Day 11 of Christmas... Baby in manger for an hour, school mass... "good out of Nazareth!"

Her flaming 37 candles were blown out by her family after they had "shared about Jesus" at Faith Formation and grandpa and grandma were in charge.  Sometimes it is a birthday on the fly with all that goes on in our lives, but it feels right that we have been watching Ruth's kids so that she and Paul can share their light with junior high and high school kids for the last 3 years or more.  Soon we will have the new baby to care for on Wednesday nights, although they have taken their newborns to share with their kids and share the message without using words that LIFE is a gift and being open to LIFE is what the Church asks of us.  How can we bring many children into this messed up world?  By raising them as lights to chase away the darkness of sin and death!
http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/my-most-cherished-cross-patrick-gerard.html

Thirty seven years with so much to show for her life and much good work done for her family and Church, and Community through her years of nursing and fertility care. 

Talk about LIGHT!!!

Such a special place in St Mary's chapel at the Catholic School - Holy Redeemer.  Today was Mary's Student Council mass so I was able to attend with Ruth and Luke!  Behind us sat 3 seminarians in their black shirts and collars.  Such a powerful sight!  I asked them what they thought of the mass... of course as a grandma of 3 - I think that it is amazing, but I was wondering what their perspective was..."The church is filled with the young people and their voices were beautiful when all lifted in song!  I thought it was very beautiful!"

Yes, it is heart rendering to see our chapel filled with students and to hear their voices raised in song and in worship is glorious on this bitterly cold winter's day!

 Mary leading a part of the Psalm...

 It hardly seems that there has been a break between our kids and Ruth's kids attending!  When I was talking to my friend Sean, who is one of the seminarians, along with John and Evan.   As I was introduced to them as John's mom - known for his year in seminary and beating cancer 7 years ago... One of them got excited and said; "And Little Sister Hallel's mom!  Oh, she is wonderful, and I met her while I was in Rome!"  Just at that moment Ruth walked by as she was putting the Christmas décor away with Luke helping, too!   I introduced her as my daughter, who is expecting her 6th!  At that moment my whole Catholic world just seemed to come together in my heart!  To know of my daughter that is a nun, my son who found faith through brain cancer, and my 3 daughters open to life and raising LIGHTS!  How I rejoiced in my heart to see our Faith lived out as a Family/Domestic Church!

So wonderful to see the kids as they leave the Church and get hugs and waves and smiles and for grandma to give them a "bless-bless!"

 Ruth noticed that baby Jesus had not been put in the manger, so she put him there for mass and then the nativity was put away til next year.  Jesus was there for about an hour, but we are still in Christmas time as we await Epiphany Sunday and the arrival of the 3 kings!

Mary wore 2 hats - the Psalm and...

bringing up the gifts - it is very special for Luke to watch his older siblings and he definitely has a comfort and closeness to the Catholic School already.   Father spoke quite a bit about St John Neumann today on his feast day.  "He evangelized the Faith and was a very instrumental in Catholic Education!  Hence, the Neumann Centers at Universities." 


The Gospel today where Andrew speaks the words - "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"  He answers his own question after meeting Christ and realizing that he is God!  Yes!  I just had a most amazing Holy Spirit moment!  I accidentally left my prayer book at mass yesterday morning, and so went back there today after mass at the school looking for it... it was nowhere to be found, so I went into the Adoration chapel and had the best hour of my week there lifting up our over 200 members of our families to Jesus and placing them each in the monstrance with Jesus.  I did this after doing my chaplet of Divine Mercy for the dead and dying... so powerful to me after sharing it with my mother-in-law at her deathbed a few weeks ago.  Afterwards, I thought I would just stop in at the church office to see if it had been turned in there... It wasn't there, but just at that moment a friend came in smiling at me and speaking about how the Holy Spirit works and held out my prayer book to me!  He had found it the day before, and was unable to find my number, but saw me walking into the office and quickly came in to give me my Magnificat!  It was pretty miraculous to me!  "I pictured you at home saying your rosary."  "No, I was in the adoration chapel praying."  "That is where I am headed next, but I saw you come in looking desperate, so I thought I had better get in here quick!"  I had a picture of Hallel inside, so he knew it was mine! 

I thought this was funny on the way back from the chickens yesterday... Hot jalepenos still on the plant in the frigid -10 degree cold! 


Dear Lord, how I love to see The Church being embraced by our family as we share our Faith starting in our domestic Church and then supported by our wonderful Catholic School, and the young people saying "yes" to your call to them to consider the priesthood, or religious life!  "You have your Hallel because of your call!"  Yes, how I rejoiced to realize that my own love and consideration of religious life led to my encouraging each one of my kids to know that it is a beautiful option!  Now the grandchildren are already witnessing it close at hand and speaking about the beauty they see there as a possibility for them!  We are so blessed to have The Church assisting us each day of our journey as we carry/drag our Most Cherished Cross and follow you down the narrow path.  We have you in The Word, and Sacraments, the Saints - St John Neumann pray for us and thank you for the great help we have with Catholic Education for our young families!  Jesus, we trust in YOU!  Our Lady is our spiritual mother always there to bring us to her Son!  Amen and Hallelujah

Augustine starts Catholic School next year and will be attending one where they say the rosary every day!  May he fall in love with Mary and her prayer full of her Son's plan of Salvation for all of us!  Bless-bless, Barbara Luke

Patrick with the group of 3 little boys.  Patrick and Romeo have Catholic Education in their homeschool program Maria uses in their home!  They move so often and will be here for 6 weeks between their move now out to the West Coast with the Army!

So blessed by starting to get to mass each day!

Danielle Rose - Pursue me

Danielle Rose - The Saint that is just me

20 + C + M + B + 17

On January 6th following the Epiphany Mass in the Extraordinary Form was the traditional practice of blessing the church door. Blessed Chalk is used with the initials of the three Magi (Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) surrounded by the year.

An additional meaning then for the C + M + B is 'Christus Mansionem Benedicat' (Christ, bless this house!)
http://thecatholicspirit.com/news/local-news/newborn-found-cathedral-st-paul/  A baby left in The Cathedral - baptized by Cathedral Rector as Nathan John... praying for a Catholic home!

Yes!  Talk about smart - he spoke 6 languages!

 

The 10th day of Christmas - Ruth's birthday/St Elizabeth Ann Seton

One of the classic Ruth pictures - it was used for her graduation picture from the past.  Ruth's love of animals and the farm led to our having cats in and out of the house over the years and to this day.  She has personally nursed many motherless kittens including a set of 4 this last spring-summer!  Today is her birthday and I recall her many hats that she wears much like the Saint for today - St Elizabeth Ann Seton!  St Elizabeth was also a mother of 5, although Ruth will soon be the mother of 6... when her husband died she then answered the call to start the parochial schools in our country!  How we love our Catholic School here in town where our 4th generation of Verlys is now attending!

Being baptized by my dad, Deacon Robert Cross, and...

Married by my dad on November 22, 2003...  Ruth also wears many hats and does them each well and with a lot of her heart in them!  She is a mother of soon to be 6, a wife, a nurse specializing in wound care, a farmer, and a Creighton model instructor, who works with women who wish to embrace their childbearing years according to the teaching of our Church!  She could also be proficient at construction and woodworking and home remodel.  She is now my helper and guide in the work we are doing in our home after she gutted and made our farmhouse hers - with a vision to see the yard and have a canning kitchen with an open family living area!  She amazes me with her even temper and positivity!  She is an amazing first child for us!

I looked up at the picture on the screen this morning and saw this sweet peek above Jesus in the Word and under Jesus in The Tabernacle... the Lamb looking at me so sweetly and reminding me that I need to embrace my dying to self and not expecting to change people in my life - rather to love and serve them without counting the cost!  "Wounded I will not cease to LOVE."  The motto of The Community of the Lamb/Hallel's order, and words so hard to live by but what we are called to live by!

Due to a journal entry from August of 1977 that dropped out of a scrapbook and was handed to me by John... I have departed on a new journey of getting to daily mass!  My words were about like this, which I came across today from St Thomas More...

His words are much more eloquent, but I shared that attending daily mass kept me in a better place with my sinfulness and resisting temptations.  It struck me that with the support of husband and son that I could make it work!  This was only my second day, but I can see that I can still pray with my husband and son, and send them off with The Word and sharing prayer which is so important in our family/prayerlife/life/love/light!

This timing is special as I am praying forward to our TEC retreat coming up in a week and a half... I had also decided to pray a chaplet each morning after mass in the dark church as I shared it with my dying mother in law, and had quite profound experience sharing that with her in song.  Since I have realized that when I pray that chaplet I pray it for my dead, of which she is now very new and important member!  The first decade I pray for her husband, Pat's dad Gerry, so there she is now prayed for with him!  It makes me feel closer to her in these early stages of missing her.. a woman who was so much a part of my married life of the last 38 years!  With word this morning of a dear friend's mother dying overnight... Dear Donna was also lifted up... After mass the lights were turned off and I gasped to see the votives all aglow and filling me with awe! 

The sun rose during my prayer and Jesus was cast in the light!  The stars in the heaven behind him glowed and twinkled in the sky... my heart was lifted in prayer for our dead, and I prayed that receiving Christ in my heart, mind and soul could work in me and bring me closer to Jesus!  My prayer this mass..."That all those attending Together Encountering Christ could come closer to You, Jesus!"

From the darkness into the LIGHT!


I love the Gospel today!  St John the Baptist revealing to us that "Behold, the Lamb of God."  I love the way that they follow him and spend time with him and recognize that he truly is The Christ!  How we long to spend that time with him in the midst of our lives and turn away from sin and the devil and "act in righteousness" and do the work of Christ in our world, job, family/domestic Church!

Ruth's wonderful farm family - how we love to have them close by!


Jesus, we thank and praise you for all the ways you guide and direct our lives if only we ask you to reveal your plan for us!  Yes, there are many twists and turns and different jobs and vocations and seasons on this journey filled with as that you ask of us as we follow after you carrying/dragging our Most Cherished Cross and finding LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  May we always love and serve without counting the cost.  St Elizabeth Ann Seton pray for us and watch over the gift we have in our Catholic Schools!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Hallelujah

The 5 on Ruth's wedding day!

A visit with Susan/Hallel when Ruth had a wound care conference in KC years back.

On the farm in the winter in 1983... it looks cold like today... BrrrrrrrRr!

 Getting their marriage blessed a few days after their wedding at St Peters in Rome - "Bless us with a happy and healthy family."  YES!

Raining in Rome after an ice storm here for their wedding...

 Engagement picture thanks to mom...

 Simon's graduation from HRS... now all 3 go there with 3 more to go!

 Graduation picture thanks to mom...

 Ruth with Carmel her forever show cow from years past.

 With Winnie her first beef project with daisies in their hair

Saying goodbye to Hallel - Summer of 2010, now Hallel is in Rome and we haven't seen her since Easter 2015. 
I need to stop this... Happy Birthday, Ruth Ida!  We love you so much and are so blessed to have you here close by and carrying on the farm!

May I do better going forth no matter the pain involved!

"Behold, the Lamb of God."

The eye of the Storm...

"Jesus is honey in our mouth, lIght in our eyes, a flame in our heart." 10th day of Christmas - JESUS!

There were many pictures of Pat's family around the time with my husband was a baby and young boy.  This one is a special one with them in front of the tabernacle on Easter it appears.  When discussing why there are so many at this time and then it drops off to none of the youngest, Ida... we know that there was a big event that might have gotten Pat's parents wanting to have more pictures.  It was the accidental running over of the oldest daughter's leg with the rock wagon resulting in her spending a large amount of time away from the family at St Mary's Hospital.  Mom was pregnant with Pat and would board the bus to go see her, and then return just as pregnant back home.  " I think the bus driver was confused by this very pregnant lady."  We think that when Grace came home to her new brother - #6 of the 10, that they really wanted to record with pictures that they had gotten through this tough patch in their lives and come out the other side.  Mom was pregnant here with Donny, who would have been the 3rd "little boy" in about 3 years time!  I am grateful to see the many pictures of my Patrick...

9th day of Christmas - we start the year with Mary, the Mother of God! New traditions begin!

How I yearned to write and go on and on yesterday about the most glorious first of our new year, 2017, falling on a Sunday and bringing to us the Glory of The Feast of the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God!  A feast that since 2004 has a special meaning to us as it was the day the our family took Maria up to join the Poor Clare Monastery in Sauk Rapids!  Yes, before Hallel there was the discernment of Maria, and after 5 months she discerned out, and later found her path to marriage and family.
http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/now-stories-of-johns-4-sistersruth.html

One of my all time favorites as it has Jesus in the middle in the tabernacle and each married daughter with their baby at the time, which is now 4... Hallel and John!  I have used this as the picture on the card I have to promote my blog as it says it all for me...

Mary and Simon served at mass and I found it very powerful for Mary to holding the prayer for Father as he beseeched her namesake - O God, through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son...   Looking at the beauty of the Sanctuary with my two grandchildren up there, and the Beautiful Feast to Mary the Mother of God.... Pat kept saying that it was a most beautiful mass and that it was! 

 It was a beautiful mass indeed!  It flowed into a desire to celebrate the spectacular beginning to the new year with our farm family!

 The LIGHT pouring in upon us as we leave with hearts filled with JOY and filled with the Lord within as we have just received Jesus in the Eucharist!  A small slice of heaven!  I have had a wonderful eye opening experience thanks to John and a much younger me... I am in the midst of cleaning out old scrapbooks and out fell an old journal entry I had written on Nurses Notes paper on Sunday August 21, 1977... shortly after I started dating Pat!  John handed it to me and told me that I should read it...   These words echoed in my heart, mind and soul from a younger me...  "I wonder how I make it ever if I get into the position when I couldn't attend (daily mass).  It is how I make it through life and keep out of sins way..."  My young enthusiastic newly in love with The Church and a farmer, Patrick Verly, voice spoke to me and woke up in me the knowledge that I do need Jesus daily, and there is no reason for me to not get myself to daily mass now.  So I mentioned it to Pat and he gave me the green light to try to make this work out.  John and I will be leaving about the same time every morning and still can get morning prayer done with Pat and John first. 

I love the simple beauty of our remodeled church!  The Stations are very powerful for me, and that is deeply tied into Susan's/Hallel's early morning prayer in the dark church sitting under the 10th Station/Jesus is stripped of his garments or the humility station!
http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/susan-angela-agneslittle-sister-hallel.html

The bright sunlight yesterday after mass left me with this image in front of the church as Ruth and Paul are loading up their new large van! 


Along with my daily mass I deeply moved to start doing the chaplet in front of the tabernacle after mass each day.  After sharing that with my dying mother-in-law, singing and praying at her deathbed, and then to add her to the first decade that I pray for Pat's dad and now to add his mother with him... it just pulls deeply at me to continue to lift up my dead and all those that have no one to pray for them as they leave this world or await joining Christ, Mary and The Saints in Heaven!

They have lots of room now to welcome their new little girl in just a few months!  So exciting!


We also started a new tradition of having a meal after mass with Ruth and Paul and their growing family in their wonderful light filled farm house!

8 year old David is such a great helper in the kitchen - he loves to cook!

I love the sunlight, the farmyard, but mostly the kids excited to share the New Year's day with family after worshiping together... a small slice of heaven is what our domestic Church/family should be!  Yes, we are far from perfect, but we embrace each new life knowing that LIFE is a gift to be cherished and raised as a light to end the darkness of sin and death!

Juice filled grapes that squirted sweet juice into the mouth!

Blessing our wonderful New Years food shared with love in The LIGHT!

"Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts..."

Smiles and laughter and cheers to the new year!

Can't get enough obviously!

Out to the cemetery for the first time since she was laid to rest...

We realize that we need to find a better place for our two boys...


Jesus, we are so blessed to share our faith as a family... to start the year held close to the loving heart of our Mother of God!  We come to know and love you more each new day!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

Ratera comes out to see Ruth's new farmhouse on New Years!  Nothing can replace the family!

Scooping snow out of the bunks - love being farm kids!