Thursday, June 29, 2023

Visiting many Sisters and praying with Our Lady- a special evening at the Parsonage/Peter and Paul Solemnity -+JMJ+

Pat and I with Isabella, who had just prayed with us and over us.  Such a blessing to meet these special girls that are on a "nun run."  

One of the 12 girls from the St Cloud Diocese, who spent the evening with Pat and I at the Parsonage.  Pat and I shared with them our experience with 2 of our daughters and religious life - Maria in the Poor Clares in Salk Rapids discerning, and Susan's 12 years in The Community of the Lamb - now a fully professed Little Sister of the Lamb! 

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: Susan Angela Agnes/Little Sister Hallel - the story of a Call .  A page I devoted to Hallel and her call and answer of "yes". 

It was wonderful to share the evening with my Most Cherished Cross, farmer hubby Pat!  The girls and the priest that is traveling with them were all impressed when he shared that we did not lose our daughter to religious life - "instead we gained a family."  Very comforting for them to realize that they are adding to their families.  
It was fun to have Hallel with me at Ruth's wonderful Parsonage Airbnb. 

 

Ruth's family 13 years ago as we went to say goodbye to Hallel as she was returning to France after being close by in KCK while John battled his brain cancer.

Hallel in the Parsonage.
We grilled hamburgers from our meat on the farm.  Many of the girls were farm girls and were not from St Cloud but towns around St Cloud and in the country.
The small yard of the Parsonage filled with girls - they shared with us some of the orders they visited in and around the Cities - starting with the Poor Clare nuns in Sauk Rapids where our 3rd daughter, Maria, entered on January 1st, Mary the Mother of God Solemnity in 2004.  She discerned for 4 months and then decided that the Lord was not calling her there.  Now 19 years later she is a wife of Major Joseph and has 7 children, whom she homeschools and share their faith in their home including the rosary as a family!  

It was very powerful to have 2 occasions of praying with first Isabella and then a group of 4 girls praying together "Hail Mary."  LOVE how she is with us on this journey.  

Gathered around with Verly burgers and Pat and I sharing how we cultivated our daughters and son to consider religious life or the priesthood.  As a result we have our nun, Little Sister Hallel, Maria's time with the Poor Clare nuns and a phone call away when we have prayer needs, and John's year in Seminary considering a call to the priesthood.  John now is married and a father of 3 little ones!  He is officially disabled as a result of his battle with brain cancer 14 years ago.

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: John's cancer stories  

John's Spirit Juice video - the story continues with wife and 3 children!  How he burns to share the Lord's loving healing touch!  

The day we dropped off Maria behind the enclosure with the Poor Clare nuns- lots of tears at the depth of the sacrifice we would be called upon if she stayed behind the enclosure - no more hugs...
Yet, still a kiss - #2 daughter Nancy and #3 daughter, Maria finding a way to share their love and support for each other!  

First ever gathering of so many outside the Parsonage.  It was so wonderful to share our passion for The Church and the wonderful plan that the Lord has for each one of these girls!  

They shared with us some of their experiences in the Cities - "We visited St Mother Teresa of Calcutta's missionaries of Charity, and we went to a tent city of the homeless with a cooler full of water for them.  We were mobbed by them- it was scary yet exhilarating at the same time.  So powerful!"  

The sun set coming through the stain glass of our wonderful beautiful Holy Redeemer... how I love this view!  I can never get over it!  I love nothing more than to share my conversion story and one of one with one of the chaperones - I was overjoyed to share it!  "Wow!  that is amazing to hear how your family of 13 were led by your Protestant minister father, Deacon Robert Cross, into The Catholic Church!"  Yes!!!

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: The amazing story of the 13 becoming Catholic!  The last 51 years - each day has been a total gift - a pearl of great price!  Today is such an amazing Feast - St Peter and St Paul.  

From the picture window of The Parsonage - the girls unpacking their things with the backdrop of our beautiful church with Jesus, creator of heaven and earth in the tabernacle!  
Obsessed with this view from the Parsonage and soon from the Brick House Apartment building next store!  While we were there families were coming and going for their pictures for the directory, and a high school girl posed on the steps for a graduation picture.  Our Church is amazing!  
I had to spell Faith wrong... Picture taken 10 years ago as these 3 babies are now 10, 10, and 11.
Today at mass with Jesus in the tabernacle and on the altar!  I love how Jesus is in the center of my 5 here!  

Hallel and Ruth's sweet kitchen... ready for our supper with the girls - I brought along my handy party ice container that all the kids remember from our card club days!  
The other side of my card for my blog - 7 in heaven keeping our eyes on the goal of Heaven forever with them!  Our entire family together is my hope and prayer!  
Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: Our marriage stories - "The world needs LIGHTS!"  
Not showing pigs at the fair this year - so the calves have the commodity shed for a nice place.
18 year old Simon is having his feast day with his dad today - St Simon Peter and Paul!  

Getting their itches scratched!  
David will be 15 in a few weeks!  Fair in a few weeks later - the preparation is in full on mode.
Worked on from both sides at once!   Happy Feast day, Simon! 
13 years ago we were in Kansas City at Lumen Christi Monastery to say goodbye to Hallel as she was returning to France after being here in the U.S. while John battled brain cancer and won!  Simon and Paul made this icon together as a woodworking project!  I would have loved to get a picture today, but they were going in two different directions on a busy day on the farm!  

So much in the amazing readings for today from an angel leading St Peter to freedom after being double chained with guards all around him - yet he still was a martyr for his Lord!  We read in 2 Tim:4 now about St Paul's work for the Lord - I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.
From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.  2 Tim 4

Riley the neighbor cat getting lots of attention.  I am thinking that my beautiful Ignatius was a meal for a coyote.  He has been sadly missing for over a week.  
Joy has a new kitten in mind to come to grandma's house and get fat and spoiled.  A little Siamese male.  
My farmer was around this morning.  When the kids are here - it is hard for him to leave.  I need to find a way to end this for today.  
Ice cream cones for celebration of St Peter and St Paul in Kansas City 13 years ago!  They have built a new Monastery now with a family room where we can stay with them and join in their LIFE of prayer and dishes!
Mary is 4 here and helping with dishes in her blue apron.  She is now 17, and a senior in high school.  How I pray that she will ask the Lord's plan for her, and have religious life as one of the possibilities as it is so wonderful to be a Bride of Christ! 
 
David is just about 2 here, and will be 15 in a couple weeks as this was 13 years ago.  How we love our Little Sister and Little Brother blue!  
Mary with her napkin ring from sharing our meals with The Community!  This old Belgian rectory they used when they first came to the U.S. is now gone and there is a new monastery here in the heart of the poor in KCK! 
Inside the chapel at Easter 
Nancy's family during the Triduum.  How we love The Church, Our Lord and Lady, all the Saints, the amazing life of those called to pray and be close to you in religious life or the priesthood!  Jesus, we love and adore you and trust in you.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34 plus many Little Brothers and Little Sisters!
Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul
June 29
"This day has been made holy by the
passion of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.
... These martyrs realized what they taught: 
they pursued justice, they confessed the truth, they died for it."
- St Augustine, Sermon 295
__________________________

 We do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord,
and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus. - 2 Cor 4:5
 
 
Entrance Antiphon (Today’s Liturgy)
These are the ones who, living in the flesh, planted the Church with their blood; they drank the chalice of the Lord and became friends of God.
 
Prayer over the Offerings (Today's Liturgy)
May the prayer of the Apostles, O Lord, accompany the sacrificial gift that we present to your name for consecration, and may their intercession make us devoted to you in celebration of the sacrifice. Through Christ our Lord.
 
Prayer After Communion (Today’s Liturgy)
Grant us, O Lord, who have been renewed by this Sacrament, so to live in the Church, that, persevering in the breaking of the Bread and in the teaching of the Apostles, we may be one heart and one soul, made steadfast in your love. Through Christ our Lord.
 
 
 
 
St Peter was chosen by Christ to be his first Vicar on earth; he was endowed with powers of the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Mt 16:13-19) and charged with the role of Shepherd of Christ's flock (Jn 21:15-17). In St. Peter and his successors, we have a visible sign of unity and communion in faith and charity. Divine grace led St. Peter to profess Christ's divinity.  St. Peter suffered martyrdom by crucifixion under Nero, in about the year 64 AD. He was buried at the hill of the Vatican; recent excavations have revealed his tomb on the very site of St. Peter's Basilica.
St Paul was chosen to form part of the apostolic college by Christ himself on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-16). Selected to bring Christ's name to all peoples (Acts 9:15), he is the greatest missionary of all time, the advocate of pagans, the Apostle of the Gentiles. St. Paul was beheaded in the Tre Fontane along the Via Ostiense and buried nearby, on the site where the basilica bearing his name now stands. Source: Daily Roman Missal, Edited by Rev. James Socías, Midwest Theological Forum, Chicago, Illinois ©2003
 


Easter hat John falling down picture from 1992
LOVE!  
Jesus in The Word!  


2 years ago on this day we got an inch of rain!  Lord, we need rain!  
2 years ago moving cows and calves in pastures with hubby.















Danielle Rose 
Will Morrison 

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Wednesday, June 28, 2023

The nun run girls - "O hearts that seek the LORD!"/Cows around the barn/getting the bug to dress the groups alike - 4 years ago - +JMJ+

4 years ago with the 3 little girls dressed alike - my passion!  We had butchered chickens as a family job in the morning and then the most perfect setting for the girls in their matching outfits...
On the front porch of  Ruth's beautiful playhouse!
Yes, the green grass 4 years ago and the cows and calves right there on the other side of the electric fence!  The baby calves in the long lush grass looking on at this sight of 3 friend cousins.  I am starting to get the bug again knowing that Maria will return in 2 weeks and hopefully we will get a family picture together.  
Joy now 4 years later is 6 years old and loves to have a tea party with grandma when she comes over... so yesterday we had zucchini bread with our tea on the porch and the cows and calves were in the pasture watching us. 
She knows right where the tea set is and always with milk and sugar.  She reminds me that her mom loves her coffee very sweet too, and Joy is like her mom that way.
Pouring our tea with some cows and their calves behind my little red barn.
Farmgirl tea party complete with some cows and zucchini bread grandma found in the freezer.  
Rosary time on the porch reminds me of my father and I praying each day at 3p on my porch for the last 6 months of his life here on hospice.  
Dad very much enjoyed when the cows and calves came up to eat the grass around our barn, too.
They were up around the barn most of the afternoon yesterday.  
Curious white faced calf - it was hard to get a good picture as the grass is so tall.  Yes, the barn is in need of paint.  
 A cute red calf in the tall grass.
Cow peaking through the tall grass with ear tags in both ears - matching earrings I guess.  Yes, the fence needs paint too.  Some things are lower in priority on the farm with so much to do!  

Some pictures of Nancy's time with our nun during the Triduum in Kansas City - Lumen Christi Monastery/LIGHT of Christ.

I am going to have the chance to share about her life tonight with a dozen young women and their chaperones from The Saint Cloud Diocese, who are on a "nun run."  
They are staying at the Parsonage for the night and we are making them some of Verly beef hamburgers and then are sharing for half an hour about our Little Sister Hallel and her call to be a religious sister.  Fully professed Little Sister of the Lamb!  
Nancy and her youngest, Regina Maria, who is now 1 1/2 years old.  

I thought that the 105 Psalm from mass today spoke of the way these girls are asking the Lord to show them his plan for them, and are considering the wonderful option of being his bride as a nun!  
Glory in his holy name;
rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD!
Look to the LORD in his strength;
seek to serve him constantly.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.  Psalm 105
The Grotto of the Nativity of Mary and Jesus is a place of healing and miracles!  

Yes, as a Sister, you truly seek the Lord always and "Seek to serve him constantly".  Little Sister Hallel is a contemplative nun, and each day she needs to receive her Bridegroom in the Eucharist and in the Word!  They spend 2 hours or more in Adoration each day after morning prayer and evening prayer.  Much of their prayer is sung - the sound of angels singing their LOVE and Praise! 

Family Soul Story - Choose Life!: Susan Angela Agnes/Little Sister Hallel - the story of a Call .   
Their humble yet heavenly monastery in the heart of the poor in Kansas City, Kansas.  We are so grateful that they have this foundation in the U.S. as there homebase is in Saint Pierre, France in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains.  
Down the hill in Kansas City from the Little Sisters is the Monastery of the Little Brothers, Light of Mary the Mother of God Monastery.  Their heavenly chapel!  
An American Little Brother David, who is blind and so amazing!  
Hallel showing us the Easter Candle made by Little Sister Judith.  We last were there the second Sunday of Easter in April.
Lumen Christi/LIGHT of Christ Chapel for Easter.  
Pat saying goodnight after night prayer in the Grotto in April.  We are making fake plans to go down there and help our military family move into their house on base in Fort Leavenworth.  We are so excited to have 2 of our daughters living half an hour apart for a year in Kansas.  Only 7 hours from our door to theirs!  

Tomorrow I will have so much to share about our time with the "nun run" girls tonight!  Thank you, Lord, for young women that are asking for your plan for each of them alone.  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Hallelujah

Salve Regina - Hail Holy Queen as is sung at night prayer by Hallel and her Community - Dominican
Angels singing!  

4 years ago with 4 of our 5 children and our 18 grandchildren.  Our nun can only visit home every 3 years.  We have added 5 more grandchildren since.  Bless-bless, Barbara and the 34 plus many Little Sisters and Little Brothers 
Each day through Mary to Jesus.
LOVE!
"The Farm" when mom and dad bought it in Milltown, WI  to get their large family out of the city for the summer in the early 70s
The finished product - we had no running water - just a pump outside.
St Irenaeus, pray for us. 

This picture literally tears my heart out!  To see how much that child in our womb loves us and I them!  O Lord, how did it ever come to be accepted to take the innocent life in our wombs?
Help us our Spiritual Mother of heaven and earth!  
9 years ago in Michigan... my heart aches for our family time there on the Inland Sea of Lake Michigan.
Brother Victor on St Irenaeus - good to know.
Speaking to those that break off from the True Church.  
 
 "For this is why the Word became man,
and the Son of God  became the Son of man:
so that man, by entering into communion
with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship,
might become a son of God." - St Irenaeus

 
"(Christ) has declared the cup, a part of creation,
to be His own Blood, 
from which He causes our blood to flow; 
the bread, a part of creation,
He has established as His own Body, 
from which He gives increase to our bodies.”
 
St. Irenaeus
Nee Smyrna ~ 125-202 AD
Disciple of Polycarp
(Polycarp: disciple of St John the Apostle)
Bishop of Lyons, Father of the Church
Theologian, prolific writer
Masterpiece - Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies)*
*(Detailed refute on teachings of Gnosticism)
Against Heresies is source of the quote above
Feast Day - June 28
 
 
"One should not seek among others the truth that can be easily gotten 
from the Church.  For in her, as in a rich treasury, the apostles have placed
all that pertains to truth, so that everyone can drink this beverage of life. 
She is the door of life." - St Irenaeus












Danielle Rose is amazing and so Catholic!  





 

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