catholic School!  
New Years Eve at John and Bobbi's house with the 3 kids and other grandparents!  
Tom came over yesterday in time for lunch and naptime with Neumann and 2 combines...  He and his family is heading to KCK to visit our nun and her Community of the Lamb after school today!  I am filled with great JOY and excitement for both Ruth's family to share in their life of prayer and dishes.  As well as The Community to enjoy our wonderful big farm family from Simon age 20 to Tom age 3!  
I am just so filled with wonder and awe at the beauty of our wonderful Church and the Christmas beauty! 

 3 years ago - Joy found a rock on the sledding hill, and Tom was a precious newborn.  John is Joy's Godfather too!  

No snow this year on our sledding hill, but there is a winter storm predicted for Kansas City on Sunday.  They are talking about a foot of snow down there with nothing here.  The farm family realizes that they might have to stay an extra day to get home safely.  They see this as their only chance to visit after many years of not getting there, and they are putting their trust in the Lord and Lady to be with them.   Many prayers from this grateful grandma for them to have some time with The Community and Aunt Hallel!  
Super Special!!!  
Tom came over yesterday with a Santa hat - he thought the "ball" was the best part.  
7 year old Joy took up the cow for the nativity on Christmas Eve.  So appropriate!  Now she gets to go to KCK with her family for the weekend!  We took Joy and Tom with us all the way to Fort Lewis a month ago, so we know that they are wonderful travelers.  Joy is very sharp in seeing "my cows" miles ahead!  
Christmas Eve!  Such a wonderful family you have sweet Ruth Ida!  "Open to LIFE and raising LIGHTS!"  The motto our family lives by since Pat revealed the Truth at our Marriage Encounter!  
Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: Our marriage stories - "The world needs LIGHTS!"  
The farm family on a very cold night - LIGHT up the night!  
Just to warn you... I went back into my blog on the occasion of Ruth's 45th tomorrow!

The 5 the day that Susan left for France in 2008!  She is now little sister Hallel - a fully professed little sister of The Lamb!  16 years ago!  
From oldest to youngest!  
Michigan with my grandma Beatrice Vercoe with my 5 plus Mary's Audrey!  
Corn stalk bales about 14 years ago.  
She now has 7 children!  
With my first beautiful baby girl - Ruth Ida Rose!  
My first pregnancy with my sister, Mary, who died at 28 from cancer.  
Easter 1990 - I sewed all the dresses - I adored dressing my 4 girls alike!  
Story time with my red wallpaper in my little old farmhouse on Hwy 59 with 7 grainbins in the back yard.  
I think this was #40 - half way to 80!  
Pat milked cows until 1986.  Then he went to stock cows and calves - we are up to 179 now!  
Dress alike for my sister's wedding.  
Maria discerning with the Poor Clare nuns.  We still ask for their prayers and depend upon them.  
In the light - my most favorite subject - hunky husband Patrick!  
Our family up at "the farm."  1971 or so when we came into The Catholic Church.  Each day since has been a gift to me!  
Visiting the grave of their brothers, William and Robert, who I lost each at 20 weeks in my womb - 2 stillbirths.
The Christmas we had Breno from Brazil - Christmas 2000.
Christmas 1982 with Ruth and Nancy.
Christmas 1982
Nancy's First Communion 1990
The green snowsuit - Nancy's year
Ruth wore it first!  Look at the snow that winter of 1981!
Wearing some years later too!  
Ruth at CCC in Wisconsin 
Dress alike - even me!  I think about 1986
The year of the witches for Halloween. I smile to think of how I prepared my daughter to become a nun and dress like everyone else... She knew it well!  
It is fun to see the snow from years back when we are having a snowless brown winter so far.  
Pat and John in the back pasture with our horse Smokey
2009 winter - John fighting brain cancer!  

John's Spirit Juice video!  

Picnic in the back pasture 30+ years ago!  
Maria home from Rome at Ruth's in Sioux Falls.
Our boy after 4 girls and many losses before and after!  
The 5 - Ruth in college at U of Mary in Bismarck!  
Ruth and Paul!  
Newly weds on the farm in 1978!  
First 2 girls - Ruth and Nancy.
So grateful for our young farm couple and their 7 children that love and work hard to make our farm successful!  Thank you!  
When my dad was a Deacon in Colman,SD!  only 90 minutes from my door to their door!  LOVE!  
Ruth and John on Beautiful beach in Michigan with my parents dog.  
Getting their marriage blessed in Rome just days after their wedding on November 22, 2003.  "Bless us with a happy healthy family, Holy Father St John Paul II."  Yes!!!  
On our honeymoon in 1978.  
Christmas 12 years ago as Rose again is now 12 1/2!  They have added 3!  Lord and Lady be with our farm family as they travel to KCK tonight to spend time with both our nun and our military family!  Bless and protect them with wonderful family time!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 33 plus many in heaven!  
Watercolor of Maria with her 3 oldest - Patrick is in her arms and he is also a miracle and brought into this world with PRAYER!  

Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus
January 3
______________________

At every Mass, before the priest begins the Eucharistic prayer,
we pray: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

St Paul proclaims: "God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him 
the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father.  - Phil 2:9-11


"There are two things that make it easy for souls to adore Our Lord in the Sacrament of His Love: they can seek His Human Face, though it be veiled by the appearance of the Sacred Host; and they can call upon Him by His Human Name.
These are the two things that people crave in a relationship: knowledge of a face and of a name. From these, one experiences the heart of the other, and so a relationship becomes a communion, an exchange in which one finds fulfillment, that is, joy and a response to one's love in the other. ... 
Come close to Him, then, who has made Himself so close to us. ..
This knowledge of Him -- of His Name and of His Face -- comes through Word and Sacrament in His Holy Catholic Church. Only there can souls come to experience Him as the Risen One with whom they can enter into a relationship so real that it is consummated in a Holy Communion, in partaking of His Body and Blood, and in becoming one with Him, even as He is one with His Father. ...
The Sacred Name and Sacred Face of Jesus are fire and light in this world that is becoming colder and darker by the day. In the end, the darkness will be forever vanquished by the fire of His Name and by the light of His Face, and then there shall be peace in His Kingdom fully revealed, and in the company of His saints who will sing praise to His Name and adore His Face, shining more brightly than a thousand suns, and this unto the ages of ages."

Dom Mark Daniel Kirby 


Thoughts of St. Bernard of Clairvaux who wrote hymn "Iesu Dulcis Memoria"- sung today on the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus:
"The sweet Name of Jesus produces in us holy thoughts, fills the soul with noble sentiments, strengthens virtue, begets good works, and nourishes pure affections. All spiritual food leaves the soul dry, if it contain not that penetrating oil, the Name Jesus. When you take your pen, write the Name Jesus: if you write books, let the Name of Jesus be contained in them, else they will possess no charm or attraction for me; you may speak, or you may reply, but if the Name of Jesus sounds not from your lips, you are without unction and without charm. Jesus is honey in our mouth, light in our eyes, a flame in our heart. This name is the cure for all diseases of the soul. Are you troubled? think but of Jesus, speak but the Name of Jesus, the clouds disperse, and peace descends anew from heaven. Have you fallen into sin? so that you fear death? invoke the Name of Jesus, and you will soon feel life returning. No obduracy of the soul, no weakness, no coldness of heart can resist this holy Name; there is no heart which will not soften and open in tears at this holy name. Are you surrounded by sorrow and danger? invoke the Name of Jesus, and your fears will vanish."
____ 
Goodness of God

Salve Regina - Hail Holy Queen just like our Community of the Lamb sings it - this is sung at night prayer and it is heavenly!  

Danielle Rose - the Saint that is just me 
in honor of Therese's editorial!  

Here is her entire newsletter - so good! 




 

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