Johnny thoughts and prayers

John's sister, Maria, carries her brother through the cow yard at the farm.  He is 5 1/2 years younger than her.

This later part of January brings back the memories of 3 years ago as we approached the new birthday of John.  He was in the midst of his chemo that bombed his entire immune system and killed his bone marrow... so that on January 27th his stem cells/seeds could be planted and his life would be new and without brain cancer!  He had been surrounded by prayers throughout the world, prayed over with two relics of saints - Blessed John Paul II and Venerable Solanus Casey (a man with the gift of healing while a humble priest in Wisconsin in my lifetime - he died in 1957), he was annointed 3 times, and attended daily mass whenever it was possible, he also bathed in the healing waters of Lourdes, France twice in the last 3 years!  So amazing!  If some of you haven't had the chance to read John's story - it was in our Diocesan Newspaper the Prairie Catholic this month, and really shares his perspective of what brain cancer was for him - an answer to a half-hearted prayer that he could find FAITH!  

http://dnu.org/news/documents/JAN.2013MASTERISSUE.pdf

According to my journal Pat was in Rochester with us on this day 3 years ago and he and I went to look at a tractor in a nearby town... I snapped this picture on the way.  Now it is a reminder of the peace that we felt as we faced this final step in John's healing.  John, himself, set that standard for all of us that were around him.  He shares that due to the prayer and love he felt - he truly was at peace and trusted in HIM!  At this time in Rochester we had the readings of David and Goliath.  My young strong 20 year old son truly was David in the face to Goliath/brain cancer!  He faced it with great courage and trust that he was safely in the Lord's hands, and that Jesus was in control in the midst of the storm.

The chemo given him was tough stuff - dropping the bomb!  He had to shower every 4 hours around the clock to keep it from damaging his skin as it came out of his pores!  He was so rare that just a few weeks before this - his case had been presented at a world wide conference on lymphoma.  They had decided to go ahead with the stem cell and the type of chemo to use.  He had set the standard for others that might come after him.  We marveled that in the grand scheme of things... the Lord had arranged a group of doctors from around the world to gather in New Orleans to discuss John's case just weeks before he needed to have a plan for the last medical step in his healing!  Talk about the fingerprint of God upon him!  They called him a rock star on the transplant station with how he once again showed how important it is to be young and healthy in every other way!  David, young and bursting with health fought the fight to the death and slayed the giant with a smooth stone in a slingshot!!! 

The Christmas poinsettias still on the altar...daily mass in the glorious chapel at St Mary's!  The Sacraments gave us so much strength throughout our journey!  Such a blessing to be in a Catholic facility!  Just across the street where John was in Eisenburg was St John the Evangelist Church and we were ministered there with daily mass at noon and then there was the Eucharistic chapel where we spent many hours in deep earnest prayers!

Can you see HIM in pictures?  I think so!  Jesus, we love and thank you for the anniversary of LIFE we celebrate at this time!  Your glorious LIGHT fills us with wonder and awe!!  Jesus LIVES in me and in this world!  Jesus heals and listens to our heartfelt prayers for FAITH!  Your Word is Spirit and Truth, O Lord!  How we gather around your Word each day and find You!  Today in Mark we are told that you cured many..."those who had diseases were pressing on him to touch him."  Mark 3:7-12

You reached out and touched John, Lord,when he was lowered into your presence by his friends in prayer.  Our Lady, we beseeched you with every breath that we took as we clung to the beads of your rosary as to a lifeline!  You listened to us and brought us to your Son for healing!  WE are humbled and filled with so much JOY at knowing that we have your fingerprint upon us, O Lord!  Now John has to ask the question if he has been called to be your priest - he is asking the profound question - "Why was I spared?"  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"May all who seek you

exult and be glad in you,

And may those who love your salvation

say ever, 'The Lord be glorified.' "

Psalm 40 from today's mass

Jesus meets his mother...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5npOxjWOhUI  Danielle Rose - Mother's song from her mysteries album - the Crucifixion - Through the Cross we find LIFE!

Memories of LIFE and LOVE

Susan's baptism officiated by my dad, Deacon Robert Cross, with my sister Mary as a Godmother as well as Pat's sister, Mary.  My sister had 4th stage lymphoma and died the following July at the age of 28 years old.  I thought that maybe if I made her Susan's Godmother that the Lord would answer the prayer of keeping her with us.  She told me tearfully about this time that if she had to live in a wheelchair for the rest of her life - she just wanted to live to see her little girl grow up.  Not to be, or the plan.  God's plans are not our plans.  Audrey was raised by her grandparents as well as her dad... he moved back to live on the farm with them.  Then he met Cathy, whose husband had died in an accident and had 5 kids - they blended their families when Audrey was in high school - she went from an only child to one of 6.  Audrey is now married to Josh, and so life goes on.  But I always know that Mary is with me on my journey, and that her two Goddaughters, Nancy and Susan/Hallel pray for her to make it through purgatory to heaven with Jesus.  I also promised Mary that I would include Audrey in our lives as much as I can.  We have shared our time in Michigan with her, and now we might have the joy of sharing our time there with her and her husband this summer! 

On my wedding day with my parents - my dad married us!

Bascilica of St Mary in Minneapolis on August 3, 1978! 

Nancy's baptism held by Godmother, Mary, and with her other Godmother Margie/Raterra looking on in 1982!  Once again my dad is baptizing her!

Mary a few years before her death... Sacred Heart of Jesus, take her deeply into your healing fire of LOVE.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

Go and pray!!!

This glorious sight is dwelling in my heart, and soul, and mind as I travel down the roads of LIFE and LOVE, after spending 3 days at a amazing Catholic retreat in the Cathedral of our diocese!  So powerful to share the beauty of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and His Bride, the Church with all those present for this cold weekend in January!  I just had a trip to and from Minneota for work, and the praying of my rosary on the travel was especially deep for me... as I am in this profound place after encountering HIM so personally.  In my talk called the Paschal Mystery... I had my family there with me!  Looking into the faces of my 6 lost children was such an answer to prayer!  Seeing them in heaven praying for me, and looking at me with so much LOVE in their eyes.  Wow!  That is so powerful, and that sight is just burned into my prayer space!  As I prayed for my girls today... with the rosary beads passing through my fingers on the steering wheel... I was transported to the time I shared with those on the weekend, and how special to speak about how the Cross of saying "Yes" to LIFE resulted in so much LOVE between us, and deeply intrenched respect for LIFE in each of the kids.  There is not a cloud of doubt in them when it comes to the value of each LIFE, and openess to LIFE in their marriage.  So beautiful!!!

Happy little Rose Ida!

Hard to read some sharings from "friends" on FB that are saying that a Roe v Wade 40th anniversary is when we celebrate the rights of women!!! NO!!!!! What about the rights of the over 53 million innocent lives taken by abortion?  How can this bloodbath of murder over the last 40 years be celebrated?  Rather we put on sackcloth and ashes and mourn the atrocities of total disregard for LIFE!  Today Jesus asks us the question in the Gospel - "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" 

Lord, so much confusion and lies are surrounding us as we strive to give up ourselves and follow after You!  May your Truth come to the LIGHT for all to see - end the horror of abortion and may all life be respected from conception to natural death.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"A clean heart is a free heart. A free heart can love Christ with an undivided love in chastity, convinced that nothing and nobody will separate it from his love. Purity, chastity, and virginity created a special beauty in Mary that attracted God’s attention. He showed his great love for the world by giving Jesus to her. "

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

WOW!!

"When I found him whom my heart loves, I took hold of HIM and would not let him go."  Song of Songs 3:4 

Double WOW!!! I think you know that I am thinking about my daughter, Little Sister Hallel, when I ponder the beauty of this LOVE of her for her spouse, Jesus Christ!

For me to share that LOVE with her is a gift of great price!  And now to have John in the seminary and growing ever deeper in LOVE with his LORD, Jesus Christ... My cup overflows with all that wine he made for us at the Wedding at Cana!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4uauw38GBM

Third Day - Sound of your Voice

LOVE and JOY!!!

Praying with Jesus at noon rather than the Capital steps

Due to the weather and bedding the cows - we didn't get up to the Capital for the March for LIFE.  Rather Pat and I picked up his mother and spent time over noon with our Lord in the monstrance for Adoration!  It was so powerful for me with hands raised to HIM in praise and petition and tears rolling down my face time and time again.  I saw Pat wiping tears from his eyes as he read a booklet called Mother Teresa of Calcutta's rosary meditation.  He shared with me later that it had to do with the Blessed Mother and how she leads us to her beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world!  For me it was meditating on each mystery of the sorrowful mysteries for today and praying for each child as they came up.  With my 5 children - I have used the rosary to pray for each child daily!  So as I thought and prayed for each child with the perspective of how they make a difference in this world for LIFE.  Ruth with her work with Creighton Model to help women use a natural means to prevent if they need to or to work on infertility problems.  Nancy with her experience with Veronica - a young American Indian girl, who at 14 the year before had been pressured to have an abortion and then tried to commit suicide - the woman teacher that had been insturmental had lost her job and then Nancy was hired to take this same girl to the Pregnancy center where her sister, Maria, worked and then she had the baby boy this time around.  Two lives saved!!!

Shoulder to shoulder staying warm in the cold!

Maria's decade came along and the conversion story made me weep - the story that I have taped inside my Bible in the form of a letter she sent me at TEC about 10 years ago.  She had just started at St Thomas and we all knew that her intentions were to leave the Catholic Church as soon as she got away from home.  She shared that she had asked a seminarian where she could find an Efree church as she intended to leave the Catholic Church.  "We have to talk!"  "Mom, not only have I not missed a Sunday mass, but I am now going to daily mass.  Your prayers are answered... I have come to love the Church and see the Truth!"  She entered Catholic Studies - studied a year in Rome - lived with the Poor Clares for 5 months discerning religious life and then left and found Joseph, married and is now the mother of 5 children... 3 here with her and 2 in heaven!  She embraced the work for LIFE by working at a pregnancy center in ST Paul where there was an Eucharistic chapel and a ultrasound machine to help girls see the LIFE in their womb and choose to have their baby and not kill it!

Johnny and Rosie at TEC!  As I prayed John and Hallel's decade - I recalled the many times that they have prayed outside abortion clinics.  How important and powerful is that!!!  There is a movement underweigh called 40 days for LIFE -

http://www.40daysforlife.com/twincities/  On Ash Wednesday in Feb 13 there will be praying going on outside abortion clinics around the country - the last campaign there were 821 babies saved at the last campaign!!!  So this is very powerful and it can truly make a difference and save a LIFE!  Look into it and maybe think about joining the prayer vigil!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

JESUS... change the world and save LIFE!!!

The Lamb and His Bride, The Church

This is the day of prayer for the Legal Protection of the Unborn Children - the `40th anniversary of Roe vs Wade and the legalization of Abortion!  We are aiming for the March on the Capital in St Paul at noon, and John just called and he and his "brothers" are thinking about taking part too!  An acronym for LIFE is calling to me - LORD Iam For Ever - Lord, a part of YOU is in each LIFE! May LIFE be respected, and cherished, and may that ember of LOVE and LIFE become the flame of LIGHT for all the world!  The young woman now, Amanda Hope, came so close to being aborted 24 years ago... Now she is a woman working with children as a nurse.  Such a powerful reminder of all the lights that were extinguished in the last 40 years!  Our world would be such a different and better place with them here.  Lord, protect all LIFE!

My poster baby for LIFE this day, little Rose Ida!

I am filled with the knowledge of YOU so powerfully this day, O LORD!  After spending a weekend retreat where we encountered Christ in your glorious Sacraments, and the Church, People of God!  My love for Jesus and His Bride, the Church, knows no bounds!  It is so large and is ever expanding as a new wine skin....  

Jesus, I am yours and I love you with my entire LIFE.  Thank you to my parents, who gave me life and modeled for me the openness to LIFE and how all the blessings that comes from having siblings and not things!  May LIFE be saved and protected and may couples come to see that LIFE is to be cherished and openness to LIFE and Family leads to true happiness here on earth - even with pain and loss.  Jesus, be with all those this day as we with a united voice cry out for those lives lost and for an end to taking of innocent LIFE in abortion!  St Agnes, we know that you are with us as we march for LIFE!  Your LIGHT of purity and LOVE OF CHRIST directs our path.  You show us how to overcome the "house of prostitution" we have been placed in.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb
"I have built Heaven, my upper chamber, and established my vault over the earth; I summon the waters of the sea and pour them upon the surface of the earth, I, the Lord by name."  Amos 9:6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4uauw38GBM  Third Day - the Sound of your voice

LIFE and LOVE= LIGHT!

I came across this beautiful touching picture of 2 year old Maria meeting her new baby sister, Susan for the first time!  Nancy , 3 1/2, is also there to look upon the face of a younger sister that will be a part of her journey here on earth from then on.  Family is that way!  I have a younger sister, Mary, who died of lymphoma cancer when she was 28 - 26 years ago.  Yet, even though she has been gone from this world for 26 years, she continues to be with me on my journey.  Since she is on her way to heaven - I continually pray for her to arrive there, and since she is a God mother to two of my girls, I know that she is looking down upon them.  Susan here was her Goddaughter a few weeks later.  Although Mary had 4th stage cancer, I kind of thought that if we had her for a Godmother... that would give her the spiritual help to live and not die.  Both girls have asked me why they have Godparents that either are dead or not Catholic anymore and why?  "Maybe it is the Lord's way of telling you that you are called to pray for them.  That is a special calling for you, and a way of God telling you that you are gifted with the love of prayer - closer to Jesus and His Bride, the Church!"

Out running in rain puddles after a million dollar rain!  It had been dry for a dangerouly long time, and we then got a huge rain just barely in the nick of time for the crops!  Nothing better than warm mud squishing through your toes, and the water flying everywhere when you run through them with great JOY!  I am sure that all the nightgowns were totally wet and muddy by time they were finished, and they all went into the washing machine on the front porch of our little farmhouse filled with LOVE and LIFE!  In the warm months the girls spent a lot of time outside together enjoying each other.  Yes, we grew up with Semsame Street in our house, but TV was not on during the day and usually not until the kids were in bed. 

Washing dishes... but what's this?  Can it be a little girl's foot?  I guess that can be washed too, right?  The days of my little ones brings so many warm memories to me.  WE lived humbly in a small little house - the lowest one in the county.  Two times we had floods that came within a step from coming in the house and filled the basement.  The house was leveled this last fall, but that could not erase the memories of LOVE, and LIFE after LIFE that came to us, or was taken from us...  We had 4 girls and 3 losses while we lived in our little place!  There was an endless amount of happiness in my nest years, yet there were those times of loss which we shared!  I was told by some to not tell the kids or others when I was pregnant... until I knew that I was going to have the baby, but I just couldn't do that!  They knew as soon as I did!  What was the amazing results of being honest, and open, and sharing the pain as a family!  LOVE of LIFE, and appreciation of those that we have here with us on our journey called family/domestic Church!  Also looking to Heaven, and the meeting of our family, and knowing that they are at peace with Jesus, and praying for us here on earth!

My amazing champion for LIFE, Patrick Gerard Joseph Verly!  This picture shows him the way I see him when I look at him... I am totally enthralled by his appearance, and his listening to the Holy Spirit to give our family the ability to also listen to the wisdom of the Catholic Church - Be open to LIFE, and give your kids more siblings not more material things!  Yes, we have 5 here and 6 in heaven, but isn't that a beautiful family?  Pat not only answered my fears... that we were being selfish to be open to family... with the resounding answer - "The world needs lights!"  All my fears and doubts vanished into thin air!  WE lived in  our humble little house and didn't have much, but we sure had LOVE in that little house, with the new little ones, and sharing our Catholic FAITH!  Huge for our kids was the Saints and sharing their lives together.  It showed them that no matter what we can survive and grow in HIM!

Susan had this funny picture of the 5 outside helping their dad... I just got in from watching a gate myself.  I wonder what they are watching--- probably their dad chasing a cow that isn't cooperating with his brute strength! 

Jesus, how I love to look back at all the ways that you have touched me and my domestic Church/family!  The journey goes on and on with this TEC weekend I will be attending tonight and through the next 3 days.  I am filled to overflowing with Your LOVE and LIFE within me and all around me!  It has given me so much JOY to be able to share with some this week the story of YOUR touching me and calling me to come into Your Church, and finding my Most Cherished Cross - Patrick Verly - and joining with him in the Sacrament of Marriage, and then LIFE here and in heaven abounds!  Sharing the pain the Cross called the nest years - we now value LIFE so totally and completely!  We are yours and long to LOVE and SERVE YOU in one another.  Be with all those making this retreat this weekend so that they may come to know and LOVE you with every beat of their heart and every breath that they take.  "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."  May we leave all those things/sins/selfishness that come between us and you at your feet in the Confessional.  Die to self so that your Spirit may live in us, and show us the narrow Path to follow after YOU!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

Today the Gospel from Mark 2 is the paralytic!!!  This is the powerful reality of Scripture coming to LIFE in the healing of John and Patrick! 

"Child, your sins are forgiven...  Rise, pick up your mat and go home."  He rose, picked up his mat at once, and went away in the sight of everyone.  They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, " We have never see anything like this." 

 Mark 2:1-12

My soul is soaring to the Highest Heavens today-  John is going to be sharing the weekend with me at TEC!  God, you spoil me!

Jesus is at our side as we walk into the sunset of our lives - Hospice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype1xE0wzsg  Praise you in the Storm by Casting Crowns