Mass with my girls and two youngest grandsons

The two Davids are saying goodbye to Gus, who is heading in to mass on St Bonaventure's feastday...  It was a delight to have my two daughters along with my two youngest grandsons share the most wonderful gift - Eucharist with me!

Bye Baby Gus... we love you so much!

Bless-bless, Baby Gus... Pray for me at mass and may the angels give you lots of kisses. 

I was being a bad person and taking pictures at the beginning of mass.  It was a sight to behold, and a delight to an old woman's heart.  I hope that Jesus could smile on my being so petty and distracted!

Many blessings that overwhelm me with joy and happiness...

Nancy smiles at the smiling Gus..."He is seeing the angels."  This is what Gus' greatgrandma "mom-mom" would say when little Gus would smile that precious baby smile.

I was taking a picture of Nancy under her namesake St Anne after mass this morning.  Some people leaving were drawn to Gus... I had to share that I was a daughter of Deacon Bob Cross and this was his granddaughter and great-grandson, Augustine.  I had to share my joy of sharing this week with my oldest 3 daughters and my 6 grandchildren, and then to go to France next week with my son, who is now cured of cancer to be with his sister, Hallel, as she takes her first vows with the Community of the Lamb!  It is so much to take in!  Jesus, we thank you and praise you and trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!  Bless-bless, Barb
This was on the back of a car at church - Mary and I are going to watercolor now...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXp6xcY5IqU...  here is Glorious Day by Casting Crowns... Mary and I had our hands lifted in praise and worship!

Pure family time in God's country

Blessed Kateri was never very far from our thoughts today... we found some sea gull and crow feathers while fossil hunting and they were in honor of this brave young woman, who embraced her faith and was shunned by her people. 

I even got Dave to stand still and smile after some serious sand playing time while Mary and I went fossil hunting along with Maria and little Dave..

We found the black crow feather while we were looking for fossils... Maria thought that it would look good with Mary's braids and the memory of Blessed Kateri was once again mentioned...Kateri probably never wore a feather in her hair in her entire short life, but maybe she did...

A sand birthday cake was created in honor of the birthday boy in two days...

We put Christian music on the computer and the girls danced while Ruth made lunch. 

I Can Only Imagine lyrics

"I can only imagine

What it will be like

When I walk

By your side



I can only imagine

What my eyes will see

When your face

Is before me

I can only imagine



I can only imagine



[Chorus:]

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still

Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I

fall

Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all

I can only imagine



I can only imagine



I can only imagine

When that day comes

When I find myself

Standing in the Son

[. From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/m/mercyme-lyrics/i-can-only-imagine-lyrics.html .]



I can only imagine

When all I will do

Is forever

Forever worship You

I can only imagine



I can only imagine



Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still

Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I

fall

Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all

I can only imagine



I can only imagine



I can only imagine



I can only imagine

When all I will do

Is forever, forever worship you



I can only imagine



I can only Imagine."

I am filled with happiness as I listen to Nancy giving Gus his bath in the bathroom next store... I hear him splashing on his sponge as Nancy laughs at how cute he is, and he grunts and makes precious baby sounds. I am so happy for her to get her dream and prayer and wish... a wonderful loving and faithfilled husband and now a presious child to love and nurture.  It is so precios to see him starting to know her and to look at her with eyes of love!

We had to have our watercolor time, and even Simon and David joined the girls for a while.

Off on an adventure with my grandkids... How I love to share my wonderful Michigan with them!  This is where I grew up spending my summers with my siblings for the summer, and it continues to be a place of beauty and of family!  Thank you Jesus!

Nancy, Baby Gus and Therese and I were out on the front deck in the sun saying morning prayers this morning and we were marveling about the life of Blessed Kateri as well as the amazing Gospel for today about how we are to come to our Lord with our burdens and He will change it into a light burden and a yoke that is easy...

The meditation of the day was written by St John of the Cross and is called "Come to me."  I was so excited to read him addressing the very words from Isaiah 55:1-2 that my dad was reading on a Silent Ignation retreat - telling him to join the Catholic Church along with his wife and 11 kids - and he was a Protestant minister at the time!  It just seemed so crazy amazing to be here in Michigan... where I grew up in my family...

"God, then, with compassion for all those who through such labor and cost to themselves strive to satisfy the thirst and hunger of their desires for creatures, proclaims through Isaiah...Come to the waters all you who experience the thirst of your appetites; and you who have not the silver of your own will and desires, make haste; buy from me an eat; come buy wine and milk (peace and spiritual sweetness) from me without the silver of your own will, without paying with labor as you do for the satisfication of your own appetites.  Why do you offer the silver of your own will for that which is not bread (the bread of the divine Spirit) and waste the efforts of your appetites on what cannot satisfy them?  Come, listen to me, and you will have food you desire, and your soul will delight in abundance."

"The movement toward abundance is a departure from the pleasues of creatures, because the creature torments, while the Spirit of God refreshes.  Accordingly, God calls us through St Matthew... as though he were to say:  All you going about tormented, afflicted, and weighed down by your cares and appetites, depart from them, come to me and I will refresh you; and you will find rest for your souls that the desires take away from you."

St John of the Cross (1591) is called the Mystical Doctor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xwzItqYmII  Here's the link to Utube so that you can dance around the kitchen with your family!  Jesus, we can't wait to see you, and we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!  Notice how they spell Halleluia... Bless-bless, Barb

Blessed Kateri with us...

We are enjoying celebrating in simple ways the feast day of St Kateri Tekakwitha (1656)... the first native American to be beatified - she died at the age of 24.  The two little girls have braids in their hair and have been making bead necklaces for others here...now there is a plan to make necklaces that we will all wear on Saturday to little Dave's 3rd birthday!

"""Kateri was born near the town of Auriesville, New York, in the year 1656, the daughter of a Mohawk warrior. She was four years old when her mother died of smallpox. The disease also attacked Kateri and transfigured her face. She was adopted by her two aunts and an uncle. Kateri became converted as a teenager. She was baptized at the age of twenty and incurred the great hostility of her tribe. Although she had to suffer greatly for her Faith, she remained firm in it. Kateri went to the new Christian colony of Indians in Canada. Here she lived a life dedicated to prayer, penitential practices, and care for the sick and aged. Every morning, even in bitterest winter, she stood before the chapel door until it opened at four and remained there until after the last Mass. She was devoted to the Eucharist and to Jesus Crucified. She died on April 17, 1680 at the age of twenty-four. She is known as the "Lily of the Mohawks". Devotion to Kateri is responsible for establishing Native American ministries in Catholic Churches all over the United States and Canada. Kateri was declared venerable by the Catholic Church in 1943 and she was Beatified in 1980. Work is currently underway to have her Canonized by the Church. Hundreds of thousands have visited shrines to Kateri erected at both St. Francis Xavier and Caughnawaga and at her birth place at Auriesville, New York. Pilgrimages at these sites continue today. "http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=154

Reading about Blessed Kateri with baby Dave - the younger of the two Daves - here miraculously from Missouri with mom, Maria, and sister!  Then Nancy and baby Gus joined us and we read this amazing Gospel for today:  Jesus speaks to us: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdene, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."  Mt 11: 28-30

Ruth crocheting with her boys snuggled in...

Finger appeared in David's ear...

The amazing rock we found on the beach... actually it was one that my brother, Dan, the artist,found and took the shape and went with it... we loved it and had to put it out with the lake behind it...

Jesus, we love you and trust in you!  Blessed Kateri, pray for us.  Amen and Halleluia!  Bless-bless, Barb

Watercolors by the inland sea

Such a beautiful sight... we want to capture it and keep it always.  The girls and grandma used water from the lake to make some water color paintings.  How we love to paint!

All the colors of the rainbow are needed to express the wonder of our week here!

Delightful, Delovely and Deliriously happy is a good caption for this one!

Add a pink and yellow watering can to the light and color palet that abounds as the sun plays on the huge body of water and the sugar sand makes a easle for the girls and boys at play and serious creating!

The glorious sun is the supreme paint brush of all the splendor of the universe, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have a sweet girl with brown flowing hair and a yellow flowered swim suit sitting on a bright beach towel with the blue shimmering lake and the soft sand and all the colors of the rainbow in the box of watercolors... God had a lot to work with in this work of art!

Oh the sweetness of it all, and the joy to the eye!  Jesus, thank you for the feast that our eyes are filled with as we praise you with our lives lived out in this miraculous world of yours!  Life is a gift and your world is beyond our wildest dreams sometimes... we see you in the beauty of nature and every face that we see in our lives... Jesus, we trust in you!

Bless-bless, Barb

"Do small things with great love."

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

St Therese of Lisseux before her

"This, then, ought to be our great Christian mentality; a readiness to admire the things of God, a readiness to admit that he does great and marvelous things, that he is great in nature; great in heaven, great in grace, that he is the Creator of earth and heaven: that, in the words of our Blessed Lord, heaven is earth's throne and earth is his footstool; that there is nothing in the vast universe which is not the handiwork of God, and that therefore it is full of endless glories, possibilities and marvels.  We have but one thing to do- a very easy thing at first sight - just to admire it, to love it for its beauty and riches, to clap our hands in our surprise at its glories and its mysteries.  This is part of the great natural goodness of creation which we accept everywhere, and we should just admire, as children admire."  Dom Anicar Vonier OSB

Happy and together in paradise...

Here we are on beautiful beach last night. A lady on the beach came and got all of us... we are away from all the distractions and purely enjoying each other... such a delight that Maria and her two are here from Missouri!  I had such a wave of mssing them about a week ago, and it is like the Lord answered my heartfelt prayer that I could see them and hold them!  Thank you Jesus, from the bottom of my heart! 

My cup runneth over with joy juice!

Too amazing!  I want to put it in a bottle and take a big drink of joy juice whenever I need a family and beauty fix!

The two three year olds are specially close...

Dave will officially be 3 on Saturday so we are gearing up for a huge party to celebrate him becoming "big, and I a good boy!"  Yes, Davey, you are a huge part of the joy and laughter around here.  Bless-bless, Barb and family

 

Family togetherness!

oh, the joy

with a 1 1/2 year old on my lap it ia mostly a photo story today...

life does't get any better!