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!
Entering the quiet empty light filled church after the best hour of my week spent in Adoration... I found mom there! So many emotions after all these years of sharing with her week after week in The Church!
I have her to thank for planting in her son the idea that I would be good marriage material! I came down to his sister's wedding and boldly asked to stay on the farm... I am puzzled why I would think I could do that!?! But she saw my rosary beside the bed, and mentioned to Pat that I could be someone he should consider as spouse material. Pat shares that coming around the corner of the house and seeing me suntanning in my bikini and saying my rosary was a interesting combination...
In the light!! We all know that she is definitely on her way to heaven!
Her leaving this world on Dec 11 has brought me to a place of prayer for her and dad together on the first decade of my chaplet of Mercy! My eyes and heart are more than ever turned towards heaven forever with Jesus... each of my family that is there keeps me focused on the only goal that matters to me!
My 7 in heaven are praying for me and keeping me focused on HIM! How my spiritual Mother is right there with me bringing comfort and love to my mother's heart!
My heart soars to the highest heavens!
How I adore the joy that wells up in me at all the memories shared here with Pat's wonderful mother! She has always been a part of all our faith journey as a married couple/family/bringing her to mass each week after her fractured hip/bringing Eucharist to her each week of hospice for close to 2 years! Someone said that mom was lucky to have us, but we much more felt that she was such a gift and blessing to us to have the wonderful opportunity to share Jesus with her in Word and Body and Blood! Nothing better!!!
I loved to find her close to Jesus in the tabernacle.... It was so right and the sun streaming in surrounding her in heavenly light. I do not have much doubt that she is experiencing that now. I know of her prayers from heaven for her large wonderful family here missing her.
St Paul to the Romans today caught my attention with his words of our being "slaves of righteousness" now that we have been saved by the grace of the pure Lamb sacrificed for our salvation! The Holy Spirit dwelling in our souls has allowed us to die to sin and be HIS!
Look to the Cross from which we gain LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT!
My day is filled with two little ones, making trips to pick up a preschooler, picking up parts, I currently have a 7 month old playing next to me and reaching out an putting on the Cap Lock over and over... I think I am called to end this quickly today. My heart is filled with so much love for My Church, which I have shared always with Pat's mother. We are in our 40th year of marriage and being an extended farm family, and up until Dec 11th Pat's mother was a very big part of all that we celebrated here. So woven into the fabric of our Faith/Family/Farm tapestry! LOVE her and miss her!
I felt her with me looking out upon her beloved place of worship for 97 years of life!
Jesus, I have been so blessed to have such wonderful parents to share my faith with! My own parents brought me into The Church 45 years ago, and then my wonderful parents in law always shared my love for The Church on this journey of LIFE! Both modeled for me that we need to be open to LIFE and raise them as LIGHTS! So very blessed and happy in the things that really matter... Always awaiting the arrival of the Son of Man when we know not... keeping our eyes on heaven forever! Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and Hallelujah
Taking fuel out to Paul ripping last night... Keep the farmers safe, O Lord, and sane too! Bless-bless, Barbara Mary Luke
Combining across the road at dusk last night. Ruth and Paul are now out there baling, too! We are in busy mode with snow due to arrive tomorrow. Yikes!!
How he loved our Lady and The Cross!!! He knew where our hope lay!
Yes, it has been terribly windy around here! Ruth took this when it was still warm out, but since the cold fall winds have come to make stocking caps and jackets needed when out in it. Pat had me find him one in the dark this morning before he headed out. We laughed at an old stretched out one "that falls down over my eyes" from before we were married. That hat is over 40 years old! Lots of fond memories of my hunky husband wearing it over these many years together. The sweet memory and a kiss at the door mended some hurts we suffer when the tension is high with harvest... Lack of sleep and stressors tend to bring out the worst from time to time. Many prayers for patience!
Joy dressed to face the cool fall wind when we went out to check the grain bin the other day. Today she might need a snowsuit!
Today St Paul... the man who went from persecuting Christians to a "super Christian/Catholic" as my dad calls me, by encountering Christ on the road... preaches to us about how Christ allows us to turn away from sin and death and darkness by "overflowing" grace and forgiveness and not only that but
"Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
We are given the grace/the Advocate/The Holy Spirit to consume us and allow us to stumble down the narrow path carrying/dragging our Most Cherished Cross and at the end justified by our lives lived for him to find eternal LIFE forever with Jesus, Mary and all the Saints, including St Anthony Mary Claret, who added Mary to his name: "She is my Mother, my protector, my teacher, my all, after Jesus." Yes!!! I want her in my name too, as this is all true for me, too!
Barbara Mary Lynn Luke!
Such a big smile!
The "overflow" that St Paul so enthusiastically shares over and over today submerges me in the ocean of LOVE which Jesus has for me and each one of us! How he longs to have us turn to him and when do we do that? When we are weak and need him. I was reminded of that by my nun daughter, when I had my hip replaced and I was helpless and such a mess. "Mom, when we are weak is when we turn to Jesus." May I always be weak and small and know just how much I need him and feel his overflowing mercy, love and forgiveness! Then I need to recall how pathetic I am and not hold back on giving that love selflessly to all those around me!
"I understood that love comprises all vocations – that love is everything, and because it is eternal, embraces all times and places." --St. Therese
A powerful reality to embrace in the midst of the craziness on the farm called harvest! Lord, may your love overflow in our hearts and allow us to forgive and forget the hurts.
The clouds were beautiful in the cold winds...
Jesus reminds us in the Gospel today that we cannot become lax... we need to be ready at all times! "Gird your loins and light your lamps... ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks." Luke 12 One thing I am discovering... the Words of Jesus/Jesus in His Word comes to me and convicts me when I am tempted or slipping into anger or resentment. "turn the other cheek" convicts me when I am thinking that something is unfair or I have been treated badly/poor me. I see Christ on the cross and know that I am asked to do as he did! Lord, help me to think less of myself and poor me!
Paul and Pat working together... lots to share and to learn... Lord, be with the farmers keep them safe and sane!
I pray for and thank the Lord for finding such wonderful men for my daughters and how they are open to life and raising lights for the world!
Jesus, your graces are overflowing and filling us with more than we can take in each minute of each day. All we need do is accept that love and forgiveness and return it to those around us...most especially those in our domestic church/family! The ones closest to us are the hardest for us to forgive and show the mercy we have been given. Be with families that are under attack all the lies of Satan. Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and hallelujah
Working together for a common cause of playing with David... Guardian angels watch out for us all! Bless-bless, Barbara Mary Luke
Joy out with grandma to check on the bins for her first bin picture... the wind made the sweatshirt and stocking hat important. She is sitting up now, and loved plate after plate of mashed up table food with applesauce!
Such a good little girl for this old grandma, and I have fallen head over heels in love with her! She seems to be getting better with seeing me there, and not miss her "pretty pretty mommy" as much. It seemed that when I would go and get her up from her naps, that she would take a look at me and burst into tears that I wasn't her "Pretty mommy." I guess she is starting to realize that I can be OK, too.
I borrowed Ruth's camera yesterday again and found these of the 6 together on top of the windy bales ... It was warmer on this day.
The readings for today starting with Paul to the Romans, then to Luke 1 for the Psalm, and then Luke 12 where Jesus speaks to a subject close to home/laying up treasures in heaven and being "rich in the matters of God," using a farmer as the parable... The words of the Psalm are from the Canticle of Zachariah, which we have memorized and share in morning prayer each day...
"This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
R. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people."
Sometimes the free to worship him seems hindered by the confusing attitudes of all those around us. I am in the midst of a good book helping us to keep on the narrow path and hopefully help those lost in relativism to come to see the LIGHT! It is called; Who am I to judge? by Edward Sri... thanks, Angela!
Joy Jean Jellybean as she is called by her loving siblings! How lucky are they to have a baby sister, which is quite a rarity for many kids limited to just a sibling or so.
In the book he mentions the example of the movie - It's a Wonderful Life - and how George Bailey could finally see that in his self- sacrifice and standing up for what is right that he changed the world for the better. The modern thinking that we live for ourselves rather than embracing marriage and family and therefore giving up our selfishness to love and serve them... we see that the more we are open to life the more we are called to die to self! That is what Christ asks of us... how did it become so belittled and put down and looked down upon? Our Most Cherished Cross is where we find LOVE/LIFE/LIGHT!
The 6 with Joy and Mary making the picture...a picture of LIFE!
"Millennials have grown up with an especial sense of disconnect from life as it was previously lived and known. They are the generation that seems to have been born “hard wired” for the internet and the smartphone, and whose attention spans have been shortened in great part due to new media. They are often called “narcissistic” without consideration that they are the generation parented by people who were counseled by the “experts” to validate and overpraise them — with “participation trophies” and endless repetitions that "everyone is special."
"Millennials are the generation left unmoored spiritually by a secularist culture that each year more freely disdains notions of prayer or faithfulness, or certainty about the importance of the family, or surety about the purpose and vocational aspects of their own sexes."
How I long to stop this in it's tracks, and I pray with each new day that each of my grandchildren with consider the beauty of what the Lord is calling them each to... His personal plan for them and part of that consideration will be for religious life!
A Dominican Sister interviewed:
And, as one sister concluded — in advice that is meant for millennials but is worthwhile for all of us, “Go before the Lord in silence, with empty hands and a thirsty heart. Take some time each week—each day if possible—to be still in His presence, especially His presence in the Eucharist. Bring Him your pain and your poverty, your doubts and fears, your desires and your joy. Listen to Him. Then follow where He leads, confident that true happiness is found, now and for eternity, in friendship with Jesus Christ.”
YES!!!!!!
This guy!!! I watched him climb up and down 3 bins in about 10 minutes while I was helping him yesterday! All the while "Hail Marys" were being said for his safety and that all would go smoothly up on top of the world in the noise and fatigue of harvest time. Lord, keep the farmers safe and sane!
Red snow raining down/corn chaff fills the air!
Yes, we must not get off the path and need to keep our hearts, minds and souls focused on the goal of heaven forever with Jesus, Mary and the Saints! How? By "worshiping him without fear" and by looking to Jesus in The Word each day and following the lead of the Holy Spirit guiding us and filling us with Truth, by the Sacraments alive and well each day in our lives including Eucharist/Jesus in His Body and Blood there on the altar every day, Reconciliation/laying our burdens and sins at his feet and hearing his words of forgiveness, the Sacrament of Marriage gives us the grace to die to self so that Jesus may live in us and we are HIS! The Saints are always there to assist us and they lived out the Journey to Christ and can help us do likewise! Mary, my queen mother, fills me with prayer throughout each new day! She brings me to her Son!
I kind of missed out on sharing a lot about my wonderful St JPII yesterday, so be prepared today!
Pondering her wonderful life which lies ahead!
Jesus, I am yours, and I am grateful for The Plan for Barbara Luke that you have revealed to me and continue to spark that fire within my soul! I am eternally grateful that you brought me into The Church and how each day holds so very much to help and guide me down the narrow path carrying/dragging my Most Cherished Cross which I embrace to find LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT! Jesus, I trust in you. Amen and Hallelujah
A mommy picture of Joy in the sandbox a few days ago!
Not afraid of heights is a good thing for him. Also prayer surrounds him, I know!
Corn coming out across the road from the farm/bins.
Lots of corn on the ground due to the hail... mom out raking ahead of Paul all day. The kids are picking up the corn to save it and earn some money too!
Very big and the one closest to me is now full to the top with corn! We are not just putting it "in barns" so that we can "rest, eat, drink and be merry." as the farmer in the parable today... we are taking very seriously feeding the world!
This man loves the little ones and they love him back!
Corn coming out and baling of the stalks is going to be going full speed today on the farm! On the way to town for mass, Pat looked around at the landscape and commented that in a week it will all be different as much of the corn will be harvested this week and the soil turned over/ripped before the winter in anticipation of starting over again in the spring with planting...
Out to help John move the cows from one pasture to the next behind our place here... all that golden corn will come out this week and the black barren ground will return until the snow covers it. It is hard to realize that Thanksgiving is only a month away!
Sharing mass as a family with Ruth and Paul and their 6 sitting behind us... How I loved to hear all the children's voices singing throughout mass! The Best!!!
Just at sunset last evening the sun streaked from the horizon and painted my world golden! Fall is such a beautiful gift before the world becomes dark and barren... although I must say that I find the bare trees a beautiful silhouette in the rising and the setting sun, too! God's creation is such a glorious gift with each day!
The Psalm response today - Give the Lord glory and honor. Psalm 96
It seems that our golden world lifts our souls to HIM!
Love my clean windows framing the glory of the fall beauty and the setting sun! Thanks 6'4" Johnnie for reaching the tops for me!
Wonderful fall day with the cows grazing on some fresh grass - they all look so nice and clean and healthy! In a week that corn will be harvested as winter is just around the corner.
The second reading today from Ist Thessalonians... Paul writes about The Gospel/Jesus in The Word..."For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction." I Thessalonians 1:5
This is so much of what we experience each day of reading the Gospel for that day starting the night before and asking Jesus/The Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts, minds and souls. Don't you experience that excitement build, or those words take you to places of strong feelings or parts of us/our messages that we are called to share? I know for myself that there are certain messages that I am called to share and shout from the rooftops as the Truth I have discovered through the work of the Holy Spirit in my life! http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/my-most-cherished-cross-patrick-gerard.html
We are called to be open to life and raise LIGHTS for the world... is a big one for me!
I will probably be snapping a few more of these today, as I am going over to be in charge of the kids and meals while all the others are working on the farm. Simon is going to be trained in today, so getting all 6 kids might be difficult for sure, but...
I got 5 including Simon the other day... So fun!
Lord, we live and move and work and play and love and get humbled as we deserve immersed in the Holy Spirit through your Word! Jesus, we trust in you. Bless-bless, Barb
Nancy shared that they helped stain the Monastery this morning in KC! I am sure that Hallel put the call out for some helpers and got their family over to work beside Aunt Little Sister Hallel.
I woke up today thinking with a warm fuzzy feeling about Hallel now living in KC for the year! I thought about her being able to enjoy home cooking... in that she can have some of our canning that we share with 6 families including our Community of the Lamb! I thought of her enjoying our tomato soup and applesauce and salsa, as well as our beef/hamburger we shared with them as we share with all the girls! With Hallel stationed in Europe for the last 9 years, she didn't get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. I had thoughts that I should take them one of our whole chickens and other pork and beef out of the freezer as well as more canned goods. It just makes a mom's heart good to share of our plenty and know that Hallel would enjoy and appreciate the foods that she grew up eating!
The crew hare at work sharing time with our Hallel and her Community of the Lamb - Lumen Christi/LIGHT of Christ and the lighthouse on the hill! It helps that it is small and low and "little" as it looks like Hallel can reach to the roof on her tip toes!
Starting the day filled with gratitude for my daughter to be only 7 hours away rather than across an ocean and some of what that will mean for us.... like Nancy and family going over to help and have some time sharing with her! I was then thrilled at this inspiring article, which includes interviews with Dominican nuns, of which Hallel is! https://aleteia.org/2017/10/03/young-nuns-have-some-advice-for-their-millennial-peers/
It is all very good, but what really spoke powerfully to me was this amazing quote from Pope Benedict XVI:
“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? … No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. […] dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.”
Out with Pat for a semi of corn last evening. This field got hailed on badly, so it is disappointing in yield. We have no control over the weather... only with lots of prayers!
A moment of prayer... actually looking at his phone. I will say though that there are a lot of prayers that go into the harvest/farming. We start the day with what we call "quick prayer" these mornings about the weather, the crop and safety!
Continuing from the article... you should read the whole thing as it is great!
And, as one sister concluded — in advice that is meant for millennials but is worthwhile for all of us, “Go before the Lord in silence, with empty hands and a thirsty heart. Take some time each week—each day if possible—to be still in His presence, especially His presence in the Eucharist. Bring Him your pain and your poverty, your doubts and fears, your desires and your joy. Listen to Him. Then follow where He leads, confident that true happiness is found, now and for eternity, in friendship with Jesus Christ.”
So absolutely TRUE!!!
Coming to unload one of hundreds of loads...
Another Benedict quote mirroring much of what St Paul wrote the to Romans today..."righteousness is the observance of the right path shown by God." How I want to stay on the narrow path to Jesus forever in heaven! There are many distractions and temptations and challenges with each day... May I cling to the Truth!
A pretty sight!
Lord, thank you for all the ways that you give us JOY in each new day. May we love and serve without counting the cost. Trusting in the Holy Spirit to give us the words to say and the ways to be your hands and feet. Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and Hallelujah
The wind is taking the leaves off the trees quickly these last two days!
This was the beautiful sight when I mowed a few days ago... now bare branches!
Just because I love the last rays of the sun!
Bless-bless, Barbara Luke
Happy Feast Day to my wonderful Saint John Paul II!!! I love him like a father, and he is my total hero of Family and LIFE!
