Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Happy and Blessed Feast Day to you all!

Today we went to Marian Valley for this special feast with a lovely blogging friend and her sweet daughter!

This time last year I had desperately wanted to go but I was feeling deathly weak, being in the grip of a nasty heart virus...I was bawling my eyes out and begging Our Lady to heal me in that 150th anniversary year.....here I am today, very well and very much recovered from any heart troubles or complaints, in otherwords, deeply grateful.

The night before I had tried my hand at making the blueberry muffins Jessica suggested over at Catholic Cuisine but I couldn't quite create the 'break open and ooze' look to them but everyone enjoyed them.

I even tried to make a batch with chocolate inside but they definately didn't ooze, so I'll have to re-think how I would do it next year... editing to add, I've found the right recipe for this, Carmel Easter Egg Muffins!

My children and my friend's daughter were part of the beautiful procession for the day. The shrine goes to alot of trouble to dress the children for this honour, they always have so much fun together.

Here they pass... my Faustina was so happy to have her best friend with her, a special treat!

This is a special photo and it was a scene that moved one particular lady that day. This lady came up to me later and said she had made some of the banners for the shrine, the one above - the St Michael banner, is one of them.

When she saw my friend's daughter carrying it, she remembered her own daughter from 18 years ago, one that she did not hold in her arms for long in this world, a little Down Syndrome girl.

It was the passing of her daughter that had brought this lady back to her faith....she'd had a dream that her daughter had come to her saying she was with Jesus...

To see this sweet and lovely girl carrying the banner she made, moved her greatly.

Look at them all! Aren't they too cute for themselves?? What a lovely bunch of children and all waiting patiently for the procession to start...

My Ambrose, holding onto that bell for dear life. He had the honoured roll of ringing for Our Lord.

Francis leading the Eucharistic procession to the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The children process by, throwing petals and saying, "I adore you Jesus."

Winding their way to the beautiful nature-filled shrine.

Father, holding the monstrance and just been seen at the foot of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Processing back to the chapel for benediction.

Each year for this feast the Fathers have everyone come up for an individual blessing with Our Lord in the monstrance.

It is truly the highlight of the day.

Father had just given the most beautiful sermon on woundedness - all the different types - spiritual, emotional, physical. It had me thinking, I walked away edified and renewed in my need to pray for healing in all with faith and trust. He had asked us to ask God to heal our wounds as we received the individual blessing and to remember that Our Lady was standing by our sides with her hand on our shoulders (like in confirmation) asking for her Divine Son to intercede for us.

After the individual Eucharistic blessing, each person walked by my Francis and dipped their hand in the bowl of Lourdes water.

" Hey! Where are you off to, dear boy?? "

....off to have a good time, let me assure you!

My children have blogger names in honour of their confirmation saint, or the saint they love!

Confirmation at Marian Valley

Here is my eldest daughter on her confirmation day (8 Feb 2009) I have decided in future on my blog I will refer to her by her confirmation name 'Faustina'.

Faustina had decided many, many years ago that she would take this name after she was told she had been baptised on Mercy Sunday (a movable feast) the year of her birth and had loved the read outloud of the lovely book The Young Life of Saint Maria Faustina.

Here we all are. I intend to give all my children online names - finally - using their confirmation saints name or a saint connected to them in some way.

Ds 14: Francis (his confirmation saint)

Dd 11: Faustina (her confirmation saint)

Dd 9: Therese (she already knows what her confirmation saint will be!)

Ds 6: George (he LOVES Saint George so we will use that until he is confirmed)

Ds 4: Ambrose (This dear boy was born on St Ambrose's feast)

Dd 1: Anna (She was baptised on Candlemas day and Anna the prophetess is mentioned in the bible on this feastday, also I was very much praying to St Anne before, during and after her birth, clinging to her, in fact!)

These two, sweet girls are best friends. They were both delighted when they realised they were going to be confirmed together, her friend took the name Lucy.

My darling girl who is growing so quickly. A girl that mothers everyone, who is always laughing and flashing those dimples, who loves her faith...a great blessing indeed.

Therese and Anna together.

Here is the veil that Faustina used for her First Holy Communion. The headpiece had been fashioned into two hearts - Sacred and Immaculate, the materials all originally come from my wedding dress, which I blogged about here.

Faustina's dress was picked up in a second hand sale for a couple of dollars, and yet it looked so beautiful, who would ever know? (Except everyone reading of course!!!)

My mother with George. A special bond is forming between the two as mum is schooling George this year, while I school the three older children. Mum has helped me with Therese like this too, just helps me take on the new child with a little more ease by teaching them some of the first year basics.

Here is the Bishop with all the confirmation children, proudly showing their certificates. It was a beautiful Mass and ceremony.

One of the homeschooling mothers made the confirmation cake, it looked lovely!

Father who is in charge of Marian Valley, has a bit of Scottish in him (he has a lovely little Maltese dog aptly named - Angus) and he plays the bagpipes with gusto. He was the pied piper this day, with hordes of children following him in the valley after this photo.

The Bishop and the children enjoyed a rather crowded buggy ride in the valley, the kids thought it terrific!

There are two of my boys, Francis and Ambrose, enjoying the ride...the ones with the 50's crew cuts!! (my speciality!)

George enjoyed the ride as well...it was a lovely finish to a beautiful day.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Happy Feast Day!

The children and I travelled to Marian Valley for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Thanksgiving...was continually echoing thorough my soul. Thanksgiving for so many things, through the powerful intercession of Our Lady under this most beautiful title.

This year we sewed miraculous medals inside the scapulars of each member of our family, in order to make sure everyone is wearing one without the worry of the medal falling off.

We have had for a few years now, our Miraculous Medal prayer petition mobile, where we pin the intentions we pray for daily and the prayer we recite is: "Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."

Here is 'dear boy' who turned 4 the day before - 7th of December. Dear Boy was born at 9pm at night, on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, in that year it was the 150th anniversary of the proclaimation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Our oldest child, ds 14 is also celebrating his baptismal day, today.

We were particularly thankful for the prayers answered for dh's new job. He put in his application at a nursing home directly opposite our home on the feast of the Miraculous Medal (27th of Nov) and he was interviewed the next day and given work immediately on the feast of St Catherine Labore (28th of Nov)

Intially we had made a flying novena to the Infant of Prague and within that time dh because very certain of what line of work he needed to apply for. Then he approached the nursing home across the road during the feast days connected to the prayer, "Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." - since praying for the US elections back in November we have started praying this prayer using our rosary beads, on each Pater bead we recite the Memorare, on the Ave beads we recite the Miraculous Medal prayer.

We have always entrusted dh's work under the patronage of St Joseph, so we visited his shrine at Marian Valley as well.

I said to the children that we have the whole Holy Family to thank for recent graces received and so we will particularly celebrate on the 10th of this month - the feast of the Holy House of Loreto.

Here is the beautiful shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes...when asked by St Bernadette who she was, Our Lady finally replied, "I am The Immaculate Conception" Father talked beautifully on these words today during the homily at the Mass in Our Lady's honour.

Look at that beautiful little ladybug at the bottom of the flowers!

Marian Valley is full of these Agapanthus "Lily of the Nile" - they're blue or white heads are so Marian!

This beautiful shirne is still being built but I am sure it will be dedicated under the title of today's feast.

Oldest and youngest daughters...enjoying the natural beauty of this Valley.

Today I am particularly thankful for this blessing, born in January this year - named in honour of the Annunciation, where the Angel Gabriel announced that Our Lady was "Full of Grace" - this biblical greeting is very unique and is one of the biblical references to Our Lady's Immaculate Conception:

"The English translation, "Hail, Full of Grace," is based on the Greek of Gospel of Luke 1:28, "Χαίρε, Κεχαριτωμένη", Chaire kecharitomene, a phrase which can most literally be translated: "Rejoice, you who have been graced." The latter word, kecharitomene, is the passive voice, present perfect participle of the verb "to grace" in the feminine gender, vocative case; therefore the Greek syntax indicates that the action of the verb has been fully completed in the past, with results continuing into the future. Put another way, it means that the subject (Mary) was graced fully and completely at some time in the past, and continued in that fully graced state."

Praying for the elections in a beautiful place...

During the US election week we were fortunate to get away for a week long holiday, to the Gold Coast. We decided to travel to Marian Valley in the Gold Coast hinterland on our Tuesday (Melbourne Cup day in Aus) to make a day long pilgrimage to pray for the US elections that were to be decided the next day, Australian time.

My precious little girl...

We had been praying the memorare prayer and "Mary, conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee." as often as we could, to find a nice rhythm, we used our rosary beads, on each Our Father bead we offered a memorare, on the Hail Mary beads, the "Oh Mary, conceived without sin..."

Marian Valley has a magnificent outdoor Stations of the Cross which we followed and prayed along, it was the Stations of the Cross with a pro-life theme.

The day itself was overcast with a little rain and a little sunshine here and there. The valley itself was so beautiful. Here is the Jacaranda tree in full bloom.

We also decided to offer the 4 mysteries of the rosary after the stations of the cross, we would travel from shrine to shrine to do this.

Each scene is beautiful with a natural backdrop to each one.

Here are the children at the end of the stations of the cross, what a beautiful scene.

Just looking over at Padre Pio's shrine.

We had walked to the end of the valley until we reached the bushland, where we followed a track that took us to "Our Lady of the Southern Cross", at the base of a big tree in the middle of the rainforest.

Right next to this shrine is the entrance to the bush walk to the shrine of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.

Each shrine is different and beautiful, and this shrine is one of the valley's highlights.

As we gave out each decade in each mystery we would move to a different Marian shrine each time, here we are at Our Lady of Lourdes shrine.

Finally...to the beautiful shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, praying for the US elections.

A new shrine being built....what a beautiful statue.

Our Lady of Fatima shrine nestled in this corner of the valley..so lush and beautiful.

A closer shot...

Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for Australia, pray for the U.S!

Along the stations of the cross track, looking down at the Resurrection scene in the distance.

Looking back up at the stations of the cross track.

Such peaceful, natural scenes...a place of peace and serenity.

Slowly making our way back to the outdoors church.

As we came out of the rainforest, it had started to rain!

Looking into the church.

This beautiful valley, dedicated to Our Lady...

New shrines being built at present.

The children love this place, it is full of nature and signs of their faith, what a beautiful combinaton, what lovely childhood memories to create.

We had prayed and prayed this day and into the next waiting to hear the news, of course it was profoundly disappointing and my 13 year old wondered what had become of all those prayers?

These are the probing questions that children must ask. We ask them ourselves, quite often. Why? Only God knows why. But I do know that those prayers were not wasted, they are never wasted.

I remined my children that Mother Teresa had once said that it was important to be faithful, not successful.

Of course we want success but we rest trustfully in the fact that these prayers would help in someway, probably in many unknown ways. We will find out when in the next life and see the mysterious tapestry of life is turned over to reveal the beauty of grace and faith, the gentleness of being pro-life.

Something profound has come out of this time, I'll never be the same again. The beauty and peace of continual prayer is flowing over me. The desire to defend life with more vigour and passion is burning in my breast. I know that the prayers for life in the political arena needs to go beyond a short period of time. I know I must pray now and always for the future needs of the next election - at home and in the States.

Adoration Chapel...

History points out that we are not witnessing anything new in this ignoring of such a fundmental issue in the election just past...have you ever seen Amazing Grace? I think of the pro-life movement when I see this struggle against slavery and slave ships. Take heart though, this is unthinkable to us today. If you have not seen this movie, I recommend it.

On the topic of slavery, I believe it to be an enormous shame and scandal that a man (the new President elect) who has the rights he ought to have thanks to those in the past who fought for them, can then turn around and deny a new group of people their right to life. He made history because others shaped history for God's good and yet he turns around and denies the unborn an even deeper, more fundamental right. I cannot help but to think of the parable of the ungrateful servant. Matthew 18: 23-35.

People placed sanctions upon South Africa for apartheid. They basically said, 'we will not support you, while you hold that one thing in place.' One thing. A single issue. An important issue.

The world agreed this was the way to deal with a country that abused one basic right, nevermind they may have had other comendable attributes in their policies. And this is my point. If everyone treated anti-life parties in such a way, they would HAVE to change their policies. Carl Anderson the Supreme Knight of Columbus said that if all Catholics alone did just that, they would be forced to change. I mean, what other single issue holds greater gravity than the legal sanctioning of taking thousands of innocent lives every day???

We must continue to defend God's littlest ones, His precious children in utero, we must defend them against their oppressors, because Jesus said,

"What you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto Me."