What Mark-Jerzy is teaching me

     Never in a million years did I imagine we would have a baby with problems, not that it mattered. I had actually kind of hoped we would be blessed to have a baby with Downs Syndrome....Syndrome what at word.

    Never did I imagine there even were other Syndromes, I always just heard the word "Downs" identified what it was and never really heard the second part. It was just a word you take for granted.      
     Never had I ever imagined having a baby with a Syndrome, especially since we have 11 healthy children or that there is a whole world of people whose children have any one of the number of Syndromes. I have always thought how beautiful the children were and how much love the parents of these super special kids had.

     Never in a million years did I even think about hearing, "we think your baby has a Syndrome"

     Never did I think I would hear the words "a Syndrome incompatible with life"


     Never did I know how much pain others have gone through......and are still going through

     I never knew how small my love and compassion were and that is one thing Mark-Jerzy has taught me. I know that I would never want to live in the world I lived in before that was so blind to it and now I constantly think that there must be so much more pain out there in the world and that it is more real than I understand and I want to have compassion on people and love as God loves, because I don't.

   Mark-Jerzy is teaching me:

      That God's love is great, that His love is so "other", so infinite, so much more than our human love.
 
      That God's love is incomprehensible and marvelous I knew and believed, but now I know that I do not truly know or truly believe as I should, but I want to. I want to love like He does.
   

Mark-Jerzy's little coffin that Odilio and the kids helped with

      That I can't wait to spend eternity, only in part because Mark-Jerzy is there, but because the reality of God's love and His love being so much more than is possible for a human mind to imagine, then going from surprise to surprise and marvel to marvel, wonder to wonder, and delight in His loving presence and His goodness is ever new.

      Because of Mark-Jerzy I have tasted a tiny bit more of our Loving Father's Goodness and Love and I want more and I want to show it more. I want to walk in God's Grace that allows me to lay aside my failure and sins and truly love.

  "Above all preserve an intense love for each other, since love covers over many a sin"
                                                                I Peter 4:8

Thank you Mark-Jerzy for all you are teaching me!

Thank You Lord for giving Mark-Jerzy to us for those 40 hours and all the time in the womb!




                                   Thank you loving Father for being "Faithful to the end"

   

Prayers by St. Francis De Sales




O love eternal,
my soul needs and chooses you eternally!
Ah, come Holy Spirit,
and inflame our hearts with your love!
To love - or to die!
To die - and to love!
To die to all other love
in order to live in Jesus' love,
so that we may not die eternally.
But that we may live in your eternal love,
O Saviour of our souls,
we eternally sing,
"Live, Jesus!
Jesus, I love!
Live, Jesus, whom I love!
Jesus, I love,
Jesus who lives and reigns
forever and ever.

Amen.


 Be at Peace

Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life;

rather look to them with full hope as they arise.

God, whose very own you are,

will deliver you from out of them.

He has kept you hitherto,

and He will lead you safely through all things;

and when you cannot stand it,

God will bury you in his arms.



Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;

the same everlasting Father who cares for you today

will take care of you then and everyday.

He will either shield you from suffering,

or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace,

and put aside all anxious thoughts and imagination.
St. Francis de Sales 1567-1622

Special Thanks!

Especially since we have been able give away so much of it! More than a few of you have sent boxes. They have been full of books, chocolate, religious items, a coffee maker, spatulas, Tony's Cajun Seasoning, cookie cutters, and many other amazing things. Easter has presented us with special opportunities to give away so much. The books have been great. Staff here at the nursing home come to us to see if we have a book, like on the subject of prayer. I gave a copy to a staff member then a few days later she tells me she gave it to her daughter who really enjoyed it and wonders if we have another copy. Still looking.... which is one of the reasons I wanted to give this quick update to say "Thank you!" and that your support is being put to good use! I really need to update what our needs are but books are so great and people seem to really appreciate them. Here is the link to what we can use: http://rooftopmissions.blogspot.com/p/supporting-us-in-missions.html and I will update it soon! Paper products seem to be hard to get items here.

New wheel barrow we were able to buy because of donors sending money for specific needs!

Here we are working on the back board for the Basketball hoop! One is now up and we have visitors to play very often!

    Some of you sent money for the Basketball project, which we are still working on. (I am going to do a big post with lots of pictures on the progress). Some of you sent money for tools and stuff for the Marian Home. This has allowed me to fix and repair things for the Sisters without charging them for materials. I now even have a book with little projects the Sisters and staff at the Marian Home write things that need fixed. If someone feels the Lord is leading them to fund this ministry regularly that would be great. We are praying about how to maybe start a ministry to teach the young people practical skills, like how to repair a faucet (the pipe as it is called here) or how to make bread. 

Please continue to pray and make sacrifices for our ministry here. 

God Bless you all!

from Abandonment to Divine Providence, by Fr. Caussade

I believe that if those souls that tend towards sanctity were instructed as to the conduct they ought to follow, they would be spared a good deal of trouble. I speak as much of people in the world as of others. If they could realise the merit concealed in the actions of each moment of the day: I mean in each of the daily duties of their state of life, and if they could be persuaded that sanctity is founded on that to which they give no heed as being altogether irrelevant, they would indeed be happy. If, besides, they understood that to attain the utmost height of perfection, the
safest and surest way is to accept the crosses sent them by Providence at every moment, that the true philosopher’s stone is submission to the will of God which changes into divine gold all their occupations, troubles, and sufferings, what consolation would be theirs! What courage would they not derive from the thought that to acquire the friendship of God, and to arrive at eternal glory, they had but to do what they were doing, but to suffer what they were suffering, and that what they
wasted and counted as nothing would suffice to enable them to arrive at eminent sanctity: far more so than extraordinary states and wonderful works. O my God! how much I long to be the missionary of Your holy will, and to teach all men that there is nothing more easy, more attainable, more within reach, and in the power of everyone, than sanctity. How I wish that I could make them understand
that just as the good and the bad thief had the same things to do and to suffer; so also two persons, one of whom is worldly and the other leading an interior and wholly spiritual life have, neither of them, anything different to do or to suffer; but that one is sanctified and attains eternal happiness by submission to Your holy will in those very things by which the other is damned because he does them to please himself, or endures them with reluctance and rebellion. This proves that it is only
the heart that is different. Oh! all you that read this, it will cost you no more than to do what you are doing, to suffer what you are suffering, only act and suffer in a holy manner. It is the heart that must be changed. When I say heart, I mean will. Sanctity, then, consists in willing all that God wills for us. Yes! sanctity of heart is a simple “fiat,” a conformity of will with the will of God.
What could be more easy, and who could refuse to love a will so kind and so good? Let us love it then, and this love alone will make everything in us divine.