Gifted with a day - Our Lady, I love you for bringing roses in winter!

Suddenly out of the heavenly blue - I was gifted with a day with my family!  I left the house thinking that I would miss the day with my little family from Texas, and then I had it back.  Days like this just feel like a glorious gift each and every moment.  I could go straight to Ruth's and have a wonderful breakfast with 5 of my grandkids!  So amazing!  Here is Patrick with his 2 sibs and the other Dave...then...

With Rose too!  Oh how I am filled with rejoicing today on this most glorious of feastdays!   Our Lady of Guadelupe is today.  The patronness of the Americas as well as of LIFE!  The black sach she is wearing in the Myan culture means that she is pregnant with Christ!!!

Two adorable girls in matching sweatshirts - two beautiful Roses in on this snowy day!  The family was Texas was amazed to see the deep and blowing and cold beautiful snow!!  Yes!  We will have a white Christmas!  I am to head up with Maria and her kids to the Cities in a few hours through the weekend at Nancy's and for Christmas with my family!  So much to do and so excited to have all this precious time with Family!!!

Patrick is 5 months younger than Rose, but he is about the same size as she is!  Such a big and glowingly healthy miracle Lamb of God! 

Patrick smiling with delight at his brother and sister!  So wonderful to have them here with us for a week to share in Family, Faith and Farm.  Jesus, John was so touched to have his family with him in force yesterday for the continued good news of his healing and call to LOVE and serve YOU!  He was so amazed that Nancy would come along with her two little ones - "I want you to be sure to stay healthy, John.  I wanted to come and make sure of it!"  We are filled with so much gratitude to YOU, O Lord.  We are also filled with great JOY at having our little Patrick and his family here with us.  Maria shared that the doctor told her that he was born dead!  Yet, here he is healed and a glowing boy filled with health after feeling the healing touch of YOUR hand upon him.  Our Lady, we are so filled with love and wonder to have you so powerfully with us on this your feastday!  Jesus, with your amazing Mother at your side, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.

You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.

So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process.So today does abortion killing many innocent unborn children and exploiting many mothers in its attack upon human life and upon the Church, the Body of Christ.

Mother of the Innocents, we praise God in you for His gifts to you of your Immaculate Conception, your freedom from actual sin; your fullness of grace, your Motherhood of God and the Church, your Perpetual Virginity and your Assumption in body and soul into heaven.

O Help of Christians, we beg you to protect all mothers of the unborn and the children within their wombs. We plead with you for your help to end the holocaust of abortion. Melt hearts so that life may be revered!

Holy Mother, we pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all mothers and all unborn children that they may have life here on earth and by the most Precious Blood shed by your Son that they may have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all abortionists and all abortion supporters that they may be converted and accept your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior. Defend all of your children in the battle against Satan and all of the evil spirits in this present darkness.

We desire that the innocent unborn children who die without Baptism should be baptized and saved. We ask that you obtain this grace for them and repentance, reconciliation and pardon from God for their parents and their killers.

Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful love. May it put an end to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity.

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!"

Healed!!!

John's cancer is gone - we only will have to do an MRI one time a year now!  We rejoice with Our Lady of Guadelupe - her roses in the winter a sign of HOPE and Miraculous LOVE for all the world.

Our healed grandson Patrick is here too!  Thank you, Lord!  Bless-bless, Barb

20+ times in the MRI machine...

John is back for his MRI now.  We figure that we are well into the double digits for times in the tube.  Since the first one Father's day 2009 after a trip to Sioux Falls, in a state of shock after the CT scan showed something in his brain.  We have prayed through more than we can count.   For the last 3 years they have brought us great JOY to know that John's brain is clean and pristine!  After the scare 6 months ago, when he suddenly developed stroke symptoms... it was so glorious to see on 2 MRIs - one in the Cities and then one here in Rochester - that there was nothing to see - clear and beautiful!  So we continue to need your prayer support as we are once again trusting that John continues to be healed and healthy. 
On the way down we shared morning prayer and it was so beautiful to have Nancy and her two babies along with us in the car.  We each shared our prayers and petitions - John thanked God for his time in the seminary to listen to HIS call and follow HIS path and "to get to know you better, Lord."  So amazing!  We have so much to be grateful for and we plan to have a huge celebration to shout to the highest heavens - John is now 3 1/2 years cancer free!!!  Will share here when we have the official news to share.
Jesus, thank you for the family coming together to support and surround John with prayer... trusting in your healing touch still upon him.  Jesus, we have come so close to YOU in this journey called cancer/healing/seminary.  So out-of-this-world crazy wonderful has it all been!  Without the Cross we do not find LIFE and LOVE and LIGHT!  Jesus, we fall at your feet and give YOU all the glory and honor.   Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia
Bless-bless, Barbara, Patrick, John, Nancy, Augustine, and Bernadette - talk about being surrounded by so many special Saints!!!  Wow!  It was so cool when I was in El Paso - to see how special St Barbara is in the area.  Her statue was in the back of Church and there was a St Barbara candle with all the saint candles in the grocery store.  I felt very priviledged to be named Barbara!  So I don't feel like a slouch compared to St John or St Augustine -the doctor of grace, or St Bernadette.  St Patrick is pretty great too, after all we looked to him while in El Paso for his little Lamb namesake, Patrick Joseph! 
Time to go and pray for John while he is in the MRI tube.   Please join me.  Bless-bless, Barb

We are off on a wing and a prayer

It looks like we will be heading up to the Cities tonight, spend the night, and pick up John, and maybe Nancy and the two kids to go to Rochester in the morning for John's 6 month check up.  We are asking for our prayer warriors to support us on eagle's wings as we continue to Trust in the Lord's healing touch upon John. 

The snow is very pretty, but will make the travel slower and more tricky.  Safe travels, Lord, for all that are on the roads.  We will be returning to Marshall tomorrow night with a car full - Maria and family fly in tomorrow night and we are bringing them here to see Great Grandma for a day.  We are very excited for many to see and hold little miracle boy, Patrick, for the first time!

Dear Lord, we look to you to be with John in the MRI tube tomorrow morning at 9a.  You are in control and we trust in you.  Thank you for all those that support us in prayer.  It gives us peace and hope.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

Rosie in her first snow - what must she think... COLD and BRIGHT!

"those with a journey to make..."Isaiah 35

My husband heads down the driveway with the snowblower in a beautiful whipped cream world.  He announced this morning, from the weather site on the computer, that we have gotten 16 inches of snow!  A lot of work for him and his tractor today, but what a spectacular site as he backed down the driveway.  Calls have been coming in asking for him to help them get to work and school today - all are on a journey and have a lot of snow preventing them from going.  There really is not a day that I do not have our journey with me in my heart, mind, and soul!  Getting my parents Christmas card yesterday just reminded me so powerfully of how the Lord continues to be at work in our lives!  I guess that our journey is always with Pat and I as we pray together morning and night, and we always pray foremost for our family and all that is going on with each one.  Pat is especially good at praying for each need verbally twice a day, and I know during the day!  My parents mentioning with awe and wonder the miracle of our little grandson, Patrick Joseph, as well as the healing and call to the seminary of John!  Wow!  I am feeling the hand of God on my shoulder so strong and sure!  That is always a good thing when we go to Rochester tomorrow for John's 6 month check up!  How we rely on our friends to lower us into His presence, and as we lay on our mat we are filled with HOPE and TRUST in the continued healing outcome!

Pat off to help family and neighbors!  Lord, protect him. 

Pat and I were thrilled with the Gospel for today!  Luke 5!!!  The lowering of the paralytic through the roof and into the presence of Jesus for healing!  So wonderful has this image and Truth been for us as we travel our journey called cancer/healing/seminary/open to LIFE!  The  Path though narrow, and we are carrying our Most Cherished Cross is leading us into the LIGHT, as we are filled with the JOY of eternal LIFE and LOVE!  We totally experience the miracle - "He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God..."  We just can't stop praising and glorifying God for his healing and forgiving touch upon us!  The JOY is immense and never leaves us, even in the face of another scary journey called openness to LIFE/traumatic birth/ healing for our grandson, Patrick Joseph.  Our amazing Faith and Trust in our Catholic Church, and all those prayer warriors - once again He forgave us and healed us!  And once again we are shouting for JOY at His immense LOVE that dwells within our hearts and souls!  WE can find no end to the glorifying God that we are doing!!! 

Sitting here... I looked up to see the rising sun shining pink upon the soft whiteness surrounding our house.  Then to see my Mary garden bathed in such glorious LIGHT!  In my heart and with my mouth I am saying - "Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you!  Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus."  I am filled with JOY and wonder, and had to fight the urge to go out in my boots for many more pictures.  So beautiful and glorious on this day of beauty beyond measure.  Jesus, with your beautiful Mother at your side... she might have been present at the back of the room or serving these Pharisees and teachers of the law that crowded in this home to hear you teach... she beckoned the man as he came through the roof to be laid at your feet for healing - she knows that you are God, and that you forgive us and heal us! She takes all of our prayers to YOU, and lays them before you, and asks you, as only a Mother can, to reach out and touch us!  It gives us so much peace to have her always there, and these words from your Gospel to hold within us and say with every beat of our hearts and with every breath that we take!  We find peace and HOPE in the rosary, and the gift of FAITH it is for us on our journies.  So wonderful to read the sharing of 3 young women on FB yesterday, as they described the great peace they find in saying the rosary, and how they wish to make it a part of each day/night.  How I love when the youth take us to a deeper place on our journey called Faith/Church/Domsetic Church/Family!  There is no greater JOY for parents than to be taken deeper into our glorious True Church by our children... that have been raised as LIGHTS to the world that lies in darkness.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"It's a Wonderful LIFE is a film to tell the weary, the disheartened, and the disillusioned; the wino,the junkie, the prostitute; those behind prison walls, and those behind Iron Curtains, that no man is a failure.

To show those born slow of foot or slow of mind, that each man's life touches so many other lives.  And that if he isn't around it would leave an awful hole.

A film that expressed its love for the homeless and the loveless; for those whose cross is heavy and him whose touch is ashes; for the Magdalenes stoned by hypocrites and the afflicted Lazaruses with only dogs to lick their sores. 

I wanted to shout to the abandoned grandfathers staring vacantly in nursing homes, to the always-interviewed but seldom-adopted half breed orphans, to the paupers who refuse to die while medical vultures wait to snatch their hearts and livers...- I wanted to shout 'You are the salt of the earth.  And It's a Wonderful Life is my memorial to you!'"

Frank Capra from his autobiography

Meditation of the Day - The Friends Who Carried the Paralytic and Our Hope

Such beauty dwells in the temple of my soul!!! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA8UNaGKRhY

The well by Casting Crowns is good to remind us that we can lay it all at HIS feet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXp6xcY5IqU 

One more  - Glorious Day!  By Casting Crowns

In the words of my mother

This beautiful picture graced a simple card from my parents for Christmas.  The first paragraph of my mom's short note really struck me...

"Rereading our note from last year, we add some amazing God-given events... The mavelous miracle baby is Patrick, born without oxygen for 20 minutes, and by God's mercy, whole!  May he grow-up holy!  Our other miracle is his uncle, John Verly, blessed to survive brain cancer, now a seminarian in St Paul Seminary.  JOY!"  Nancy Cross

How this reminded me of what a year it has truly been!  The Lord's touch is upon us!  And looking at the glowing LIGHT of the world... the innocent infant, Jesus the Lamb of God... reminds me of the 3 new precious little ones we have welcomed in the last 7 months!  New LIFE is a precious Gift we are called to protect at all costs!  We fall on our knees before our humble KING of KINGS!  Bless-bless, Barb

Soon we will be able to have all 3 babies together.  Patrick arrives by plane tomorrow night with his family!!  Grandpa Pat will be able to finally meet his namesake-grandson.  We pray for safety in traveling for Maria's family.  And wonderful FAMILY time! 

Jesus, we trust in you.