For the Bonny Bairn and Her Mama

It's early Good Friday morning and all my thoughts and prayers are actually on new life.  My dear friend,Lissa is in labor at last!  Please take a moment to pray for her and her wee bairn today.  Updates on "the news" will be posted by the girls in the Cottage. Here is a beautiful novena that my daughter and I will make a nine hour novena for Lissa today.  Won't you join us?

NOVENA IN HONOR OF OUR LADY OF LA LECHE

PRAYER

Lovely Lady of La Leche, most loving Mother of our Savior, Jesus Christ and my Mother, please listen to my humble prayer. Your heart knows my every wish, my every need. I trust, dear Mother, that you will shelter me beneath your protecting mantle, like what you did to your Son. Intercede to Him that I may have the courage and the strength to overcome whatever difficulty surrounds me. Give me the grace to be faithful to you always and may you be my shining inspiration now and forever.

Our Lady of La Leche, pray for us.

LITANY OF OUR MOTHER OF MOTHERS

Lord have mercy on us Christ have mercy on us
Lord have mercy on us Christ hear us
Lord have mercy on us Christ graciously hear us
God the Father in heaven have mercy on us
God the Son, redeemer of the world
God the Holy Spirit
Holy Trinity, one God
Holy Mary Pray for us
Chaste daughter of the Father
Chaste spouse of the Holy Spirit
Chaste mother of the Son of God
Vessel of election
Throne of the Divine Majesty
Tabernacle of the Divine Word
Chalice of the Divine Life
Mother of God
Mother of the infant Christ
Consecration of womanhood
Hope of Christian womanhood
Model of Christian womanhood
Blessed in your motherhood
Inspiration of holy motherhood
Consolation of motherhood
Protector of motherhood
Blessing of all Christian motherhood
Exaltation of motherhood
Sanctification of motherhood
Queen of the most holy family
Queen of chaste family life
Queen of mothers
Mother of happy delivery
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world…………Spare us, Lord
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world…………Graciously hear us Lord
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world…………Have mercy on us

Our Lady of Happy Delivery………Pray for us who have recourse to you.

Let us pray:

Cherished Virgin, heaven’s queen, chosen before all women to be the mother of the Son of God, Mary, my mother, who in your maternity so sanctified the state of holy motherhood, imploringly I come to you, humbly I beseech you, confidently I trust in you. I know, that by your powerful intercession, you can help me in my need. In you I take refuge dear Virgin. Poor and needy, I turn devoutly to you and place all confidently in your hands. Accept my humble trust, hear my petition and come to my aid, dear Mother of mothers.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord
Be it done to me according to your Word.

Mother Mary, please bless Lissa's baby. Make Lissa physically and emotionally strong and fill her with abundant love and patience to be able to bear and to nurse her baby girl well. If the baby should have pain and other difficulties, you shall be her consolation. Give them both hope. In the midst of any difficulty, please help her to be cheerful. Thank you for giving this baby to Lissa.

As they..were eating,

Jesus said, "Amen I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."  They began to be distressed and to say to HIm, one by one, "Surely it is not I?" He said to them, "One of the Twelve, the one who dips with Me into the dish...It would be better for that man if he had never been born."

While they were eating, He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take it:  This is my body." (Mark 14:18-26)

And likewise the cup, saying, "This is My blood, the new covenant, which will be shed for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28)

Oh, I LOVE that kick!

I felt this baby move several weeks ago, but this week, I'm consistently feeling real live kicks!  It's sort of odd to have the kicking coincide with the nausea (when WILL that go away?), but I'll take it anyway.  With every little bump, I smile, reassured that Baby is really there.  And if this baby is only five inches long, he (or she) has clearly inherited the dominant soccer gene.  I'm thinking a left-footed striker in this vein:

Our Annual Bluebell Day

Yesterday, we ventured to Bull Run Regional Park for one of our family's favorite springtime traditions:  the Bluebell Walk.  Actually, we walked very little this year. We took a trail in just far enough to allow me to plop down at the side of the creek and survey the scene. And it was a glorious scene! The flowers are beyond lovely and my children always revel in the day. There was plenty of nature study: a huge Canada goose steadfastly sitting on its nest amidst the noise and mischief of my little goslings, minnows and tadpoles to catch and release, bugs to study and to swat, and, of course, the bluebells. But from my place, sprawled on the blanket, I did some child study too.

These two little girls knelt right down in the mud to use creek water for their watercolors.

We're not sure this child ever left the blanket. He's happy to observe, draws very nicely, but would prefer to stay completely clean. He doesn't touch dirt.

This little boy isn't little any more. He' s my intrepid nature guy, who was actually a bit tentative this year as we started out. Something about being too old for this stuff. But his little brothers insisted on his adventuresome leadership and soon he was rollicking in the woods like the pro he is.

The little boys flitted happily from catching minnows, to bouncing on trees, to admiring flowers, to re-eanacting the Battle of Bull Run. Nicholas cried the whole hike back. He just didn't want to leave.

There was a seventh child there, though he truly isn't a child anymore. He was the shutterbug who took the pictures, the good sport who carried the heavy packs in and his little sister out. It may very well have been his last Bluebell Day, a thought that brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat. He captured the day so beautifully for us with his camera and then returned home to give those watercolors a try.

I wonder..

I wonder how Jesus felt when the crowd wanted him to be their king?...

I wonder who the people were who shouted,"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"?...

I wonder why Jesus the King rode on a donkey instead of a horse?...

I wonder what kind of king Jesus would be?...

I wonder what it would be like to live in Jesus' kingdom?...

--from Young Children and Worship