The Pat and Barb Verly family and their 5 children, in laws and grandkids along with many prayer warriors have been drawn together by John's cancer... sharing daily for 8 months started this blog- Family Soul Story - Our faith, family, farm and now our cancer journey called HEALING have colored and deepened our world. WE continue to share and depend on the support of our prayer warrior community, that has lowered us into the Lord's presence for His healing!
John came out to check out the new pool on the farm this morning. He is a stay at home dad for the summer while Bobbi works. I met him at the pool and 7 year old Luke helped too. So nice in this hot summer weather!
Ready to experience pool time on the farm.
Luke helping as we had to keep them in our arms at all times.
So refreshing in this hot dry weather. How we are pleading with God for rain for our thousands of acres of crops that are suffering.
A prayer for rain that we are saying without ceasing!
Birdie was happy in the pool... Jude was wanting to get out a lot, but we kept him swimming and he did fine too.
Hot and dry and dusty while I mowed yesterday for the last time until we get some rain. Some of the sights I captured...Clamitus doesn't seem to mind the heat at the bottom of the flagpole
Our Lady in the midst of a blooming bush just about ready to burst forth with dark red flowers all around her. I find myself repeating "Hail Mary's" while I mow... did you ever wonder or notice that the Hail Mary is taken from the Gospel?
Look it up and realize that we are praying scripture/The Word of God!
Outside our bedroom door to the outside... I see mama robin flying back and forth feeding them, and today I heard their impatient peeps for food!
Joy and Birdie on the swing under the old climbing tree.
Jude joins the girls!
I love the Gospel today as we hear about the LIGHT we are all called to be to show the world that Jesus is alive and well and dwells in our hearts, minds and souls!
"...You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” Matthew 5:13-16
This is what struck Pat when he was going to school at Holy Redeemer in middle school - "Fr Harry told us that the mess in the world - the asasination of Martin Luther King, President Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy along with the Viet Nam war - it called us to be LIGHTS for the world and show the world that the answer is giving your life over to Christ!" This in turn led Pat to never hesitate when it comes to be open to a large family - "The world needs lights!" The motto our marriage is based upon and now the marriages of our children including our nun, Little Sister Hallel!
Hungry and tired after the pool time... graham crackers hit the spot.
Jude is 2 and Birdie is 1... close in age and interested in where the other one is at all times.
The climbing tree where my kids climbed up the gentle slope. So fun to now have grandkids here on the farm enjoying the good life that their parents grew up with! Ruth loved it so much that she has the same life now with her family, and doing a much better job of doing it too! LOVE! Truly letting her light shine in all she does to make her surroundings beautiful!
An attempt to get the flag in the picture... It's up there blowing away!
Out to watch for heat and got distracted by the beautiful clouds...
Green pastures all around, cows and calves and that beautiful sky with white fluffy clouds! How my father loved sitting on the porch each afternoon and noticing the clouds going by overhead. My heart is full of happiness when I recall the work we did each day in prayer in our farm monastery!
Curious cow checking out the 4 wheeler, Pat working with the pay loader, and the beautiful green pastures under the glorious sky!
Dad gives me so much JOY in his markings up his prayer book - today he really likes - the LIGHT and the truth on His Holy Mountain! Dad is there now with mom - only separated 7 months!
Dad loved "glory" and we see that when we shine our light for all to see!
Dad's man, Brother Victor, sharing the prayer space we find in our inner temple if only we practice silence and solitude. The lawnmower fulfills the solitude - silence definitely not! I should get sound blocking head phones right?
Unceasing prayer!!! Jesus, we love you and long to die to self so that you live within us. May we be your hands and feet and our voice proclaim your Glory and Truth! Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Hallelujah
Joy and Snowball her pet calf. It is very special to see this as Joy's big sister, Mary, also had a pet calf with a white face that she named Snowball. Mary is 11 years older than Joy and is a great role model for her little sister!
All you have made will praise you, O LORD...Psalm 145:10a
"With what humility
should we assist at Mass, if
we realized that our guardian angel
was kneeling beside us, prostrate
before the majesty of God!"
St. John Mary Vianney
These sisters are 13 years apart - Therese with her baby sister, Magdalene!
The sweetest! #1 and #7 with 4 boys and another sister between them! Open to LIFE and raising LIGHTS!
4 years ago on the new porch on the farmhouse - newborn Joy with her 4 year old sister, Rose Again! They are now 4 and 8!
Ruth's door going in from the deck and newly painted grey porch...
Looks like summer on the farm! LOVE!
My Mary of the deck is still watching over our farm. Intercede for us for RAIN
St Maximilian Church in Delano shared these pictures yesterday. I was delighted to see my son-in-law, Bill, helping to carry the canopy over Fr Keith and Jesus in the Monstrance to reverence Jesus's gift to us in The Eucharist on Corpus Christi Sunday!
John and Bobbi also shared in a procession in Ghent church where they were married 3 years ago on Corpus Christi Sunday! They heard the first homily by newly ordained Temporary Deacon Tanner Thoft. "He spoke about how we are all to be vessels that carry Christ forth." shared John in the middle of the night while our hours of adoration overlap for us to share and pray together our Faith!
Granddaughter, Bernadette, in her white First Communion dress walked ahead of Jesus and her dad... such a special sight to behold and to recall that Jesus has come to Bernadette each Sunday and at school mass and is there for her each day since her First Communion in April!
Jesus has welcomed 4 of our grandchildren in the last year to His table! How blessed are they, and we are a family that shares our faith - each and everyone of our 31 strong with 2 more in the womb surrounded by our love and prayers as soon as we know they are LIFE growing in their mother's wombs!
Nancy's message with summer here - "we will be at the lake!" True, but Nancy and Bill also have a very powerful and active ministry - Catholic Sprouts
Yes, Nancy is great about spending time with her kids at the beaches around their home, and she also is changing families in The Church!
I couldn't sleep before my hour at midnight, so up early I decided to have more time with Jesus and sharing and praying with John! It is such a blessing to both of us! John prayed long and hard and ended his prayer with; "Thank you, Lord Jesus, that I have been loved so well, and my heart is filled with that love to share with those that are lost and broken and do not have that same love surrounding them. My heart is filled and surrounded by love!"
I brought along this frame I painted for my parents back when it was just Pat, I and John living on the farm. It looks like about 8 years ago when Hallel had a home visit and each of the girls had a baby - 2 girls and a boy about then. Ruth had Rose Again, Nancy had Bernadette, and Maria had our famous miracle boy, Patrick. Why put it there for my first hour of Monday as I did my litany of our 2 families - 250+? I pray for our family in both families and also our life on the farm is so dependent upon prayer, and rain is so needed right now. Hear our prayer, O Lord!
So much has happened in those 8 years since I painted this... it was always displayed in the bedroom where I slept at my parents' home. When they moved to Assisted Living 2 years ago... I was gifted it back!
We now have Ruth and Paul on the farm and Pat has to drive to work every day! I say; "Goodbye, Honey, have a good day." for the first time in 40 years! We are overjoyed to have the young family living on the farm, and now a baby boy - #7 is on the way!
Who says you can't have fun when you are expecting #7! Touchdowns or Tiaras?
It's a boy! And the pattern continues - boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl- boy! Amazing!!
A family rejoicing that they are to be blessed with new life! Jesus is in control!
Joy was so cute after lunch she headed off to visit her special calf - Snowball and grandma had to come long with her!
Joy loves her little calf Snowball and likes to stop by and say "Hi" from time to time. She also gives Snowball her bottle daily, and has now for many weeks. While she feeds her - she reaches out and pets her soft fur on her head with love.
Joy and Snowball!
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement. 2 Cor:1
LOVE this today -there is so much truth here! And how exciting to see that we are going to be hearing from St Paul in our first reading at mass. I am excited to be going to mass this evening at 5:30 and then head over to the Birthright office for my office hours 6p-8p! Our office has been closed due to the pandemic, and it will be great to get back there again. Birthright has been in my life from when I first got married! It will be 43 years this summer, and I discovered I was pregnant with my first, Ruth, as I was learning how to do pregnancy tests on myself and it was positive! How I had prayed and cried for that to happen!
So many prayers of gratitude fill my time as I pray with John and then do my litany and my chaplet of Divine Mercy where I pray for my dead and those that have no one to pray for them that are dying or hoping to get to heaven.
Jesus, how we love you and long to return the love and encouragement that you give us to those around us - most especially those in our domestic Church/family. Please give us some rain for our crops! Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and Hallelujah
A wonderful meditation on the Gospel - The Beattitudes!
Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the Church of God that is at Corinth, with all the holy ones throughout Achaia: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement.
R. (9a) Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall be ever in my mouth. Let my soul glory in the LORD; the lowly will hear me and be glad. R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Glorify the LORD with me, let us together extol his name. I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame. When the poor one called out, the LORD heard, and from all his distress he saved him. R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Taste and see how good the LORD is; blessed the man who takes refuge in him. R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5
We are called to peace - not discord... division and discord is of the devil!
Mom's daily meditations by Pope Benedict XVI was so good today! Jesus is Bread/Body from Heaven!
Now this beautiful sharing by Brother Victor, which dad left for me each day... I am missing them terribly, but so lifted up by these daily readings each day that they left behind for me!
I am truly a monk at heart and PRAYER is real and I pray with each beat of my heart and every breath that I take ... "Jesus and Mary and Joseph, I love you, save souls!" Bless-bless, Barbara
