Good parenting - St Joachim and Anna are role models to us

Just off the phone with Ruth, who is bustling around getting ready for a big few days with Farm Bureau coming to our area.  She already has cleaning, hair cuts and many jobs done this morning.  Soon little Rose will come and spend the day with grandma while they are off on tours and visiting parks and farms in the area.  This way Rose can be a happy girl getting her needed nap, and join up with them in the evening.  Watching my girls and their wonderful husbands is a delight to me - watching them take the role of parenting very seriously.  It started for me with my parents, and I shared our amazing story of Faith and Family - I being the oldest of 12 children - at great length on the page I devoted to our conversion story - http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/the-amazing-story-of-13-becoming.html.  Pat being raised as the middle of 10 children on the farm also was given the blessing of good parenting, and found firm direction for our family by answering my question of whether we were being selfish by wanting to have a large family - "The world needs LIGHTS." was his immediate responce to me!  That took all the questions away for me, and gave us firm direction in being open to LIFE, and raising those 5 that we were blessed with strong faith and values and passing on our Catholic Faith with conviction and strength and most of all JOY!  I see clearly that if you are excited and Joyful about what you believe that it becomes infectious and your children take it to heart! 

There are many times I have heard the question asked - "What did they pass on to their kids?   They gave them nothing!"  You see those children that are following all the lies of the world and misled and just looking for what they want out of life - not even having the least notion that to truly find happiness they need to be asking and seeking what the Lord is wanting for them in their lives.  That selfish attitude towards life which is promoted by the world we live in - do whatever makes you feel good, take the easy way out, make a lot of money and have a lot of things and maybe two kids might fit in that picture, but no more than that!  All the lies that lead to a cycle of selfcenteredness, and not the rich soil where the Word is heard and understood, and bears fruit - a hundred or sixty or thirty fold.  Matthew 13 - the Gospel for today.  We celebrate on this feastday also the need for Good parenting in the working out of the Lord's plan!  This morning doing morning prayer with John we were reminded that Joachim and Anna were at an old age and withtout children due to infertility, yet they persevered in thier faith and LOVE of the Lord.  He then brought Mary into the world - sinless - surrounded by their holiness and LOVE as good and faith-filled parents!  Such a lesson to us that we are to remain faithful throughout all that comes to us in our domestic Church/family, and most of all that we are to take very seriously passing on and sharing with our children Faith and the beauty of being called to Family according to the guidelines of our True Church!  Being open to LIFE and using prayer and natural means within the openness to LIFE to prevent when we need to and to pursue fertility problems when they come to us!  Ruth is now a instructor in Creighton Model - http://www.creightonmodel.com/  - If you need to look into this her number is

507-532-1019

Lord, there is so much JOY in watching our children carry forth into their lives and marriages the value of LIFE and LOVE and raising LIGHTS to the world!  May the Truth be visible to all those they encounter - that to find happiness we need to leave our selfishness behind and look to what Christ is asking of us in our lives.  Jesus, we thank and praise you for the generations of good parents we can look to - St Joachim and Anna pray for us and for all parents that are in darkness in this confused and lied to world.  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Amen and Halleluia'

Bless-bless, Barb

"Remember, of these parents you were born; what can you give them for all they gave you?"  Sirach 7:28  Give them a lifelong love for Christ and His Bride, the Church!  Then you will have found the LIFE they gave to you, and you will be the LIGHTS to the world that you are called to be!

I can never thank you enough mom and dad!

John home from leading the week long boys camp

John driving the tractor over for Pat to pick up bales - I am behind him in the pickup hauling the bale wagon.  It sounds like it was a wonderful week, and very tired after all the activity.  Able to share his story with the guys there, and that is always growing and changing as he has a chance to give more of them. 

Got a chance to catch up over supper.  Good to have him back to share with.  They did morning and evening prayer every day as a group with all 32 boys that were there - also mass, with reconcilliation on the first day, and Adoration a couple times too.  Uplifting time, and how I prayed that the Lord would show John more of what Jesus wants for him in this new jog he is taking - out of seminary and into a regular job in the world.  We continue to Trust in YOU, Lord.  Bless-bless, Barb

Tons and tons of hay!!!!

Thinking about grandparent JOY- The LOVE we experience in Christ for us!

Holding close in my heart the close family time that we enjoyed on the shores of Lake Michigan - two weeks ago now.  Pat and I had a day with just Rose while the rest went up to Lake Superior for the day.  She was a delight!  Last night I had a wonderful time with her and watched her eyes light up when she saw me and heard her sweet voice calling me "gma" - there is great happiness that comes with all that!  I lived a distance from my grandmothers - I in Boston and they in Michigan and Wisconsin when I was a 1 year old... so there was not this opportunity for me.  Of course, being the oldest, I was doted on by my parents, yet at 14 months almost 15 months which Rose is... I had my next sister, Martha, already joining us.  Rose has a few months to wait until her next sibling arrives, and Ruth was filling me in on her latest visit to the doctor this week and how pleased she is with her OB in listening to her desires and doing all she can to help Ruth get the baby here safely!  With Ruth and her family so close - I got some wonderful help from them yesterday with my gardens around the house and weed eating, and then I could help them with watching the kids and making them supper.  The blessings flow in both directions... and for me the frosting on the cake is the love and comfort I see in the eyes of my grandchildren!  We are called to come to our Lord in equal fashion as we put Christ first in our lives and spend all our waking hours in prayer to HIM - so that we look upon HIM, who died and rose for us, with the eyes of LOVE and at peace and comfortable with HIS call to us to follow after HIM carrying our Most Cherished Cross!

The grandchildren are the magnet that gets the very busy grandpa to come and spend almost a week with us away from the ever demanding farm!  They love him and much of that is because they are returning the LOVE that he showers upon them.  This is what we experience with Christ - His LOVE pours down upon us unconditionally, and once we recognize that we are forgiven and called by HIM, we find our LOVE growing and growing and we look upon HIM as our Savior!  We are called then to serve as He has served us!  Today is the feastday of James - Happy Feastday to my brother Jim! And the Gospel/Word made Flesh is from Matthew 20 - "whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.  Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."  Yes, Lord, allow us more fully to give to YOU in all that we say and do this day with those the closest to us in domestic Church/family!

Those huge hard working hands are so gentle and loving and protecting and caring for the little ones that continue to pour into our family!  Such a symbol and reality with our loving Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and filling us with the fire of LOVE/LIFE/LIGHT!  "The world needs LIGHTS."  Patrick Verly knows in his heart, openness to LIFE allows the world to be touched and changed by more and more LIGHTS! 

Jesus, with St James at your feet among your Saints, we lift up this world to YOU and most especially our world/family/dometic Church where we are called to serve as YOU serve us!  If we give without counting the cost we are given a small slice of heaven here on earth as we look to others and their needs over our own.  You call us to follow you with humility and selfless giving - you modeled for us as a spotless Lamb led to slaughter with no sound of complaint.  "Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?"  He asked James and John in the Gospel today, and He asks us as we face all that LIFE holds for us in our lives too!  It is impossible for us to accomplish this on our own, but with Christ we can accomplish all that comes to us!  And when we fail - we are given the Sacraments to help us come back stronger than before - lay all our burdens at his feet in the sacrament of Reconcilliation, and be fed with the food of Heaven in the Sacrament of Eucharist!  Lord, we need YOU and long to love and serve you more and more with each day.  Be with all the youth that are gathered in Rio for World Youth Day with the Holy Father these days.  Be with John and the group of boys gathered for the week for a special camp with reconcilliation, mass, adoration, talks, and much power of the Holy Spirit.  Feeling that this could be a most powerful time for John in his discrenment and going forth down the narrow path and carrying his Most Cherished Cross - cancer/healing/seminary for one year and now looking for where he should be serving you in this world.  Jesus, we trust in YOU. Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

The three that we are missing in Texas... know that grandpa and grandma love you so much!  The month I spent with you for the birth-rebirth-healing of Patrick fills me with the wonder of Christ's undying enless LOVE for us!

"Come to Serve" - Jean Vanier is the founder of l'Arche, an international network of communities fo the mentally handicapped

"Freed from inner barriers,

unprotected from pain,

Jesus was more totally vulnerable to people,

a gentle lover

in love with each person.

From his eyes, his hands, his flesh,

his whole being

flowed his total presence to people

in thier uniqueness.

Totally present to each person,

he received more fully the pain of each one.

He took that pain in him;

he suffered with each one;

he touched the deepest need in each one:

the cry for love, for value, for uniqueness,

for intimacy and for communion,

the cry to be.

But he also touched the fears,

the terrible fears of love in each person,

the pride, the need for independence,

the barriers that protect vulnerability,

the screams of 'no,'

'I do not want you!'

One senses the broken heart of Jesus

when he says:

'You refuse to come to me

to receive life.'

The heart of Jesus was so vulnerable;

it suffered more totally as he was pushed away by people.

The love surging up in him,

thirsty to give communion,

to give life,

and to rest in the hearts of people,

is shoved aside.

Gentle, humble lover,

silent lover,

rejected

in anguish,

the broken heart of a lover.

He experienced pain more deeply than any of us."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiypaURysz4  Holy Now with Peter Mayer

Gazing at new life...

How quickly the summer is flying by... the month of July is soon over, and I went over to take David's birthday pictures a week late.  Our wonderful vacation in Michigan for  2 weeks is close to two weeks ago already, and the County Fair is breathing down our necks!  Summer is to be more relaxed with time off of school for the kids, but in a lot of ways it is very busy with all that happens on the farm and with the big 4H piece that comes with our kids and now the grandkids and their projects at the fair.  Ruth and I will soon be starting our big canning push with all the tomatoes that are in our gardens, and the heat units that are making them grow and ripen.  I am expecting her and her kids here to help me pull weeds around the house.  Ruth is my great gardener - taking after her two grandmothers and not her mother.  It is such a gift to have her close by, and such a hard worker.  I had a fun time finding the 5 kittens under Ruth's rosebush in the wonderful cool day.  There is something very sweet about those new little eyes looking at the world...

The two newest granddaughters also looking at the world with new eyes, and gazing at each other... they will be a part of each other's lives for as long as they live and hopefully very close good friends as well as cousins.  The fact that their mothers are very close and each other's best friends will have a lot to make that happen!  New LIFE is something marvelous and so very beautiful - the best sight in the whole world!  WE are thrilled to meet our newest little one that will be here in late October, and many prayers are surrounding him as he grows with each day.  LIFE is a gift to this world and brings LIGHT and Hope to us in the midst of so much darkness.  We strive to make the soil that this LIFE springs from as the good/rich soil free of weeds and thistles and rocks!  My personal gardening skills are lacking and it is so wonderful to have my Ruthie come over to help me out today.  I also get much help in my personal tending to the soil of my LIFE from my amazing children!  They will call me to task about things that are not good in my life.  I remember that Maria noticed that I had some movies that were not good, and she told me to not watch them and take them back.  I with great shame and humility did as she asked - knowning that she was looking out for the soil in my garden of LIFE.  So that once the seeds of the Gospel were planted there that they may yeild fruit up to 100 fold!  Today is the Gospel of the sower and the seed from Matthew 13: 1-9! 

Rose looking at her first baby kitties - there will be many in her lifetime as a farmgirl!  It is a wonderful adventure called LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT that she has started on with the rich soil to grow in prepared by her parents, who are open to LIFE and following the Truths laid out by Christ and His Glorious Church! 

Jesus, we are forever grateful for the wonderful LIFE that surrounds us.  Here on the farm we are surruonded by the lush fields of corn and beans - reminding us of how you care for this world with sunlight and rain.  We are in your hands, O Lord, and know that you love and forgive us unconditionally!  Jesus, we trust in YOU!  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

"Let us give thanks to the Father, the heavenly husbandman who through the Holy Spirit has made us capable of receiving the seed, the Son.  The fire of LOVE that he has poured out upon our hearts has burnt up the thorns, cleansed our field, has enabled us to endure and to yield a harvest thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.  It is obedience that welcomes the seed of the Word, patience that makes it fruitful, perseverance that reaps it."  Blessed Isaac of Stella (1169)

Fair calves looking at the world through new eyes, too! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaPwHPqJi4   Danielle Rose singing Psalm 139 - I am wonderfully made!

David was 5 a week ago!

Grandma took some time tonight to try to hold a moombeam in my hands - well, almost as I tried to catch the energy and delight that is our 5 year old David!  He celebrated over the weekend while grandma was working, so today when he was hot and wanted an icey... he posed for grandma for a few pictures with the newly tassled corn in the field by their house, and his favorite kitten -Pumpkin by Our Lady statue

Last birthday Dave asked for a kitten and this birthday his kitten gave him 5 kittens.  Sadly he has to choose just one to keep and the rest will be given away to others.  His favorite is Pumpkin, but it looks like Tiny will be the one that they keep.  Lots of kitty snuggles are a great gift for Dave's 5th birthday though.

A flying Dave!!!

This one was a gift for grandma!  Thank you Dave for your sweetness that came through for us to all see!  Jesus,. we trust in YOU.  Bless-bless, Barb

A foot into paradise... touched to my core by the beauty of creation!

As the summer passes, and our two weeks in Michigan are now a deep seated memory of greatest family times surrounded by God's glorious beauty... we are thrilled and deeply reminded of the cabin, we were blessed with by our parents, over and over as family after family gathers to enjoy their family time there!  Talking to my mother yesterday for a health update - we launched into the two books she wrote, and asked me to illustrate for her.  The first one we read as a family sitting in the cabin for a few chapters here and there.  All were listening as they worked on projects - Ruth on her new little son's Christmas stocking, Nancy on some art/craft project she is going to feature on her blog, and 7 year old Mary with a clean sheet of paper before her would suddenly launch into an illustration of something that grabbed her imagination from the story! 

Mary had a special time making herself a "treasure box" much like the one described by my mother - belonging to the main character in both books - Suzanne!  She even added some special treasure finds to put inside, with room for adding more.  Sharing this story called Treasures made this a summer we will always remember.  I then read the second story - with more mature topics on my own, after we have gotten back to the real world and life as it marches on.  I loved it too!  And was most interested to see that a lot of the experiences that we have had were included.  Suz meets a special extern sister in a cloistered monastery.  I asked my mom if she wrote that while we were going through our experience with Maria entering for 5 months - the Poor Clares.  "Yes!  That was just when I was writing this book."  So much of the book - I could see that I had been involved in those experiences in real life.  The deep inner feelings of our family time in Michigan as a child growing up - the oldest of 12 kids.  And now with my own kids and grandkids, and my own mother as a kid had time on the Big Lake too!  Sharing this together for generations is almost genetic in that we are all immediately transported to this place of great beauty in our hearts, minds and souls after sharing it.  The thing about the Big Lake is that it has been there for millions of years - yes, there is the year of the dead fish, the year of the low water, the year that the sand went away and the rocks appeared, the year of heat or cold... but the view we see as we look out has been the same for all those 5 generations of our family that have stood there on that beach or on the deck of that cabin.  We share and it pulls us together into a deep love and appreciation of the glory of His marvelous creation and goodness to us.  It never grows old, but always blesses us and reminds us that He loves this world and made it marvelous to look upon. 

Two freshly washed baby girls playing together is even a more glorious sight to behold - one of the gift of LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT we are blessed with when we say "Yes!" to new LIFE.  "Doing the will of my Heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother."  Jesus reminds us in the Gospel today in Matthew 12.  He asks us to be open to family and LIFE in our marriages, and when we are the outcome can be surprising at times - like the many losses we had along with the 5 children we are blessed with here with us... Yet, I see that this is a definite way for me to keep my eyes on Heaven and knowing that I am being prayed for by my 7 in heaven is a great help to me! 

A beautiful moth on the railing one morning... Lord, your world is such a gift to us and reminds us that we are loved beyond telling and created out of that unending LOVE for us!  We know that LOVE through the selfless giving we receive within our domestic Church/family.  We give without counting the cost one to the other, and although wounded by those the closest to us, we continue to LOVE.  You showed us how to do this by your example to us as the innocent Lamb - who went to your death for us!  May we take up our most Cherished Cross and follow after YOU.  I am forever filled with wonder at the JOY we find in our saying Yes to YOU and your call to bring LIFE into the world and to bring LIGHT where there has been darkness. Even now when my years of giving birth to children has passed me by, and I have the blessings of 12 lives here and in heaven, I still rejoice that my daughters have answered your call to bring LIFE even with major obstacles and those telling them otherwise - we are called to prayer from the moment they are in the womb until their final day on this earth - praying without ceasing for all those you have given us in our families!  Today I can come to YOU in my hour of Adoration - what JOY!  Last week I was able to pray for two new lives for the first time - one newly born and one that we just discovered was in the womb!  To place them in the glorious golden jewel encrusted monstrance with YOU - it lifts me to the highest place of praise and honor and glory within my heart and soul!  Full to bursting with YOU, my Lord!  I find my peaceful and joyful HOME in YOU and with YOU and am blessed by your Spirit within me crying out "Abba, Father, I am weak and lowly and humbly need YOU to live and breath and have my being ever carrying my Most Cherished Cross and following after YOU.  Jesus, I trust in YOU.  Amen and Halleluia

Dancing with JOY!!!  Bless-bless, Barb

"We saw his glory, the glory of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth."  John 1:14

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Joyful+joyful+we+adore+thee+from+Sister+Act+2&mid=973B88F6ED2EC6FDD39E973B88F6ED2EC6FDD39E&view=detail&FORM=VIRE5

Here is a good one to get you up praising HIM - Joyful joyful we adore thee from Sister Act 2 - "May our hearts unfold like flowers before thee!" 

http://communityofthelambusa.org/monastery_progress.html  The little monastery in Kansas City is soon to open!  Here is the latest update!