Fresh food is good for all living creatures!

As I worked on getting the garden produce that I got out ahead of the tractor working it yesterday morning... the dogs stood and watched hungrily as I put some carrots in a gallon bag for the fridge....I handed a small one to Lilly and she proceeded to go and eat it like she was eating a doggy bone treat!  Carrot after carrot she devoured with delight!  All those good nutrients going to her eyes and everywhere else in her healthy body!  It was surprising but fun to see, and it made me feel good that I had raised healthy food for the dogs too! Yes, they surprised me by eating apples... and now carrots!  They must think that we know what we are doing when we eat the good stuff!

It made me smile as the prairie winds raised my hair and my clothes blew straight out on the clothesline!

Able to see the wind!  It was roaring today... the clothes were fresh smelling and dry in short order!

Fresh wind and food for man and beast!  You never know what the day will bring... Never a dull moment is a good description of my life... now to bed!  Bless-bless, Barb and all

"My secret is a very simple one:  I pray.... To pray to Christ is to love Him."  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Warmed by His Love - we blossom!

After the frosts of the last week... I was surprised to see this lone marigold huddled under the back of my angel in the midst of all the dead morning glories and zinias!  I know that marigolds are hearty, yet it gave me my title today as a visual of how we can live in a cold and crazy dead world yet be a beautiful little touch of color and vibrant life!  WE are protected by the angels, saints, our prayers to them as well as our Queen in heaven with her Son standing at her side!  Think of that little marigold today when the darkness and sadness of life weighs down on you... be LIFE to those around you... especially in our families!

Faintly outlined by the sunrise... Mary stands in our lives quietly and humbly... yet always there with us as a mother that has just picked up her child out of the dirt with a scraped knee and is lovingly washing it and caring for it with words and murmurs of concern and love as we wail and cry!  Think of how many crying children we have heard in our lifetimes and then think of our Heavenly Mother hearing that from the world day after day and night after night!  After being up all night for the last week at the nursing home... I know that there are many awake and unhappy people throughout the night!  The crying is forgotten when we are held in our Mother's arms and feel her unconditional love for us... she takes our needs to her Son the Healer!  WE are saved and asked to grow up! 

A year ago at this time...John was home with us as we were battling his cancer of the brain that had first showed up on Father's Day!  At the same time his dog, Lilly, had gotten very sick.  As typical farmers we had maybe given her a shot of cow Penicillin, and wished her luck.  Well, she got sicker and sicker!  Finally John's pre-vet girlfriend insisted that we take her to the vet, so she and John loaded her weak body into a car and took her half an hour away to the Vet!  She was treated for "mysterious farmdog disease,"  and came home with about 10 pills morning and night to cover all the possiblities it could be.  She got better!  John dutifully nursed her with a chunk of velveeta morning and night... looking outside his world of cancer to care for another!  For him to see her recovering was so powerful and he would laugh out loud as she romped ahead of him when they "walked" outside.  For a while John needed a walker and then a cane and then very unsteady without either... as he recovered himself from a brain biopsy he had to have at the end of July! 

I know that to him... Lilly was a special rolemodel of how he could be transformed in good health and regain what he had lost!  It is still an ongoing process, and there is coming to the point that we are realizing that there might always be a loss or a handicap there.  Yet, we have our son with us... cancer free... and he has his wonderful Lilly, who is forever grateful for more life to live and more love to share with his Johnny!

A year ago on All Saints Day - this was the glorious sunrise!  Today it was special too on the way to put letters in the mailbox.... 

Back to the thoughts streaming through me today... Those little pathetic yet vibrant marigold blossoms... that's us!  The frost has hit the world around us and we in our smallness continue to feel the life of Christ giving us the LIFE to show the world that truth lies in HIM! 

This morning as I was sharing a cherished breakfast with my farmer husband... after the week of craziness with my work schedule...On the deck barely clinging to life long after the impatience that were with it... there was a small marigold plant that I had rescued from where the dogs were laying in my garden...  I love this statue of Mary as she treads on the serpent's head!  She is my all time hero... by saying "yes" to God... she brought Christ into the world!  She gave us our salvation by being The Mother of the Universe!  She is the one that brought LIGHT and LIFE into the world!  So we rejoice in our smallness as these tiny pathetic marigolds! 

How I love to be at her side and at her feet and watch her crush the head of the serpent in my life!  Her outstretched arms protect me and present me to the Lord in my smallness, and unworthiness!  Yet, I am not ashamed but rather aware of how small and unworthy I am yet I am LOVED!  The Son shines on me and I bloom and give a spark of color and life to the dying world around me! 

After just having a lighthearted joyful conversation with my husband... yet we were discussing serious things, and it makes me rejoice loudly to thank the Lord that we are so in line one with the other...How important it is to share all the big things in our life with our spouces!  When Pat and I went on our first date... we realized that we felt the same about our faith - Catholic through and through with no reservations whatsoever!  Our views on family were totally in line - OPEN with no reservations whatsoever!  Our love of the world around us - now called the FARM!  The attraction was there, so why not?  When two people find that... there is no reason to wait even a year! 

I thought that my granddaughter's cheering was appropriate now! 

It is a delight to talk to my husband about things that matter, because we see totally eye to eye!  He loves to read and be informed, so this morning he was my source of information about the election yesterday!  He told me that Iowa judges that had voted for same sex marriage had all been voted out... all 4 of them!  Now that is a statement!  Then the conversation shifted to how we feel so alone in the fact that we see the total beauty of the Church and accept and believe it all!  "You say that you feel alone on an island." he said to me... because I tell him that I do a lot of the time!  He shared his disappointment with a priest he respected telling him that he had a young husband come to him that had a beautiful wife..."Fr, how can I resist my wife and abstain to prevent us having 10 kids?"  HE told me that Fr agreed with the man and basically gave him permission to use artificial means to prevent!  I just yelled out to the Lord!  So sad!  So sad to think that this couple was deprived of the joy that abstaining at the fertile times gives to a couple!  And the fact that they sinned against the beauty of LIFE!  With human eyes... we cannot find the strength to uphold the TRUTH!

Since I just found this great picture of Ruth with her oldest sweet son, Simon... they were told no more, but with the Creighton Model method - of which she is now an instructor, helping others too - they  are able to slowly add to their family, and to trust in the Lord to protect her and her children and any future ones that may come their way!  She looked at sterilization or artificial and now has found with hard work and the Lord's help - LIFE! 

Her sweet little "gift" - David Lawrence is now 2!

I was very touched by the intercessory prayers from evening prayer last evening... very powerful - see http://www.magnificat.com/

Through Christ, who became like us in all things but sin, let us pray for those who have died:  - It is a powerful thing to pray for all those that have no one to pray for them, and some of these seem to fall into that area...

You were born into the world of death so that you might bring abundant life:

-raise to new life all those who died in poverty and pain. Give them joy,O Lord.

You took on our flesh, subject to death, so that we might take on new life in you:

-raise to new life those who have died of illness, violence, and deprivation.  Give them joy,O Lord.

You died on the cross that we might rise from the grave:

-raise to new life those who have been tortured, murdered, or executed.  Give them joy, O Lord.

Your mother endured the sorrow of your death that we might know the gladness of your rising:

-raise up all those who are bowed down under the sorrow of bereavement.  Give them joy, O Lord.

Now that takes praying for souls on All Souls Day to a whole new level!  So powerful and hard and reminds us of the sad state that are the circumstances of the death of people in this world!  We hear of many that die of starvation, and some are very young and that is so hard!  A tiny little marigold that is only here in the world for a few weeks or months... that is a life and a soul to pray for, and what agony that little one knew of the pain of hunger!  So hard to understand!  One thing that was very deep and hard last night as Pat and I were praying before bed... I was called to realize at what a young age our Lord died!  As a hospice nurse - I have become the person that turns to the obituaries before anything else in the paper!  If we saw at a glance that a 33 year old had died - that would be the first one that we would read taking in all the details we could!  It is one of those deaths that you ask God - "Why?"  That was our Lord!  He had an early and shockingly horrible death... it grabbed our attention and it was GOD, who died for us in the most brutal way!   With a daughter close to 31 in a month... this is very close to home!  Just the way my thoughts were going last night before bed... needless to say it took me a while to fall asleep even with the "Hail Marys" constantly going through my heart, mind and soul!  Going from days to nights to days makes it all confusing for me to know when to sleep too! 

This is the bell tower of St John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Rochester... daily mass, and time in the Eucharistic chapel got me through some tough stretches there with my son, John and his battle with brain cancer! 

It has been a rambling one today!  So much pouring out like a tidal wave that can't be held back!  How I love the opportunity to share and to let it come out.  I apologize if it is here and there!  The message of life and not to let the smallness of who we are to get in the way... That smallness is a good thing and allows us to in an insignificant way to bring some life and color to the world around us!  If we were a big amazing flower that was overwhelming... it would not allow the work to be done... we would be a distraction and in the way!  Rejoice in our smallness, and find the way to bloom in the midst of our families - showing them the love and care we have for them in the service we do for them and the patience we have with them and the acceptance of the hardships we have to face with each new day!  That is how we bring peace and happiness to our small "domestic church" - our family! 

Lilly has found health!

Lord, we are so filled with a deep joy at the small lessons that each day holds for us - everywhere we turn we see your handprint on nature, and the animals, but most of all with all those that you have given us to love and serve in this life!  Give us the grace to serve and love without counting the cost!  "Wounded I will not cease to love."  Yes, it is hard... but though the cross we come to life and true happiness!  Jesus, we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-bless, Barb

"If we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection."  Romans 6: 5

Life is rich - praying for the dead...

"If He were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless to pray for them in death.  But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who have gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought."  2 Maccabees 12: 44-45

I will be using pictures today of our siblings, Mary and Don, that have gone ahead of us.  OUR lost children, and Pat has now lost his dad...  They are closely with me on this journey yet, as I pray for them and their coming to the radiant light with Him!  I have talked to some that feel that once you die... that is it... Heaven or Hell is decided by the life you lived!  I feel that there is an eternity to continue our work after we are gone, and to be remembered by those that loved you here on this earth is all a part of that connection we continue to have out of love for those we have known and loved, but were called from this world! 

I have shared in the past... my unique way of praying the chaplet of divine mercy... a lot of times I will be praying my rosary and chaplet around that 3p time  - the time of Christ's death - and when I pray it I use it to pray for those in our lives that have died, and we loved and cared for in this life.... I also find it very powerful to pray for all those that are dying at that time and for those that have noone to pray for them.  For each decade I pray for Pat's dad, brother, my sister, my niece, and my brother in law... also on the final decade I remember aunts, grandparents, my children, and even some patients that I have had and were a special "burden on my heart." 

Yes, we miss Mary and Don, but there continues to be a relationship with them as we lift them up in prayer... My hours spent at the foot of my Savior at Adoration always includes them, as does the chaplet that I try to say daily!

From the first reading at mass today:  "The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.  They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction.  But they are in peace.  For if before, men, indeed thay can be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself.  As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.  In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; and the Lord shall be their King forever.  Those who trust in Him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love:  because grace and mercy are with his holy ones, and his care is with his elect."  Wisdom 3: 1-9

Nancy has two amazing Godmothers... One happens to be above standing in the light... or stiving for that fullness that I pray for her daily!  There is something so wonderful about that connection we have with our loved ones that have gone ahead of us, and it pulls you into that heavenly realm that we all are yearning for!  I takes us outside of our closed in selfishness and allows us to care for spiritually and pray for those that we miss here and were given to us here on earth... husband, parent, sister, child!  There is no way that I would ever want them totally out of my life, and to remember them in prayer and feel the peace that it gives me to remember them and to visualize them gettting ever closer to HIM!  It pulls me out of myself and towards heaven! 

I think that you can sense the difference when it comes to Venerable John Paul II and Blessed Teresa... I never felt that I needed to pray for their souls, but as soon as they died... I was lifting intentions up to them!  They are standing with God in glory and it is only a matter of time til they are both named  to sainthood!  I am so blessed to have lived the lifetime that they were alive and showing us how to walk with Him!  John Paul was made pope two months after we were married and formed my "domestic church" with his wisdom and love!  He formed me as a new and hungry Catholic!  HE formed me in my feelings on LIFE and FAMILY!  How I miss him, but with John especially... he was there to turn to in prayer and desperation!  We were given a relic of him on a Holy Card from the Poor Clares with instructions to ask him to intercede from heaven to heal John... along with a picture of him laying hands on a young girl with a brain tumor... She was healed on the spot!  John is healed and there is so much that we are grateful for!

Venerable John Paul II... I am forever changed to have you a part of my life and my family and my marriage and most of all my wonderful amazing Church!  I continue to lift up John to you and have so much peace knowing that you are part of the spiritual army doing battle for him and his life and spiritual welfare!  There was never any doubt that you are with our Savior and His Saints in heaven.  You pull my thoughts heavenward and always enrich my vision of the Bride His Church!  How beautiful and amazing she is!  So beloved by you and Christ!   Having you now in heaven gives me continued hope and trust!  Jesus, I trust in you!

All of us are aware of how sinful and unworthy we each are... therefore these words of Pope Benedict today are very cool!

"I would go so far to say that if there was no purgatory,then we would have to invent it, for who would dare say of himself that he was able to stand directly before God.  And yet we don't want to be, to use an image from Scripture,'a pot that turned out wrong,' that has to be thrown away; we want to be able to be put right.  Purgatory basically means that God can put the pieces back together again.  That he can cleanse us in such a way that we are able to be with him and can stand there in the fullness of life.  Purgatory strips off from one person what is unbearable and from another the inability to bear certain things, so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed, and we can see that we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being."

Our lives are forever touched by those that have gone ahead of us,and to continue to remember them in the deepest places in our hearts and spirits in prayer is such a wonderful way to continue our loving relationship with them and take us out of ourselves to new spiritual heights!  Praying for our dead is a beautfiul gift that makes our lives richer and cause us to meditate on all that we need to work on in ourselves so that we can come into His presence that much faster!  Lord, help us to find that humble selfless place where we can come to You!   "Just as Jesus died and rose again, so will the Father bring with him those who have died in Jesus."  I Thes 4: 14

Lord, we long to see your face... it is there in our families and those that we come in contact with.  Thank you for all our loved ones that draw us heavenward...we lift them up to you and know that your heart burns with a love and desire to have them among your communion of saints!  The hugeness of your love is beyond our realm of smallness... you overflow with mercy and kindness and forgiveness all over us!  Thank you!  We are so grateful and ask for you to hold us in the palm of your hand!  Jesus, we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-bless, Barb... yes, that is the famous potato fork!

Jesus said to the crowd:

"Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.  And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.  For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who see the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day."  The Gospel of the Lord.  Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ! 

"O Lord and lover of souls." Wisdom 11

I love walking away pictures... especially when it is my son, John, home from college walking with his 2 year old Godson, little Davey...  After John being gone for a while and seeing him with "new eyes" - not the day to day hopeful eyes of mom and dad wanting to see improvement with his walking and injury as a result of the brain biopsy that he had... His dad and I were shaken to realize just how much he lost and continues to have a "handicap!"  He spoke with sadness of how he loved to play sports like broom ball in the winter and now that is not possible...  HE has come a long way from not being able to balance enough to walk, but we still see that there is a huge difference from where he was before cancer struck him 16 months ago! 

I appologize for rambling... but the saints were waking me and causing me to get up way before I am clear in the head... after working all night at the NH...  After I shared the other day about the Thankful mysteries and got into the Church part of it... I was deeply reminded of the "heart burning with love" that Our Lord has for us individually and as part of the Body of the Church!  I had a special walk with St Faustina as I read her diary a year ago, while I stayed with my two daughters and drove John to radiation every day in Mayo.  Nancy had ordered a bunch of books.... being a strong Catholic plus an English teacher.. she has a hunger for books and had just ordered the dairy of ST Faustina.  I picked it up and took it to read... she assured me that she had no plans to read it anytime soon!

John had helped his dad pick up all these bales the day before!  Davey is more interested in the tractor than the bales..

In their home... Maria, husband, Joe with their two children, and another daughter, Nancy... had no internet or TV... they felt that the expense was not something they wanted nor the distractions.... So John and I would return to their quiet home and I would pick up my book and with wonder and awe... come to see the deep communion that St Faustina had with Our Lord and his mother!  They talked to her directly and pleaded with her to share the many ways that they wanted to help individuals to come to them and find mercy as their lives were coming to an end!  Her own health very poor.... she would be awakened at all hours of the night to pray the divine mercy chaplet for a soul that was in trouble.  She saw the host - Christ speak to her!  She was put down and criticized as being strange and probably mentally sick... she suffered much both physically with TB but also emotionally with the back talking and back stabbing she experienced from some in her community.  She had not an easy road, but the LOVE was intense and so deeply personal between her and Christ! 

I just went to a website of ST Faustina - http://www.faustina.ch/index_en.htm ...

"I want to be completely transformed into Your mercy and to be Your living reflection, O Lord. May the greatest of all divine attributes, that of Your unfathomable mercy, pass through my heart and soul to my neighbor.

Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearences, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors' souls and come to their rescue.

Help me, that my ears may be merciful, so that I may give heed to my neighbors' needs and not be indifferent to their pains and moanings.

Help me, O Lord, that my tongue may be merciful, so that I should never speak negatively of my nieghbor, but have a word of comfort and forgiveness for all.

Help me, O Lord, that my hands may be merciful and filled with good deeds, so that I may do only good to my neighbors and take upon myself the more difficult and toilsome tasks.

Help me, that my feet may be merciful, so that I may hurry to assist my neighbor, overcoming my own fatigue and weariness. My true rest is in the service of my neighbor.

Help me, O Lord, that my heart may be merciful so that I myself may feel all the sufferings of my neighbor. I will refuse my heart to no one. I will be sincere even with those who, I know, will abuse my kindness. And I will lock myself up in the most merciful Heart of Jesus. I will bear my own suffering in silence. May Your mercy, O Lord, rest upon me (...).
O my Jesus, transform me into Yourself , for you can do all things. (163)
A good prayer for all of us to ask the Lord to use us in this way!  How terrifyingly amazing to hear the Lord speak to her and beseech her to show souls His Mercy for them and the desperate LOVE that He has for every soul!  He wants to save every soul and bring them into His Church and into Heaven - Happiness with Him!  His heart is burning with love and mercy for each and every one of us!  How we all know those that are oblivious to the LIFE that He is holding out to them.  They seem to live in a world that has not been touched by the Truth and the Good... they have been led down the wide path of lies that the world has led them to believe as the way that life should be...they are not happy and are confused!  I feel so helpless in the face of this ... Where do you start?  It is like we are speaking a different language!  Prayer can intercede!  Jesus, I trust in you!

My feelings are muddled and fatigued... so I will let the saints themselves reveal to us this intense burning unending love the He has for each one of us!  They in their sacrifice of living their lives for Him could know this LOVE, and this desire that HE had for them to witness and convert and give their lives in all  ways to make it happen for those that do not know Him! 

St Francis : "May I feel in my heart, as far as possible, that abundance of love with which you, Son of God, were inflamed."

ST Catherine of Siena:  "When we love something we don't care what sort of abuse or injury or pain we might have to endure to get it; we are concerned only with satisfying the desire for the thing we love."

St Robert of Southwell:  "Jesus, possess my mind with your presence and ravish it with your love, that my delight may be to be embraced in the arms of your protection."

ST Claude de la Colombiere:  "My Jesus, let me live in your heart and pour all my bitterness into it where it will be utterly consumed."

St Margaret Mary Alacoque: "All my pleasure in this land of exile is that of having every kind of suffering found on the cross, deprived of every other consolation except that of the Sacred Heart."

St Alphonsus Liguori:  "We must love God in the way that pleases him, and not in a way that suits ourselves.  God wishes people to empty themselves of everything and to be filled with his divine love."

St Elizabeth Ann Seton:  "O Jesus, sure joy of my soul, give me but a true love of you.  Let me seek you as my only good."

St John Vianney:  "The soul can feed only on God, only God can suffice it; only God can fill it; only God can satiate its hunger.  Its God is absolutely necessary to it." 

ST John Neumann:  "Though God hates sin more than any other thing, HE loves poor miserable sinners.  He ardently desires the welfare of our souls as if his own happiness depended on it."

As you read the words of the saints... there is no doubt of the burning LOVE they experienced as they followed HIM!

St John Bosco:  "What tenderness there is in Jesus' love for man!  In his infinite goodness, he established with each of us, bonds of sublime love!  His love has no limits."

ST Therese of Lissieux:  "You alone, O Jesus, could satisfy a soul that needed to love even to the infinite."

St Maximillian Kolbe:  "Shall the urge for complete and total happiness, inherent to human nature, be the only need to remain unfulfilled and unsatisfied?  No, even this longing can be fulfilled by the infinite and eternal God."

ST Pio of Pietrelcina:  "If the soul longs for nothing else than to love its God, then don't worry and be quite sure that this soul possesses everything, that it possesses God himself."

Saying goodbye to Johnnie... Our prayers go with him, and the Love of Christ has touched him deeply through his cancer journey and his handicap as a result... Part of the deeper journey that the saints are all a part of... takes them into the furnace of His Love and the purifying that takes place!  Jesus, we trust in you! 

The Gospel for today is the amazing Beatitudes!  That which the saints stived to live their lives in Him and to embody the Beatitudes! Pope Benedict says: " Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible."  Pope Benedict XVI

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." 

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."  Matt 5: 1-12

Jesus, Your Love for us overwhelms us and fills us with the desire to throw off all that comes between us and to be purified by your burning love and desire for us to follow you and serve you and honor you with our lives and all that we do!  We are yours... Thank you for the saints that while on earth strived to reveal your love for us and now from heaven are interceding and continuing to help us reach a clean and pure heart!  Your love is overwhelming and wonderful... may we drown in it and never come up for air!  Now that would take total trust!  Jesus, we trust in you!  Armed with the many lives of the saints to show us how to love and to serve you with our lives!  Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-bless, Barb

"Happy are the pure in heart for they shall see God.  Happy the peacemakers; they shall be called sons of God.  Happy are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake; the kingdom of heaven is theirs." 

Matt 5: 8-10

A warm greeting to a mother of 11, and her 6 daughters from Woundsocket that are following daily!  As Pat said to your son at the funeral;  "You must be Catholic!"  Thank you! Knowing you are following and supporting means so much!  Bless-bless, Barb and family