"such faith..." Jesus about the centurion - Matt 8

Yes, even after I had my boy... I still attempted to dress them alike/matching.  I made John a shirt out of the same fabric and a pair of shorts with suspenders in coordination with the girls!  This was for Maria's first communion day, and for the party at our house she got out of her white dresss and into this matchingness!  I think she was on the verge of histeria, as her mom drove her to it!  Yes, I even made the hair accessories, and didn't make John join in that! 

Well, it is the first Monday of Advent, and after sharing morning prayer and reading the readings for today together... it is a day to visualize a world that puts Our Lord first!  There was a booklet offered for Advent by Fr Robert Barron, so I might be mentioning him time to time too.  He is a voice of Truth in our Church!  I attended one of his video workshops about the Church with Nancy, when I was up to help her with the baby, Bernadette.  I recently bought a set of his series, so Pat and I will be taking the time to watch and learn and grow.  Today Fr Barron addresses the first reading about the Lord's mountain being the highest mountain, and all the world could put HIM first and stream up the mountain together.  "Advent is a wonderful time to dream, to stir up our desire for what God wants to give us both individually and communally.  When God is our highest value, God and God's ways will be for you the highest mountain, higher than your own ego, thoughts and preoccupations.  Symbolically, all the people Isaiah imagines streaming up the mountain stand for everything that is in you now ordered to this highest good - all your energy of mind, will, body, passion, your public and private life... It is the picture of ordered life."

The red plaid wool days - even I had a skirt made of it for myself.  It is no wonder that people still talk about the girls all dressed alike with ribbons in their hair... the girls included me!  This was also the time of bangs!  Recently there was a statement made that round faced girls shouldn't have bangs and suddenly my granddaughter, Mary's bangs disappeared - never to be seen again!  But aren't they adorable? 

It was cool today to read the words we now say just before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist as mass - "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof: only say the word and my servant will be healed."  Wow!  Seeing the scene of these words and how this man could put all his Trust in our Lord to answer his prayers for his suffering servant!  It is such a lesson of Faith in this year of Faith..."such faith" says our Lord to the crowds around him!  No matter where we find ourselves in life and what illness or hardships come our way - we need to have the faith of this centurion that the Lord is not only listening to our plea, but able to answer it no matter the crowd that is surrounding HIM! 

Here is another silly dressing alike picture I found... the girls on the swim team with their embarrassing mother!  Yes, the next year when Ruth graduated then Susan was on the swim team... the 4 missed being all on the team together by one year.  Yes, I am in a silly mood today, you might say.  Jesus, sometimes it just is too much to hold in... all the fun and goofiness that comes with LIFE with family.  It seems that the kids escaped from their home/domestic Church without too much lasting damage!  The other day in Kansas City... Ruth and Nancy even put up with me dressing their two girls alike!  So fun!

It seems that both girls are smiling about it, too!  Lord, may we have "such faith" to put all of our worries and hardships in your hands.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"What I say to you in the darkness speak in the light, says the Lord, what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops."  Matt 10:27

St Francis Xavier, pray for us on this your feastday!

The tidal wave of BLUE that is showing us how to climb the mountain of God!  We rejoice!  America, there is HOPE for climbing into the LIGHT! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-hyn63jB4  Give and Take by Danielle Rose - the first song we heard her sing at NCYC about 9 years ago!  Lord, whatever it takes to allow us to be close to you... do it to me!

Families touched by YOU!

Remembering 3 years ago...

 So many hopes and prayers three years ago, it is good to be reminded by little Lamb, Patrick in the last month that we are always needing to be in the state of prayer for all the needs that come with LIFE and LOVE!

Not yet 2 years old... sweet cousins Therese and David remind us that there is much beautiful and hopeful about LIFE and LOVE.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

3rd Anniversary of our week of PRAYER!!!

Three years ago we started a week of prayer for John's healing on Dec 1-8, and here he is today - healed of brain cancer and now discerning a call to the seminary!  It was 168 hours - 7 days 24 hours each day!  We stormed heaven with the help of so many!  Thank you, Jesus, and we trust in you.  We are reminded that this is something we should consider doing for many of life's hardships.  PRAYER is our answer!  Bless-bless, Barb

A year ago our anniversary of our week of prayer was the day that we went for John's checkup.  Nancy and 7month old Gus joined us there for the good news of John's continued healing.  We are to go on the 11th this year, and only expect another perfect report!  We are excited to go and see our doctors and their reaction to the news about John entering the seminary as a result of his asking the Lord why he was spared.  I think that they will be very happy for him - #1 to tell him that the cancer has not returned.  #2 to see that he is very happy and growing in his faith and listening to the Call...  #3 LIFE and FAITH has become a gift as a result of his battle and victory called cancer/healing!  We will then drive up to the Cities to pick up his sister, Maria, flying into the Cities from Texas with her 3 kids!  Her husband flies in the next day.  Pat will be able to see and hold his namesake, Patrick Joseph, for the first time!  They will come down to the farm for a day to see relatives and friends!

I love this picture of John last year... always ready for a nap!   Happy first Sunday of Advent to one and all!  We all are preparing for the coming of Christ more and more fully into our lives, so that when He comes for us we are ready!  John may not complete all 6 years of seminary, but the boost and growth of his FAITH- LIFE is tremendous!  Lord, we thank and praise YOU for the beauty of our Most Cherished Cross!  We embrace it as it brings us to LIFE and LOVE.  "Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand."  Luke 21 - the Gospel for today tells us that we are to be YOURS alone, and never waver as we leave our selfishness behind.  May we pray without ceasing for all that are on this journey of LIFE with us.  We are reminded of the power of PRAYER, Lord.  We look at John and his healing and FAITH he prayed and hoped for has been found in the Cross!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"Be vigilant at all times." Luke 21:36

Sweet Mother Mary

John is being interviewed by the Prairie Catholic about his cancer journey and resulting Faith and call to the seminary!  I too am being interiviewed for this on Monday.  I am so thrilled by it all, and told Sam, the one who is writing the article, that I have lived and experienced this Cross called cancer/healing right with John.  It was such a powerful blessing as his mother to be given the honor to fight beside my son in the battle for his LIFE as well as the finding of his FAITH!  I clutched my rosary as if it were a lifeline pulling me to safety and indeed it was!  We shared the morning and evening prayers from the Magnificat - see www.magnificat.com

The day before Nancy had Bernadette,we had the joyful experience of attending mass with John at the seminary and then joining him for lunch.  It was good to see him in the midst of such a powerful faith experience with those that are listening to his call to bring LIFE and LOVE into this world.  As our Spiritual Mother said YES, so must we as we bring Christ to the world around us.  Lord, may we love and serve you this day.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

photo fun

Super cute heifers laying in the grass in the pasture this morning.  Better than laying in snow drifts and much more comfortable too.

 I love this display on the doors by the TV... I love to just sit and look at the wonderful blessings that have come to us in the  form of beautiful LIFE/grandchildren!  They are truly LIGHTS in our lives- we are so filled with LIFE, and LOVE, and LIGHT! 

Every year I get a dated ornament... this was 1983 and we had a 1 1/2 year old baby girl, and a new 3 month baby girl too!  Nancy was less than 2, and she was my Eskimo baby - thick dark hair and dark complexion.  Nanuck of the North we called her!  This was the ornament that we call hers...  Now she has had her first daughter- Bernadette! 

She is a beauty and there are things that remind me a lot of my Nancy Anna - Bernadette Anna is a gem!!! Bless-bless,Barb

"O Cross... endowed with heavenly LOVE." St Andrew before his crucifixion on a cross shaped like an "X"

I know that Maria was with us in spirit, and longed to share the weekend with Hallel, and I always love to see my kids together with my eyes as they are in my heart!  So.... I had my fun putting them together in the LIGHT!  To be honest, I do yearn for the actual time that we all can come together!  In a week and a half on the day that John has his 6 month checkup in Rochester - MRI to check and make sure that his brain cancer continues to be healed and gone - we will return to the Cities that evening and pick up Maria and the kids at the airport and take them to Marshall for the day.  They will visit great grandma and other relatives, and then off to the Cities again and seeing family and friends there.  Grandpa Pat has yet to see his namesake, and after all the praying that he did for him as did so many others... he is such a special sign of Faith, Hope and Healing for him.  He is looking forward so much to see his grandson, who had the Cross placed on his shoulders in the womb.  Maria's womb ruptured and he was without oxygen for 20 minutes before he was born and brought back to LIFE!  The only issues we are unsure about is his siezures.  He is on medication for them morning and night, but the neurologist told them that his brain could heal yet and he would be able to come off of them.  In a month or so they will be doing another EEG to check his brain.  We, and the entire prayer army will be called to prayer for that event for sure!

Another fun time I had making this painting of Hallel with all the neices and nephews.  Three couldn't make it last weekend, so it was just great to put them all in front of the chapel they are building as the centerpiece of their little Monastery - Lumen Christi - Light of Christ!  I put Mary in her blue apron that she wears when she is there helping in the kitchen.  Hallel is holding the two baby girls, Rose and Bernadette, and Therese is holding her baby brother, Patrick!  She loves to care for him and her mom has asked her to take care of her dolly, Anna, so she is right beside her mommy all day caring for her dolly just like mommy does Patrick!  I have heard that she is filling up coloring books as she sits beside him all day, and colors in her books.  How she loves and watches out for her little Lamb brother, Patrick.  I love the part of the picture that describes the little ones as the LIGHTS of Christ, for they truly are being raised to be LIGHTS for HIM!  So wonderful to behold and it brings us closer to HIM knowing that we are all called to become humble and lowly as the little helpless Lamb/children.  A beautiful sight to behold! My heart is warmed by gazing at this simple painting and it speaks of the mission of Truth that my Patrick spoke to me 35 years ago at our engagement weekend.  When I asked him if we were being selfish to want to have a large family in this mess of a world... "The world needs LIGHTS!" he said through the Holy Spirit!  Yes!!!!  May the Truth be known by all that the Church asking us to be open to family is their call to raise LIGHTS in our domestic Church/family!

The kids are off to school on this feastday of St Andrew...  There is this glorious sharing of St Andrew speaking about the Cross just before he was crucified.  He did not feel worthy to be crucified as was Jesus, so his cross was the shape of an "X."

"Hail, O Cross, inaugerated by the Body of Christ and adorned with his limbs as though they were precious pearls.  Before the Lord mounted you, you inspired an earthly fear.  Now, instead, endowed with heavenly love, you are accepted as a gift.  Believers know of the great joy that you possess, and of the multitude of gifts you have prepared.  I come to you, therefore, confident and joyful, so that you too may receive me exultant as a disciple of the One who was hung upon you... O blessed Cross, clothed in the majesty and beauty of the Lord's limbs!... Take me, carry me far from men, and restore me to my Teacher, so that, through you, the one who redeemed me by you, may receive me.  Hail, O Cross; yes, hail indeed!"  St Andrew

Wow!!!  That is TRUTH of the Paschal Mystery so beautifully shared!  Through the Most Cherished Cross we find LIFE eternal in HIM!

Jesus, I am filled with wonder at the message of LIFE we gain through the Cross.  How we hate to suffer, Lord.  Yet without the pain and hard things that come to us... the good and happy times would not be near so great.  May we carry forth in our lives today always clinging to the message of the Lamb and of the Cross - "Wounded, I will not cease to love."  Give us the strength to respond with patience and kindness when we are treated in difficult ways this day.  May we not fly off into a selfish reaction with those closest to us.  Jesus, you modeled for us how to LIVE and to die to self.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleuia

Bless-bless, Barb

"Here, as can be seen, is a very profound Christian spirituality.  It does not view the Cross as an instrument of torture but rather as the comparable means for perfect configuration with the Redeemer, to the grain of wheat that fell into the earth.  Here we have a very important lesson to learn: our own crosses acquire value if we consider them and accept them as a part of the cross of Christ, if a reflection of his light illumines them.  It is by the Cross alone that our sufferings too are enobled and acquire their true meaning.  The Apostle Andrew, therefore, teaches us to follow Jesus with promptness, to speak enthusiastically about him to those we meet, and especially,to cultivate a relationship of true familiarity with him, acutely aware that in him alone can we find the ultimate meaning of our life and death."

Pope Benedict XVI

"The world needs LIGHTS!" 

And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Matt 18:3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3A3B02WSC0

The litany of Humility by Danielle Rose ... Lord, help us to pray for Humility this day and always!