A week of prayer and prep for Together Encounter Christ (TEC)/The Creation story begins - "God saw how good it was." Touch his hem! +JMJ+

The first cow and calf on Cow TV.  We are able to watch them from our warm farmhouse without them aware of us. If we walked out there to look as we used to do - they would jump up and scatter.  

John's 3 kids at our wonderful brunch on the farm after sharing the 5th Sunday of Ordinary time together. 

3 girls in blue with Bluey!  John's 2 girls in matching dresses, and Joy in her snowflake blue dress.  Grandma could not resist!  Yes, that is white snow cover outside.  We got a couple nice inches of snow over the weekend.  Just enough to be pretty and not too much work for the farmers.  Thank you, Lord!  

I had to take many in front of the big picture window to capture the cuteness and the white pretty snow outside.

Joy and Birdie sure do have fun playing together!  Tom, Lucy and Jude join in too.  How we love to see the little ones having so much fun together!  

We also love to have 20 year old Simon come home from VoTech college in Sioux Falls for the weekend.  He helps on the farm, goes to Mass and even leads the singing from time to time.  Mary even came home from the U of M and went to Laverne to watch her sister, Rose, compete in the speech meet!  How we love sharing time with the older of the 7 farm kids too!  

Mary of the snows in my yard as the sun is setting. So pretty!  

Josephine had her feast day on Saturday - St Josephine Bahkita, pray for us!  

Youngest grandchild, Lucy, has joined the group of grands that go shopping for all things sweet after mass.  Buckled up with Tom and in the back are Jude, Birdie and Joy!  We sure depend on Joy to help us get them all buckled and unbuckled!  

Working on letters for TEC this next weekend!  A labor of LOVE and I am getting excited and definitely prayerful.  I had my hour of Adoration the first hour of this morning, and stopped in their after mass at the Nursing home to pray the 5th Sorrowful Mystery - the Crucifixion for my prayer partners - "Lord, may be die to self and serve without counting the Cost!"

St Josephine was amazing!  Imagine realizing that all you suffered was necessary to know Jesus and to become his Bride as a nun!  So powerful and such a lesson to all of us.  The Lord's plan is mysterious and perfect! 

A new Cross for the prayer team - we will carry if throughout the weekend!  

The big week of preparing has arrived!  Letters and prayers!  

The Lamb of our Community of the Lamb - our nun's Community lives by this motto - "Wounded, I will never cease to love."  The Lamb shows us how to live this, and we are called to live this out in our lives and our marriages and our Church!  

So amazing and humble and wise!  

Why has this been trampled and ignored to the point of taking their lives up until birth?  Lord and Lady, we pray for the protection of ALL LIFE from Conception to natural death!  

Yes, Lord and Lady!  

From Kansas - 3 year old Magdalene with their dog, Dom!  

8 year old Evangeline with Dom in Kansas.

Pat and I have been praying the Rosary together down by his fireplace before bed as he is doing Exodus 90 again.  We always end it with this powerful prayer - knowing that Satan is real and we want him to go to Hell!  

Cow TV at Ruth's in her kitchen so she can keep an eye on all 4 areas that the cows are in.  Pat had his first calf yesterday - "She was a gentle heifer and her had a nice heifer calf."  

Joy for an overnight here and grandma got to do her hair in Kateri braids - St Kateri was an American Indian - hence, Kateri braids.  We also do St Bernadette braids - French braids!  

A fresh blanket of white is very pretty and peaceful.

Joy loves to spend time with Neumann.  He was a spring farm kitten last year, and he has been living here for over a year.  I had him fixed and his shots a year ago.  He is very big, fat and healthy and loves to get his belly rubbed by his JoyJOY!  

Catholic Schools week - David serving.

Rose and Luke in the choir and Joh did a petition.  We love our Catholic Schools!

The readings today were especially wonderful as I attended mass at the NH with my friend Marie!  What a wonderful surprise to have the first 4 days of the Creation story in Genesis!  As Father read it and pointed out in the Homily - each new day - "God saw how good it was."  So true!  

The Gospel from Mark 6 is a wonderful one too!

Gospel Mark 6:53-56

After making the crossing to the other side of the sea,
Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret
and tied up there.
As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him.
They scurried about the surrounding country    
and began to bring in the sick on mats
to wherever they heard he was.
Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered,
they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.

It is reminding me of a special gathering I attended up at St Paul/St Thomas years ago.  I was invited by our daughter, Susan/Little sister Hallel.  It was called Cor Jesus/the heart of Jesus.  It was praise and worship and Adoration and Reconciliation going on. I was very touched to see a scarf around the bottom of the monstrance with Jesus in it - all were welcomed up to touch the hem of his garment and pray there at his feet!  Wow!!!  "That all that touch only the tassel of his cloak, and as many as touched it were healed."  

Jesus, how we love and adore you, and are touched by you over and over on this journey called LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  St Josephine reminds us so powerfully that all the suffering we experience is part of the plan for our coming closer to you.  Bless this upcoming retreat and use us to your honor and glory. May we die to self so that we may serve without counting the cost.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 33 plus 13 in heaven keeping our eyes on heaven where we will be united someday with LIFE everlasting!  

It is a LIFE to be protected and cherished!  

Pope Benedict! Thanks, mom!  She read it 10 years, and I am on my 5th!  

Hallel reading to nieces and nephews...

My dad on his 90th birthday - he lived until he was 95 here in my farm monastery!  My brother, Jim, who will be working this retreat for 2 of his daughters!  So excited!  

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: Deacon Robert Cross - my dad on hospice in our Farm Monastery for 6 months - 4/16/20 thru 10/23/20  

Tea party with Joy - grandpa will do anything she wants!  

Heaven - may I stagger down the narrow path dragging my Most Cherished Cross!  

Why so radical? I cannot understand!

Ah! Hasten, Lord, make no delay
Come, wed my heart this very day,
That thus united here below,
I may not fear eternal woe.  
From A Hymn to Jesus

“From the Eucharist comes strength 
to live the Christian life 
and zeal to share that life 
with others."- Saint John Paul II

Quote honoring... 

St Scholastica

Italy ~ 480-547

Benedictine Abbess
Twin sister of St Benedict
Feast Day – February 10

 

St Gregory the Great in regarding St Scholastica

"She was able to do more 

because she loved more." 

Click here: St. Scholastica - YouTube (2 mins)

St Scholastica, pray for us!

Saint Scholastica, twin sister of Saint Benedict of Nursia who founded of the Benedictine order, was consecrated to God at a very early age but probably continued to live in her parents' home. It is said that she was as devoted to Jesus as she was to her brother. So, when Benedict established his monastery at Monte Cassino, Scholastica founded a convent in nearby Plombariola, about five miles south of Monte Cassino. The convent is said to have been under the direction of her brother, thus she is regarded as the first Benedictine nun.

The siblings were quite close. The respective rules of their houses proscribed either entering the other's monastery. According to Saint Gregory, they met once a year at a house near Monte Cassino monastery to confer on spiritual matters, and were eventually buried together, probably in the same grave. Saint Gregory says, "so death did not separate the bodies of these two, whose minds had ever been united in the Lord."

Saint Gregory tells the charming story of the last meeting of the two saints on earth. Scholastica and Benedict had spent the day in the "mutual comfort of heavenly talk" and with nightfall approaching, Benedict prepared to leave. Scholastica, having a presentiment that it would be their last opportunity to see each other alive, asked him to spend the evening in conversation. Benedict sternly refused because he did not wish to break his own rule by spending a night away from Monte Cassino. Thereupon, Scholastica cried openly, laid her head upon the table, and prayed that God would intercede for her. As she did so, a sudden storm arose. The violent rain and hail came in such a torrential downpour that Benedict and his companions were unable to depart.  

"May Almighty God forgive you, sister" said Benedict, "for what you have done." "I asked a favor of you," Scholastica replied simply, "and you refused it. I asked it of God, and He has granted it!" Just after his return to Monte Cassino, Benedict saw a vision of Scholastica's soul departing her body, ascending to heaven in the form of a dove. She died three days after their last meeting. He placed her body in the tomb he had prepared for himself, and arranged for his own to be placed there after his death.  ---From the Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great

Prayer in Honor of Saint Scholastica 

O God, to show us where innocence leads, you made the soul of your virgin Saint Scholastica soar to heaven like a dove in flight. Grant through her merits and her prayers that we may so live in innocence as to attain to joys everlasting. This we ask through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.

Goodness of God

First things first - Consumed by fire

Danielle Rose - Small things with great love

Hillbilly Thomists - Good Tree

 

Pictures for TEC

 

Nancy home for the weekend of The Presentation/John's birthday - St Blaise/Starting to look like calving - cow TV and new calf - +JMJ+

Hubby holding a new baby bull calf we bought in a neighboring town to put on a cow that lost her calf.  So calving begins usually with challenging situations.

Super cute!  Such a bright healthy looking calf.

So special to share John's first few minutes of his birthday as we overlap for adoration...

Close to Our Lord in the Monstrance at midnight on the 3rd of February.  In 1989 when John was induced due to my high blood pressure - it was so frigid cold at -50 wind chill that the silo unloader froze and we were late getting in to the hospital.  This year #36 since his birth was cold around zero with no snow.  

Praying together on the miracle he is and the wonderful family he now has!  

"Thank you Lord and Lady for my life and my wife and 3 beautiful wonderful kids!"

Celebratory ice cream sandwich with no candles to blow out.  Happy 36th birthday, John Patrick!

Nancy here for our heavenly brunch on the farm after we share Mass on this 3rd Sunday Feast of the Presentation in the temple of 40 day old baby Jesus.  We hear the words of Simeon and Anna that tell us he is truly the Son of God!  

Tommy and Nancy's Gina are just a month apart and are good friends!  

Jude and George are both 5 and are just 6 weeks apart with Hector in the middle!  How we love our groups of cousins, and Birdie Barbara fits right in too! 

Cow TV is up and running now.  We can watch the cows from the house.

3 locked up already are due to calf any time now.  We have 4 cameras that we can keep an eye on 4 places at once!

George and Gina down by grandpa's wood stove with grandpa pop.

A picture of Hallel with our Bishop Chad at the Eucharistic Congress a few months back.  The Feast of the Presentation is also the celebration of Consecrated life!  So appropriate as we presented our daughter to Our Lord as her spouse!  

Today it is 5 degrees, but less than a week ago it was in the mid 50s!  Bare feet and playing outside all day.  Joy even put on her swimsuit after school!  Now back to the cold, and maybe some snow coming.

Dad's note in Morning Prayer where his verse showed up.  The Verse that he was reading on a retreat, and the Holy Spirit told him to bring our family of 13 into The Catholic Church 54 years ago!   Yes, dad!  Very Eucharistic!  

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: The amazing story of the 13 becoming Catholic!  

I am such a fan of Patrick Mahomes!  I love this of him with his new daughter, Golden Raye!  He is wonderful on so many levels to me!  I, of course, love his name Patrick!  

On John's birthday is St Blaise and a special blessing of throats and all ailments!  

Joyous family time with an extra 6 of Nancy's to make it more special yet!  

Dominic has been known to give hugs for doughnuts!  

John's family getting their throats blessed on Sunday.  

Joy and Ruth...

John... how we love our wonderful church with all the Saints, Our Lady, Sacraments - so much we are very blessed!  

Grandpa and Gina matched - she got to go shopping with grandpa and with her Tom Tom!  

Gina and Tom playing with his cars and trucks.  That is Gina's purse though.

Playing with tracks and cars.

Girlie stuff too!  She loves her Verly Christmas shirt too!  

Sandbox weather for a day.  It was just sleeting here.

It was so nice that Ruth was thinking about her garden - "I have to keep reminding myself that it is only January."  

There could be about 3 inches of snow this weekend.  

One of the kittens from the Fall kittens is crippled on his front paw.  He still can run and is pretty healthy otherwise. 

Spring fever now back to winter.  

I am going to call this good for now.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb and the 33 plus 13 in heaven.  

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant 

does not know what his master is doing;

but I have called you friends, for all 

that I have heard from my Father I have 

made known to you. - John 15:15

 "It is the law of friendship 

that friends should live together. . . . 

Christ has not left us without 

His bodily presence in this our pilgrimage, 

but He joins us to Himself in this sacrament 

in the reality of His body and blood."

St Thomas Aquinas

Summa Theologiae, III q. 75, a. 1  

First things first - Consumed by fire

Love moved first - Casting Crowns

Jeremy Camp - Dead man walking