His love for Her..

Our Dearest  Blessed Pope John Paul loved Our Lady so much. 

 He gave Her : his life, his love, his trust and his faith in Her. 

She in return  protect him and gave him the strength to endure the weight of the Church 

until his very last breath.

 

 This Saturday is Pope John Paul II birthday and on Oct. 20th, he will be canonize into a great Saint in the books of The Holy Mother Church.

In his honor, we are giving away a Pope John Paul II hair bows at www.hairbows4life.com under giveaways (until supplies last). Please limited to one per family and give it 4 to 6 weeks. 

 

 

May this beautiful month of Our Dearest Mother give you the same strength, wisdom, faith and love ,

 She so dearly gives to all!

My Easter Miracle

It is time to share with you all our Easter Miracle.  Many of you know my story of the lost of my son Benedicto last year.  The whole in my heart has been big for some time.  My youngest is going to turn 5 in the Falll and we have lost two since.    In November, I was getting overwhelm with the idea of  not having any more children. I am very grateful for these dear four blessings God has given me! I wanted to rest this feeling of yawning for more children if it was not in God plans.

So I turn to my dearest friend, St. Therese of the Little Flowers and I did a novena, asking, or more like begging God to let me close this hole in my heart and just take what I have on Earth and live it to its fullest.  I knew if God would let me know that these four children on Earth would be it than I could finally really move on in a way. On the ninth day, without the knowledge to anyone at all,  I received my 12 roses from My husband.  I knew than that I was going to blessed once again with another little soul on Earth.

Well, that was in November and months would pass, cycles would come and go and many of them, I thought for sure we had conceive  but than temperatures would drop and cycles would start again.

Lent started and I prayed daily for some type of Easter Miracle  especially knowing that this Easter Sunday was our one year anniversary of the delivery of my son.  But it's all in his hand, I mean all of it!!

Than we had a new Pope Fransico , a dear gentle fisherman, and on St.Joseph's day, he was going to   take place as the next Pope.   In God greatest love for us, we conceived on St. Joseph's day. A true miracle because I have not every ovulated earlier than day 20 in the past five years and that day was day 14.

I didn't sense it until Easter Sunday when just looking at my temperatures, I knew that God has granted us the greatest privileged again, to bear a child for His Glory.

To top it off ,  Our Due date is our wedding Anniversary  December 8th and which was also the date that I had conceived our Little Benedictio two years before!

So I beg you to please keep us in your prayers for a healthy pregnancy  as you can imagine, I am scared to loss again. But I know that I never really lost anything just gain Angels for God's kingdom.  But I would love to hold this little soul , another of His greatest gifts,  in my hands again.

In Your Mercy O Lord, hear my prayer!

Storm the Heavens for PRAYERS!

Please read the email below from a sister in Christ Lisa (whom I don't know) for another Sister in Chris Pamela who is in great need of your prayers.  Please pass this along, post it, face book it, anything to storm the Heavens for prayers for Pamela and her family!  There is a sign up below to follow to do a Novena to St. Gianna.

Hello friends-

I am writing this email in the hopes of asking you to join me in a special
time of prayer for one of my closest long-term friends, Pamela.

Pamela is a 37 year old wife and stay-at-home mother to three young boys
(Elliot, 6, Finn, 4, and Ethan 19 months). And she is currently about 25
weeks pregnant with baby number 4. She and her husband Erik live in NYC.

About two months ago, Pamela began experiencing severe migraines which her
doctors believed were pregnancy-related. But as they treated her and she
did not improve, they did an MRI only to discover a massive tumor on her
brain. She immediately had surgery to remove as much of the tumor as
possible. Over 90% was removed, but it was impossible to get all of it.
Thankfully, baby came through surgery just fine. Then the pathology report
came-- bringing incredibly heart-wrenching news. Pamela has aggressive,
stage 4 brain cancer. She was given a bleak prognosis of living an average
of 13 months. As devastating as this diagnosis is, it is all the more
complicated by her pregnancy. She cannot begin all of the recommended
treatments immediately, and there are some very difficult (almost
impossible) decisions to make regarding care for baby balanced with her own
care.

In short, Pamela needs a miracle. Both she and Erik are people of deep
faith. Interestingly enough, Erik just came into full communion with the
Catholic Church less than two weeks ago at the Vigil - days after Pamela's
surgery. They are desperate for Christ's healing touch, and are seeking the
wisdom of God in all their decisions.

I have taken on their cause and have been committed to asking as many
people as possible to pray for Pamela and her family. Specifically, I am
feeling called to do a novena to St. Gianna (an Italian wife and mother of
three, who discovered a tumor on her uterus during pregnancy with her
fourth baby, and died soon after delivering her.) St. Gianna's feast day is
April 28, so I will be praying April 20-28 specifically for Pamela's
healing. Would you consider joining me in prayer for this dear sister?
I have set up an email notification so that you can sign up to receive the
novena prayer for the nine days. (I promise there will be no more emails
beyond this.) In addition to the prayer there will be a short story either
about the life of St. Gianna, or about Pamela so those of you who don't
know this lovely woman can have a sense of who you're praying for.

If you'd like to sign up, here is the link:

https://tinyletter.com/propamela


In addition, I will be hosting two opportunities for communal prayer during
the novena. On both Sundays of the novena, April 21 and 28, I am inviting
anyone in the greater Seattle area to come to my home at 2 pm to pray the
novena, followed by a rosary and then to share in tea and cookies. I don't
think this time will be more than one hour, but in my experience when "two
or three gather" there is a deep sense of God's presence as the one who
hears our prayers. So you are invited to come if you like, but of course
attendance is not required to do the novena.

Because I have set this up online, feel free to forward to link to anyone
you know who might also be interested in praying for Pamela. Really, the
more prayer, the better.

Thank you for reading, and being willing to consider joining me in prayer.

In hopes of a miracle!
Sarah

{pretty, happy, funny, real} Easter

 Capturing the context of contentment in everyday living
                                                    Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter

Good Friday

Our Home-school group kids put together the Passion of Christ. They did a good job. We are very proud of the kids which mostly were 10 and under.

  

                                       My son is the Roman Soldier next to the flowers.

  The Oldest was Veronica in the purple and the youngest was one of the weeping women in the yellow. (She acts the part very well!)

   

A Live Oak tree on the church's grounds reminds me so much of Christ, 

His arms wide open, lives forever and so much Alive!!

Easter Sunday at the Farm. 

A friend invited us to their farm for Easter Sunday. We  change before we head out there. Didn't even thing about taking pictures of their Easter Dresses!

 

I think my son thought we were heading to the beach safari with that outfit.

Getting ready for the egg hunt.

They even hid eggs in the chicken coop. 

She was a bit disappointed in the lack of eggs. 

Now to feast on the eggs!

Than it poured. Can you see the spec of pink? 

That is Dolphingirl running for her life. 

The husband were in the barn eating left over roasted pig with the kids.

Than the rain came and the boys played where else? But the pig pen in a mud feast!

A Glorious Easter Season for all!

Mary's bruise on her face; La Macarena

                                             

La Macarena has a story of the bruise on her face.

One notices a bruise on the right cheek of the life like image. This was not painted by any artist. During one of the Holy Week processions, a drunkard in the crowd shouted insults at Our Lady and finally threw a glass bottle at her, hitting her cheek. It left the bruise that is still visible today. Many artists have tried to repair the damage to the cheek but each time, as soon as the restoration was completed, the bruise would return as if newly made. When the man who committed this terrible offense against the Mother of God became sober, he saw the bruise and repented for his crime. For his penance, he resolved to walk before the statue each Holy Week with chains on his feet and carrying a cross to expiate his sin. 

After his death, his descendants continued this practice. To this day, it is said, a family member continues this act. It is a marvelous example of the reparation of a family for the sin of one of its members. 

Its is amazing how we bruise our Lord and Mother's face with all of our sins. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy.

We have now for a few years been watching this unbelievable and breath taking tradition in Seville Spain. One day we'll watch it live in Seville. But for now, online steaming is what we have. Thank goodness.

.

During Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Seville, Spain there are processions in which enormous floats are carried around the streets of Seville by teams of "costaleros" (bearers) followed by hundreds of "nazarenos" (penitents). Many of these floats are religious works of the art that date back as fars as the 17th century, each showing a small part of the Easter story.

These processions each of which takes many hours between leaving its parish at midnight on Good Friday and returning there after following a set route around the city to the Cathedral and back.

Male are the costaleros who carry the float. It's a once in a lifetime honor to do so. The floats may weigh over 20000kg and on average there are 60 costaleros at a time taking turns due to each one is supporting a weight of 50kg for about 8 hours.

In 2004 and 2005 the rain cancel many of these and men were crying in the street knowing that they will never get a chance to be a costaleros. 

Its a beauty of the church to have such traditions that show the world our love for Christ.

Here are few different floats that are used during Holy Week.

We watch it live on here: Yesterday was just amazing!!

Have Fruitful Holy Week!

The Friday of Our Lady of Sorrow

In some Hispanic cultures, there is this  tradition that the Friday before Palm Sunday is offer to Our Lady of Sorrows for she will soon be in her greatest sorrow as she watches her son die  for our sins.

 We usually  change up our alter or mantle and place a picture of Our Lady, we have a picture of 

La Macarena

We add some flowers and three candles for the Holy Trinity.

On this day last year, the Friday before Palm Sunday, God was very kind with me (in what I call my hardest lent ever) and let me experience some of our Lady's Sorrow of losing her son, as I lost my dearest son Benedicto.  

I headed to the coldest room in my life and waited more than 12 hours to deliver a son who was Deliver to Christ at 3 am March 31st.   He let me have a true experiences of Holy Week that I will never forget.  

Once again, on the 1 year anniversary of this very sad day of my life, it will be  this Easter Sunday, the Most Glorious day of the year! But instead of having the sense of lost, I will have this joyous day knowing that my Benedicto with his brother and sister are truly  living the Glorious Easter with Christ  himself. 

On a side note, while I was pregnant with my son, I wanted to name him Francisco but when we lost him and had to deliver him, we named him, Benedicto. I would of never thought that a year later we would have another Pope and his name would be Francisco. 

Please if you kindly remember to keep me in your prayers this Easter Sunday.

Have a Blessed Palm Sunday!

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday living

                                           Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{Pretty}

Making my ugly Home-management binder into

Into something prettier. Here is how .

{ Happy }

 She is so happy when she is doing her "school work".  I have started back again using the Workbox system for the kids but using a bind with folders and everyday we have to have something different in these folders for Miss. Gotta Do School Work Girl.  

The kids were happy with this pizza made with  cauliflower crust pizza.

{Funny}

Licking it clean means she must of approved of the raw chocolate avocado pudding.

 I didn't let her know what was really in it. 

{REAL}

Pope Francisco . He is different but so loved already.  But I have to admit, I miss Pope Benedicto very much and it is hard to know that he is still living and not our pope at the same time. 

But God is so good to us and give us another sweet Holy Father to love and to pray for.