"My house shall be a house of prayer"...hanging on his words. "Baby Nectar" Dominic at prayer

3 granddaughters out of a morning bath with their curls showing!  Curly hair is in our genes and reminds me of my 4 girls in row... love that I am gifted with a redo on doing girl's hair now with 7 granddaughters out of our 15 going on 18 grandchildren.

I loved doing the girl's hair... they both chose Kateri braids/Indian braids.  The other option was Bernadette braids/French braids.  When I did 6 year old Rose's hair first... I tested her; "Why is doing girl's hair one of my favorite things to do?"  "Because you had 4 girls and then you had John."  Right!

Next Bernadette was sitting by grandma to have her hair done and she knew the answer also!  I love to be able to do my granddaughter's hair and I thank them for that gift to me.

2 1/2 year old Josephine was next, and got dog ears to show off her curly hair!  Thank you!

Another smile while grandpa sets the table for our Thanksgiving feast!  Our big family meal will be tomorrow night with Ruth and John and all but Maria and Hallel.  Today I have already had physical therapy, and been discharged from homecare.  Now to start going out for therapy and getting even more on my feet!

 Pat and I went out for Thanksgiving mass... the first time to mass since my new knee 2 weeks ago.  I discovered that sitting with my foot down for any length of time is too much for me yet.  So this was my view of mass after the first 10 minutes.  Thankful for the new gathering space and the nice couch to put my foot up on.  Also the wonderful sound system right over my head so although I couldn't see it all... I could hear and respond from my couch.

I went to Thanksgiving mass in my way, and it showed me just how far I need to come yet.  The therapist today was happy with my progress, but I am ready to do better with each new days!

It looks wintry out there with the leaves now gone...the sun is out today and our snow is melting.

My nights have improved, but I still find myself getting anxious about them.  I have found a new sleep aide to get me to sleep more and more quickly.  How I long to be past this stage of struggling to get comfortable in bed and getting out of my head filled with anxiety and dread as the long dark night sets in.  With all 3 of my replacements this is the worst part of the entire experience... lack of sleep and restless nights.  Lord, give me strength and help me to look out and not in all the time!

The girls cheering up grandma!

 Nancy and Bill in the kitchen preparing our feast!

Coloring a picture together for grandma...

The Gospel of cleaning out the temple... "My house is a house of prayer"  Yes, Lord!!!  How I find comfort and the ability to get out of my head and focus on my inner temple/Holy Spirit when I take th time to pray throughout the day and night!

"all the people were hanging on his words."Luke 19 ends the Gospel reading today, and this is speaking to my heart of where I gain my strength to get through each day.  Starting the night before, I read the readings for the next day with great excitement... asking the Holy Spirit to bring Christ to me and minister to me through Jesus in The Word!  Yes, we are so blessed to be able to "hang on his words" to us!  Filled with all that we need to face each new day of The Journey!

 Pre-meal pose of our gathering.  We used one of our home-grown chickens and it was wonderful!  Homegrown squash, applesauce we canned added to our farm Thanksgiving meal!  Wonderful to have our KC family to share it with!

Berna adored the potatoes and peas... LOVE!

Jesus, I need you and long to spend comforting and strengthening time with you in prayer in my inner temple.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

Every night we share family prayer here with Nancy's bunch!  So wonderful and powerful.  They had gathered up in the bedroom where Berna and Rose were having a sleep over and all were touched when Dominic prayed for the baby cousin Maria and Joe are expecting a few weeks after Nancy... he is a boy and his name will be Hector.  4 year old Dominic prayed for "baby Nectar" so sweetly!  Pat was so touched by his sweet prayer and I heard it for myself last night when we prayed together!  LOVE!

Maria's bunch camping in the Grand Tetons recently... it was cold!

Evangeline the 2 year old camper looks cold... Maria was 5 months pregnant, too!

Pretty EVie!

Presentation of Mary/Hallel Psalm seems appropriate with the memories from our trip!!!

Maria with David, Therese and David( yes, we have 2 grandsons David within a year and a half!) on the bus in Rome!  I hear that they walked a lot lot lot for the most part!

It is such a wonderful time for me to be reliving the wonderful family time of a lifetime we were given when we went to Europe for Hallel's final vows!  Maria, who homeschools and procrastinates is now updating months on her blog and step by step with each new post and her short precise personal insights... I am being blessed!

Pat and I had been to Rome in 2003 while Maria studied there with Catholic Studies from St Thomas, so we opted to spend all our time in Europe in France with Hallel and her Community of the Lamb.  Maria's family and Ruth's went on to Rome and had amazing times there.  To be brutally honest.. .my bad knee really held me back and now 2 weeks after my replacement... I can see how much we missed out on, and how this truly could be a life-changing improvement for me.  Of course, that is going to require me getting in shape now too.  One step at a time!

Little Dave serving at a French mass while in Rome! 

Mary, Joseph and :Little Dave!  Wow!

St Peters! 

Being immersed in our trip to Europe/France and Italy for different groups of us... took me majorly back to the dream like time we shared there with Hallel and her Community at this huge occasion in her life!  Nothing better than to be lifted to the heavens today with the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the temple and the amazing Hallel Psalm 150!!!
Let everything that has breath
praise the LORD! Alleluia.
R. Holy, holy, holy Lord, mighty God!

Sitting on the hillside was reminscent of our other two trips to Saint Pierre for Hallel taking her habit in 2009, and her first vows with Pat and his 92 year old mother in 2011!  But it struck me that this was now being experienced by most of our family for the first time!  Nancy, Pat, John and I had been there before... but for the rest/the other 14 members that were part of the mountain we moved there to celebrate with Hallel... they were seeing it with joyfilled eyes for the first time!

Maria's words from her blog;

The Community put quite the spread together for family and friends after the vows.

We all gathered in a spot set aside for Hallel.

It was a wonderful time of celebration.

Hallel with her lucky Goddaughter, Therese!  

All happily married!  3 new little ones coming in March!

We even "did" the Trevi fountain, like real tourists.

The kids told me later that they wished for a little brother or sister.

Imagine that!

Maria's words and it is now shared that Therese and David will have a new baby brother in March!  We LOVE family and ALL LIFE!

This last year in homeschool they had studied ancient Rome and read about the martyrs... a powerful moment for them indeed!

I have been into the doctor and had a glowing report.  Stitches are thankfully out and I continue to mend.  Let me just get my nights straightened out and life would be  awhole lot better.  This shot in the arm from Maria and the beautiful feast day reminding us of all that Mary has done in bringing LIFE into the world and how she can help us to be more and more life her...her life of self-sacrifice offered in love!

The green Cathedral where the stain glass and roof is the green branches of the forest on the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains!

Allowing us to share in their deep prayer life and daily mass and Adoration!

'You  can't love Mary too much.  You can never love her more than Jesus did!" St Maximilian Kolbe

Mary is my constant companion in prayer without ceasing with each new day of the journey!  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph I love you very much.  Save souls.  Bless-bless, Barb

I would look up and see my girls together in this holy place and have to pinch myself!

"Behold I stand at the door and knock - today I must stay at your house." Family on the road!

Love this from Maria's blog today... Lourdes with their two oldest just 2 days after Hallel had taken her final vows!  I am getting very nostalgic reading her blog and her wonderful sharing about our family time supreme in France and then they went on to Rome with Ruth and Paul!

Stunning picture of Our Lady of Lourdes... How we love her!!!

Maria brought me to tears with her sharing on her blog!

The readings of today speak to me of how Jesus dwells in our home and within our hearts and our domestic church/family!  I run to the door and embrace him as he has knocked on my door and asked to come into my house!

Maria was so cute as she described this picture of her sister on her Big day!

"I think this is my favorite picture.

For someone who owns basically nothing, she made sure that her Lamb was just right."

The virgin with her lamp.

Maria writes:

"Sorry, gentlemen. She's officially taken!"

That's the face of a happy Bride!!!  LOVE!

Close Family time supreme in Lourdes in the rain!

Thanks Maria for touching my heart with the gift we were given... sharing our Faith as a family!  Jesus, must stay in our house!  The Church He left for us... His Bride is totally amazing!!!  To share that Truth as a family is the best ever!

Nancy and Bill are on the road from KC!  Safe travels and looking for some inspiration to get me moving more, and on a road to more complete recovery!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb

Pizza night on the hillside celebrating Hallel with our Community of the Lamb!

An experience to last a lifetime!

"I do not see that he is present. I sense it." like the blind man/"Lord, free us from fear." Evening prayer

Maria's blog is active again!  Love this of the kids taken about 4 months ago!

Pat and I just talked to Maria, Evangeline and Therese on the speaker phone.  Evangeline is big on mimicing what she hears so Pat did her "bladda-bladda-bladda" with her tongue going in and out... she would sweetly repeat it and it made me giggle and sure felt good!  Back and forth we went with her little voice repeating all that we said including..."Hi, Bumpa."  She also told us that she is now 2!

Therese informed us that she is a very busy and independent girl.  "She makes her bed, gets herself dressed, puts her dishes in the sink, she does everything for herself!

Maria's explanation of now their daily rosary/prayer time...

"As mentioned, our family prayer was changed as a result of the Catholic Family Weekend.

The primary change was the daily Rosary.

Although we have attempted this in years past, 

we have now been doing it consistently since June!

Secondly, but not connected with Catholic Family Weekend, 

the kids and I have started a new simple prayer routine in the morning.

We simply light a candle before each of us shares our intentions. 

This simple action has really helped the kiddos to pay attention and realize it is a time set-apart."

Chess and conversation on Sunday after sharing mass as a family!  LOVE!

The Gospel today was so beautiful and then when I read this point of view it really got super special and personal;

"If I do not see that he is present, I sense it.  I feel that I am like those blind men who cast themselves at his feet, and do not doubt that he would touch them although they do not see him."  St Claude La Colombiere

Yes, I am not seeing him in my long suffering days and nights, yet I sit at his feet and know that he will touch me and use me and minister to me and heal me!  

Opening up and looking at Jesus while we prayed after the hard night of blindness and suffering... I could see Him and sense his closeness.

Two year old Evangeline in a non squinty picture which is hard to come by these days!  

We miss her a bunch along with the 4 olders and soon she will be a big sister with #6 due in March!  Exciting times!

Evie loves to be a helper!  Too cute!

I am getting tired and my rosary is calling me... When Pat and I shared evening prayer last night these words were for me in the intercesions... "Lord, free me from fear."  I know that a lot of my struggles now are in my mind and a lot of fear sets in with the early cold darkness.  Last night was better, but I have  ways to go with my nights.  Like the blind man... I call out to you, O Lord, I sense that you are there and your love for me.  Jesus, I trust in you.  bless-bless, Barb

Love this!

If I touch him - Danielle Rose

Better by degrees/"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake;"/your prayers for me/my prayers for you!

The pix that Pat brought Jesus to me this morning had the victorious Lamb on the outside framed in gold and Jesus in the form of humble bread inside. 

As we shared morning prayer and the collect from mass and the readings before Pat ministered Eucharist to me... I looked at Jesus in my weakness and felt him minister lovingly to me!  I know that He is walking with me and holding me, when I am unable to go forth on my own... one set of footprints in the sand.

I am watching the 2018 Ministry Appeals... Pat was very touched by it, as it started mass this morning.  https://www.dnu.org/dma/  A Gift of Self!

Time with Pat sharing Jesus!  The Lamb is huge for us - "Wounded, I will not cease to love."  The motto of The Community of the Lamb/Our family of the Lamb since our daughter, Little Sister Hallel is now a full member since taking her final vows this summer in France!

I had fake plans of going to mass this morning, but although my night was better than the horror of the night before... getting to bed at 2A rather than 5A.  When Pat came in at 7a for 8a mass... it was not possible.  It was special to share Jesus with Pat.

All your prayers met so much to me... thank you!  Talking to my parents at noon as they just got home from going to mass together... my sweet mother reminded me of all their loyal prayers for me on this journey.  "May our prayers come down there like a huge flock of birds." mom

With my challenge in sleep at night these words from I Daniel jumped out at me..."Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake;
some shall live forever,"  Even sleeping in the dust appeals to me at this point!
I hope and pray for better sleep tonight.  I start to feel dread and worry coming with early darkness.  This came to me today... if I could take my suffering and spend it praying for the needs of others... that would join with the Lamb slain for my sins..."Wounded, I will not cease to love."  To focus on the needs of others and get out of my head. 

As this is difficult to relay to me...  I welcome any PM or sharing with me... my email; barbverly@yahoo.com.  But I promise that I will have my beads and lift up the pains, sufferings and needs of others in my suffering.

Jesus, I need you!   I am nothing without you!  Jesus, I trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barb"Our misery caused Him to stoop to our lowness.  Even our sinshad a sort of attraction for the abundance of His mercyand the predilection of His grace.  Our repentance wins Him to us.Our love makes earth a paradise to Him..."  - Fr Frederick W Faber