Old days with our kids

I found a couple old pictures and scanned them in - this was a pasture adventure with our kids back in the mid 90s.  John looks about 4 or 5 so that is how I am gauging it.  We would go out in the evenings and spend some time just looking at the cows and calves and having some family time in the cool of the evening.

I know that I had one of Pat with all the kids in the bed, but couldn't find that one.  I came across this one with all but Maria enjoying our spacious double bed.  We still sleep in it and our kids with their kingsize beds can't figure out how we manage.  We aren't afraid to sleep touching each other, I guess.  I am very tired tonight so I will call this walk down memory lane short.  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Bless-bless, Barb

Well, maybe just one more - an anniversary picture taken about 17 years ago.  Soft and faded just like we are now. 

 

Bright eyed - honeymooners!  That would be 35 years ago now. 

Being a disciple and striving after Sainthood

A walking Rose goes where she wants and it involves smiles and kisses when she gets there.  We are discovering the loving little girl that she is!  I was once again reading The Imitation of Christ by Venerable Thomas A Kempis before bed... It was very important to me as a new Catholic over 40 years ago.  He spoke to my heart, soul and mind and once again I was groaning with the Truth! 
"How foolish it is to seek and to put your trust in riches that will pass.  How foolish to go after worldly honors and to set yourself above others.  How foolish to follow the impulses of the flesh, or to covet those things which so soon will cost you a heavy penalty.
How foolish to wish for a long life, but not care whether it is a good life; to be concerned only with the present, with never a thought of eternity and the endless JOY that awaits you."

Jesus, we are reminded on this feast of your apostle, Bartholomew, that we are to be your disciple here in this day and in our world - most especially in our domestic Church/family!  Why put off the narrow path carrying our Most Cherished Cross which leads to LIFE everlasting with you in paradise?  We need to embrace that glorious Cross to find LIFE.  Knowing that we are nothing without YOU, O Lord.  The little ones in our midst show us how to come to you and give you our meager LOVE - this is all you want and need from us, and we must give it after we have received unconditional LOVE and Mercy from YOU!  Forgive us our sins, and help us to make some progress down the path this day.  Pope Francis - "His kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! ....Christ's Cross embraced with LOVE never leads to sadness, but to joy." Jesus, go forth with me this day - give me strength and your LOVE to share with all those I encounter.  Jesus, I trust in YOU.  Amen and Hallelujah

Bless-bless, Barb
Jesus said to them, "Go to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature."  Mark 16:15

Ruth and Rose celebrate

Ruth and Rose share a saint - St Rose of Lima - and today is her feastday!  It was fun to get some pictures of the two of them while we were canning our 37 quarts of tomato - stewed and salsa! 

Soon you will have a baby brother Rose Ida.  That will be interesting to see how that goes.  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Bless-bless, Barb

You are very loving and will have lots of kisses for the new little boy. 

Personalized days of celebration!!!

Ruth and I once again have a big day of tomato canning today.  I just had to gush here about the specialness that we discovered about this day in our wonderful amazing Church!  It is the feastday of a very special Saint - Rose of Lima!  She is Ruth's patron saint, which means that she chose her name to take on her confirmation day - Ruth Ida Rose!   It is a good fit for Ruth, because she was a girl, who did needlepoint and hand work to support her family, and Ruth seems to always have a project underweigh of one sort or the other.  St Rose is also American - South from Peru!  That is more special now with our Pope from Argentina.  The influence that Rose had on Ruth's LIFE carried over now to her 4th child - daughter Rose Ida.  So today they are sharing the JOY of this special day in our Church.  It is much like having another birthday or anniversary to know that this special Saint in our lives is being acknowledged and celebrated throughout our Church around the world!  Such a wonderful gift we receive from our wise and awesome Church in helping to keep our hearts, minds and souls focused on Heaven and our goal to join the Saints there someday! 
It was super fun to find this on Maria's blog this morning - to celebrate the feast of the Queenship of Mary yesterday - they wore crowns all day and addressed each other with Princess Therese, or Prince David!  Through the intercession of our Spiritual Mother, Mary Most Holy, we are truly brought into the Royal Kingdom and are pronounced Princes and Princesses in His eyes.   May we act that way this day in sharing with those in our domestic Church/family the mercy that has been shown to us!  In the Gospel today Jesus reminds us of the two greatest commandments - "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  Matthew 22:34-40  It is not within our power of LOVE to do this, we can only accomplish it through the LOVE we are given unconditionally from our God.  It is HIS LOVE that we are able to share and give without counting the cost! 

The two little ones are holding their crowns... they were on their heads moments before!

The royalty!!!!  Shining so brightly in our world of darkness!  Another great happening today in our Church throughout the world from St Peters to a tiny country Church in North Dakota or Africa - the first reading on the feastday of St Rose of Lima this year is from the Book of Ruth!  Too amazing to read the beginning of the sweet story of wonderful loyal and loving Ruth - "Do not ask me to abandon you or forsake you!  For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge, I will lodge, your people will be my people, and your God my God."  This Ruth spoke to her mother-in-law, Naomi!  It is just so sweet and special to have these two fall together today!  Such a gift to find excitement and JOY at the blessings of each day in our journey in The Church! 

Lord, what JOY fills our hearts, minds, and souls as we are showered from Heaven by the great graces and blessings that overflow from our amazing glorious Church!  We are truly treated as royalty as you send your LOVE upon us.  Armed with this LIGHT/LOVE/LIFE we are then able to give to those in our domestic Church/family - those the closest to us that we treat the worst!  Why?  Without thinking do we react with anger and impatience with those that are given to us to LOVE the most?  Help us this day Lord to take the LOVE that has been given to us and return it to all those we meet.  May we see with eyes of Faith that you are there in our midst.  That we need to remember the mercy and LOVE we have been shown in our unworthiness and that we are return that same unconditional LOVE and Forgiveness to those that hurt us.  This is so hard, and takes us to find that place of humility - remembering that without YOU and your LOVE we are nothing!  We only have been made royal princes and princesses because of YOU, and intercession of your Queen Mother!  Jesus, we trust in YOU!  Amen and Hallelujah

Bless-bless, Barb
"It is in prayer and only in prayer that the Christ who is in each person is revealed to us through a faith that becomes increasingly more sharp focused and more clear-sighted.  It is in prayer that we can ask for those gifts for each person without which there is no genuine love; it is through prayer that our hope grows so that we may cope with the number of people that we meet and the depth of their needs.
It is our faith and hope, growing through prayer, that remove the obstacle that most blocks the road of our LOVE: namely a concern for ourselves...
It is not our love that we have to offer, it is the LOVE of God."  Madeline Delbrel (1964)
 Prince David.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaPwHPqJi4  Danielle Rose - Psalm 139 - wonderfully made!

Happy Feast day Ruth and Rose!!!! 

Evening time - hay/family time

Following Pat with the bale rack into the late evening sun.  Hay is ready to bale just at supper/news time so it just is not a time to relax at the end of the day.  That happens at sunset - about 8p is supper these days.  Hay goes on and on and on.  If we had gotten any rain to speak of it would have been a lot more, but I think we still have managed to get enough for the cattle over the winter.

Rose came out to give grandpa and daddy kisses in the middle of baling and picking them up.  Such a loving and sweet little girl.

Cute girl with the reflection of the barn in the window.  Rose soon you will be a big sister, and I think that you will be a very loving and sweet one! 

Good night Rose with a little stray kitten friend.  Nice to sit on the porch on a cool summer evening.  Tomorrow will be more canning of tomatoes.  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Bless-bless, Barb

 

 

Mary "has a right to be loved as Queeen of all hearts" - St Maximilian Kolbe

Four year ago on the vigil of the feast of the Queenship of Mary we were in France and filled with such wonder and awe at the sight before us... as our Susan took the habit of the Community of the Lamb and changed her name to Little Sister Hallel!  It was a sudden intercession of the Holy Spirit that we even found ourselves there - we felt as though we had flown there on the wings of all the angelic prayers that surrounded us as we had just completed John's second chemo for his brain cancer, and rather than have adverse side effects - he had gotten better!  He had made it to the bathroom on his own the night before we left, and suddenly going looked to be a possibility after all!   24 hours later we were on our way, and arrived in France to be with Susan as she took this major step in her journey of Faith.  John being there was a very powerful gift for both Susan and John as they longed to share one with the other as each faced such huge challenging/life-changing moments in their lives - John in the fight for his LIFE, and Hallel in giving her LIFE entirely to Christ as His Bride!  Our heads were spinning as were our hearts, minds and souls.  We were covered as with a huge storm of LIFE that was threatening to bring us to the depths of the sea - But Christ stood up and calmed the storm and took us by the hand as we began to sink into the water!  We were reminded on the first day of our journey called cancer/healing by Hallel when we called France to tell her that there was something in John's brain - "Mom, did you hear the Gospel for today?"  Jesus calming the storm.  "This is the storm and Jesus is in control."  YES!!!!

 

The two together on this day 4 years ago - we are heading to the taking of the vows - this day in France many of our dear sweet Little Sisters and Brothers are taking their final vows!  Our thoughts and prayers are with them as they take the seal of the Lamb - which they wear around their necks.   The Lamb shows us the way to give our all without counting the cost - "Wounded, I will not cease to LOVE."  St Maximilian Kolbe quoted today - "Mary has a right to be loved as Queen of all hearts so that, through her, hearts would be cleansed and themselves become immaculate, similar and like unto her own heart, and so worthy of union with God."  Wow!  This is wonderful to consider even slightly possible for us!  Yes, we backslide daily and momentarily, yet we might inch forward with the intercession of Mary!  "A queen enjoys full power is expressed in her intercession for us and her mediation of graces, so that we receive all personal graces from God."  von Balthasar  Through Mary flows the graces we need to persevere in the fight for bringing LIGHT into our world. 

Jesus, we love you and thank you for the power of YOU and your Mother, Mary Most Holy, on this day!  We can know of all the JOY and excitement happening in Saint Pierre this day with the many that are giving their lives totally to YOU in the taking of their final vows this day!  The feasting on the hillside with family and friends as they celebrate this huge step of LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!  The taking of the Lamb into their souls - "Wounded, I will not cease to LOVE."   We look to YOU on the Cross, O Lord.  We know that in embracing our Most Cherished Cross we find LIFE everlasting!  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Amen and Hallelujah

Bless-bless, Barb
"Many are invited, but few are chosen."  Jesus speaking to us in the Gospel today in Matt 22 of the wedding feast.  We feel so blessed, Lord, to be able to share in Hallel's call from YOU to come and be your spouse!  May other young people consider this beautiful possibility in their lives - bring more LIGHT into the darkness. 

We thank and praise you for John's healing and ask that YOU give him  direction down narrow path as he carries his Most Cherished Cross and follows after YOU to LIGHT/LIFE/LOVE. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaCR24-tkWI  Danielle Rose singing If I touch HIM

Blessed Teresa shows us how to touch HIM!

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. There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.  Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness. Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well. The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.   I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.  Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing. A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

Quotes of Mother Teresa "Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family. Be holy – let us pray."