Ultrasound

So I had my first ever ultrasound today.  Now that was really interesting.  And not only was it interesting, but the woman who did the ultrasound was the youngest of 12 children. What kind of neat-o coinkydink is that?

In Loving Memory

 So my husband's father passed away from pancreatic cancer on February 16th and was buried on February 21st.  He died in a peaceful and beautiful way, surrounded by family, continuous prayers and having totally emptied himself of all things of this world.  Only those who saw him on his very last day can understand the total emptiness of self.   And so we had to let him go as God had called him. During his last hours we had read some of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard for the dying.... actually some of them were said a few times since he seemed to be passing and then perk up again when the priest came or certain prayers were said.  And there he died in great peace after we had just said the Rosary and were mid-way through the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  Those last hours can never be expressed in words as they are some of the most cherished moments I can ever remember.

We were very blessed to have been very close to Pop.  And in my many memories I think my favorite one is that he always treated me as a daughter.  Not an in-law, never an out-law, always a daughter.  How many things can I say he helped us with over the years, I cannot even begin to count.   But so many of those things are a constant reminder of the great love he had for his family.... and especially his grandchildren.  Marigold took a very special fancy to Grandpa and the last time she saw him, put on quite a display of show-off-ness for him.  Of course she was just showing him where the various parts of her anatomy were like her eyes and nose, ears and mouth but it was a precious moment as it was one of the last times he laughed.

 The wake was quite nice as wakes go.  The Rosary and Prayers as well as a talk by one of our local priests was packed with people.

 I think this was the loveliest casket I've ever seen.  The Pieta was in every corner.  The Last Supper on the sides.

 The grandchildren were all color coded by family... mine were in red... of course.  It was so much easier to tell which children belonged to whom... I was tempted to put some of the stooges in someone else's color, but refrained.

 Never a moment when Eowyn can't find a book to read.

 One of my husbands' brothers put together a really great picture video full of fond memories. It was really well done.

 The Requiem High Mass was absolutely beautiful.  Our wonderful choir did a superb job.   For months I had desired to sing for his funeral (not that I wanted to have the funeral but it was something that I had to accept and the Requiem music is some of my favorite) but no matter how much you firmly believe in God's Will, in Eternity, and accept death as a reality and a friend (one cannot get to Heaven without first passing through death),  one is not always prepared for the human side of things.  So I had to give up the idea and just be blessed that we had so many people who sacrificed much to prepare and sing for this day with great love.

 Enough cannot be said about how wonderful our priest was through all this. The number of times we called him at weird hours of the day!   This was his first Requiem Mass.  There were probably close to 250 people present.

 This day was a very bitterly cold day as we stood outside at the cemetery.

 And so we said farewell and.... Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord and Perpetual Light shine upon him, may he rest in Peace.

 The reception was quite nice, chuck full of food as our TLM community is pretty well-known to have.  Close to 200 people stayed for the meal.

 A little mafia game of Go Fish.

We miss you!!

Feast of the Holy Family

On the Traditional Calendar we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family today.   This is such a beautiful feast day and one we, families, should really cling to in this age of our anti-family society.  We all know the typical general, big attacks-at-large on the family in our society today: abortion, contraception, impurity in the grossest ways, divorce, sinful (non)marriage.  But there are so many other attacks, particularly on the large family:  the ridicule, the demeaning comments, oh... there are many things.  However, these are actually blessings from God.  Since our goal as families is to imitate the Holy Family, we need to imitate the actual life of the Holy Family.  That means we need to live out the constant daily sacrifices necessary to  live a life of holiness and virtue and to pass that on to our children.

There are days, like today, that I wonder what I've been doing for the last 16-1/2 years since the children starting coming along.  I thought I was trying to raise good, upstanding Catholic children, capable of thinking, of living a life of virtue and holiness and just being plain ol' nice kids (who wear socks to Mass and don't have green marker on their face)!  I thought I was actually working at all this.  Today I wondered if that adage about sitting around doing nothing be eating bonbons was what I was doing all these years....   But alas, these types of days are just another way for God to teach us that we need humility, that we need the perfect and infinite humility of Jesus Christ in order to become holy.

We must accept all the humiliations, sacrifices, set-backs, irritations, hurtfulness, sorrows, as blessings from God, for they are merely His way of preparing us, of purifying us so that we can see Him one day in Heaven.  The family is the perfect place to learn humility because we can fool those out there but rarely can we fool our family.

Today we heard the Gospel about Christ being taken to Jerusalem, doing his duty in the Eyes of God by teaching in the Temple, how Our Blessed Mother and Joseph did not have perfect understanding of this and then how He (GOD!) went home and was subject to Mary and Joseph... for 30 years.  God, subject to mere human beings, His own creatures... for 30 years. So that is what we, too, must do, be willing, as parents, to live a life of self-sacrifice and die to ourselves to raise our children as best we can by the Grace of God.  The Grace will be there but we need to ask for it, we need to accept it.  God will provide the graces necessary but it will also mean, as it did to Our Lady, that our hearts will be pierced, that we will have much to ponder in our hearts, that we will need to be willing to make all the sacrifices necessary to bring all our children to Heaven.  That's an overwhelming thought when you are going to have your 12th child.   And these sacrifices will come daily. Not just when they take off for their future vocation or crisis comes up, but daily.  Every day.  Multiple times a day.  Multitudinous times a day.  No matter what they do in life, we, as parents, will always be responsible for them.  Thank our Good God Above for priests who are there to provide the Graces through the Sacraments so that we can raise our children.

And what a way to celebrate! Don't laugh but these are our first Christmas cookies but we will call them Holy Family Cookies since we were blessed with this gigantic basket and pail full of cookies just in time to celebrate today. Aragorn's sister has always made the most amazing plethora of cookies, candies and goodies every Christmas.  We are finally well enough to enjoy some treats.

Happy Feast Day to all those beautiful families I'm so blessed to know, who are so diligent in raising their families. Of course you probably don't know who you are because you feel as unholy as I do! haha  May God bless our families as we so need it in this world today.

Children's Group Picture

 

Horses and Saints

 The poor Assisi Garden gets burned due to the overwhelming weed population.
The drought had no effect on the weeds that's for certain.  Our crops were over 1/2 what they should have been, however the price went up on the corn so we did alright. At least broke even plus a little so that's something to be grateful about.

 We have an All Saints Day Party coming up next week so the kids have been gathering costumes.

 Marigold was St. Joan of Arc

 Poppy was "St. Woosey"  (St. Lucy)

 She would like you to see the eyeballs she's so very proud of.

 Galadriel is St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

 Eowyn was St. Philomena... of course.

 Frodo was St. Francis of Assisi

 Merry was St. Peter with the Keys of the Kingdom.

 Eleanor was St. Kateri Tekakwitha

 Rosie was St. Therese the Little Flower

 Bilbo was Daniel in the Lions' Den

 Pippin was Juan Diego (Tilma painted courtesy of Eowyn)

 Last night I took them dressed up to a few friends' houses so they could wish them a Happy Feast of All Saints and promise prayers tomorrow on All Souls' Day for the deceased members of their families. I won't say they didn't enjoy some treats in the bargain.

 Last place was Grandma and Grandpa's house where we enjoyed a fun little All Saints Day Party

 We were blessed to run into some cousins, too!

Marigold likes the high places.