What a day, What a Blessing

Well I must confess that somehow or an other I got my dates mixed up and I thought today was The Annunciation.

We corrected that fairly quickly, this meaning the things we had organised for 'tomorrow' where not ready, anyway, we changed our plans, as we can as homeschoolers, and ......

Brid and I drove off early, to Church to spend sometime in Adoration and Thanksgiving. We wanted to be early so we could just be in the presence of Our Lord.
We knew we wouldn't be home for some hours, so we took some of our work to do in the car. Latin on the CD player in the car, faith reader outside the church before we walked in.

Mass was beautiful, honouring Our Lady, and Ava Maria just sounded lovely. It resonated through the whole church.

After Mass we had lunch at a little Cafe' and by chance met up with my dear Dermot. another blessed moment.

We were to meet up with a Lecturer at the University to look at Moon rocks. Louise had lovingly asked her lecturer last week if Brid could come and look at them. So after getting a park right out the front of the pathway we needed to take and finding our way along the map Louise had prepared for us, we were there.
We thought we were pretty clever, because Newcastle Uni can seem hard to get around for a stranger. We met with this lecturer, who was just so enthusiastic, but had forgotten to get the moon rocks from the safe, at the bank- I kid you not. She is one of 3 people who have these rocks- the other two are ex-presidents of the US.
All types of loops were hurdled for her to keep them in her possession.

She must of felt a little guilty, because she proceded in giving Brid and myself a very interactive seminar on The Solar System and Astronomy.

It was so interesting, but I think the best part was that Brid was just so present to hear the information. She was keen to learn but also keen to share what she knew, and boy was her recall good. It is a pet topic for Brid and one she surprised me and this lovely kind women with her knowledge.

I must admit I have gone away from there truly buzzing, with Joy for Brid and a big yes, she is learning. It was a blessing ,that after the events of our past year, I truly needed to be witness to.
What a perfect day to witness these exchanges of knowlede between these two, and the respect that they gave each other. It was definitely a moment inspired by God just for us.
Everything was just so right yesterday, the smoothness of getting our book work done, the parks right outside buildings we needed to be at, green lights all the way, and this was just 2pm.
Dermot and my Dad have been tiling our laundry area, and it was coming to completion yesterday. It looked great, another unexpected blessing. So now I have my laundry back.
I kept thinking of Our Lady's 'yes', and its affect on the world.
My Dad was in no hurry to go home, as Mum was out, so he just stayed and chatted. It was nice to talk together and just be.
Last night, at prayer group, it was beautiful to sit with other women and just be present to Our Lord and celebrate the Annunication.

So I am not sure here, who was more blessed Our Lady being honoured on this beautiful feast day of her YES, or us because our whole day was just blessed from beginning to end.
Maybe both.
I am sure we all have wonderful stories to tell of our days, but this day was special for us.

So I am in Awe of Mary's Yes, and she blesses us everyday with her Son.

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY

ST Patrick's day has always been a big day in the life of the O'Sullivans'. Everyone wears green to start with. We play the best Irish music. Dermot has quite a collection, and the children have always learnt to dance play swing to the music- there Irish roots.

Musicians like Christy Moore, Cheiftains, The Pogues, Danu, The Saw Doctors etc, have always been a big part of our daily life.

Today is no exception.

Today we will meet family and go out for a meal at lunch.

We have already thanked God for St Patrick today, and have asked for intercession for a great day of celebration.

I got out our shamrocks and all things Irish and placed them around the table centre piece- which is the best place for us to remember each saint, as we see it plainly at meal times.

Brid has been playing every Irish piece she knows on the piano, and I know she will dance today at our celebration meal. Because that is just her.

Today is a day, we traditionally plant sweet peas. We nuture them, and in spring they bear many flowers.

Tomorrow her Irish Dancing teacher has a great class organised for them, and I am sure it will be filled with irish fun.

So Today I hope you have a wonderful day today on this feast of St Patrick.

St Patrick pray for us.

LOUISE is 21

Our eldest darling has just turned 21. We have been planning and arranging a party for months. We have put photos as a slide-show and Dvds together of flashes of her life. We had done photo boards.

We invited all her friends. Some very old and close family friends. Her Godparents. Family of course.

We went all out, and it was so much fun.

Louise was beautiful.

We spent all day with her, her siblings, her grandparents and her boyfriend.

We laughed, we cried and smiled.

We were exhausted at the end of the night uuuhmm, next day, but it was worth it.

We arrived at Mass Sunday evening and Just THANKED God for giving Louise to us, and the wonderful gift she is in our lives.

Girl Guides

Each of the girls in Brids' Girl Guide Unit were asked to make a poster about what was the 5 most important things in there lives. This was Brids' poster.

Celebrate Love- A Mission to Love

Several Years ago Dermot & I attended a Weekend that would change our lives forever. We attended a Celebrate Love weekend- (look at the sidebar for the link). We call it our Couple conversion, and slowly over the years we have given our lives, more and more to God.

This community and the Couple who are the national directors -Fran & Byron, are awesome people. It however, has not been without the ups and downs that different people coming together can bring. It is great to get together with like minded couples though. We cherish all our friendships we have made.

Dermot & I have been involved with meeting once a month with other couples in a home-setting, since we participated on the weekend. We were asked to become a presenting couple early on, but this is not Dermots calling, so I needed to be patient and wait for what was right for us.

So we helped on the catering team and prayer team of several weekends and have put our hands up for additional training and enrichment weekend.

It hasn't all been easy but we knew God would provide for our family. He was moving us in this direction, and we were saying "YES". So we knew he was going to provide for us.

We believe that Celebrate Love teaches the true meaning of Marriage in the Catholic Church and we wanted to know more and more .......

We were thirsty for knowledge so we could have the information to bring other couples into this greater awareness and love that God truly wants for us all.

A few years ago, we were asked to be Mentors for the Engaged "Embrace', and this was the opportunity that we were waiting for. This was right up Dermot alley- 'one on one'. It was made for us. Not really, but it felt like it.

We have been privileged to have mentored several couples and we are in the process of one such couple at present. Such a privilege to be with a couple, at the special exciting time of their lives to help shape and teach them about what God wants for there Marriage.

We discuss communication, formation, natural family planning and much more. We gain as much out of each couple as they do from us. We sometimes think, "Are we getting more out of this?" We know we are giving so much as well.

This brings us under spiritual attack each time, but we know we are doing 'good', when this is happening, so please pray for us.

So if you have seen an add for Celebrate Love in your church, ( in USA-it is called Living Love), take it up, do it. We had a great marriage before we embarked on this weekend, but now it has enriched it so much more and we know it has touched our children's lives as well.

OUR mission is to love one another, as Christ loves his Church.

St John of Kanty

Every year we attend a Summer School of Evangelisation run by the Disciples of Jesus, and every year one of the 'team', put much work into preparing saints names on little pieces of paper, with descriptions and places them in a container for people to take one each for the year. Like a lucky dip- but with a difference, God has his hand which one we receive.

I have had some interesting saints over the years, and have wondered- why that one?, especially when I hear some people have some of my favoured saints already.

Anyway this year I placed my hand in the container and was guided to Saint John of Kanty.

In short ' he did not only read and study much but he discussed every question with the Lord- on his knees- for he strove to look at life's issues from God;s perspective'.

I have been asked to pray for scholars and university students.

I had a little God moment when I opened the paper up, because I am going back to study this year to do a Course in our Faith.

I am really looking forward to it, and this Saint has just confirmed it for me.

So this year I will ask Saint John of Kanty to intercede for my prayers.

Dermot has his own, and Brid was drawn to Sister Faustina.

Our Family Patron Saint is St John of God- we decided to keep the same one as last year.

So we feel very blessed to have a variety of Saints interceding for us in our Prayers.

A real communion of Saints.

Through the years of doing this I have learnt so much about so many different Saints and it isn't until time goes by, I realise why each of us was given that particular one. I no longer look at others and go "I wanted that one", but delight and rejoice in the Saint given to me.

We are sorta back

Yesterday we started preparing ourselves for the year.
Colouring Book Covers, Covering books. Deciding what we will use.
Today we have been working on a our new look Timeline.
It has been several months in the process of looking, discovering and putting on to paper what I think will work for us. Then giving Brid an outline and letting make several decisions about how it will look. We will after- all be using it for years.
Today is really a joint effort. I do not expect a 10-11 year old to know what is the grand plan in my mind, so we are doing little by little.
Yesterday I needed to buy a guillotine to help Louise make her 21st birthday invites. So we now have acquired a guillotine- and boy am I impressed. It cuts a straighter line than me, and so much quicker. I now have the paper I wanted to use all stuck in the book, rather than still measuring, cutting and getting hot and bothered.

So Brid is happily creating. Now the boring bits are out of the way, she can begin decorating.
The part she always likes the best.