Happy Birthday, Julia

My sweet, thoughtful, hilarious, observant, loving, beautiful sister-in-love, Julia Dawson has reached another birthday today! Julia, your virtues are many, and your love for your husband, your sons, your family, for our Blessed Mother, and most of all, for Christ is something to be admired and imitated. I am grateful to have you in my life, my children are so blessed to call you Aunt Julia, Therese is certainly blessed to have you as her Godmother, and I love that you are my friend- my sister. I love you! Happy Birthday! “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you; whenever I pray for you all, my prayers are always joyful, because of the part you have taken in the work of the gospel from the first day until now. Of this I am confident, that he who started a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:3,4

10 month old?

That's right, Jacob is 10 months... here's a recap of his precious little life thus far. Birth

2 months... quite a change there, I know.

3 months

5 months

7 1/2 months

9 months

And 10 months! Jacob Joseph, you are such a joy!

Colorado 2012

Mama and Daddy flew us to Colorado for 5 days to be with Sarah, Steven, Madeline, Anna Kate... and BABY!!! We also visited Mama's 2 brothers and their families. What a trip. What a treasure.

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Body and Soul into Heaven

This is an image from within the Church of Mary's assumption... like where it happened. God had preserved Mary from original sin to prepare her to be THE dwelling place of the Christ child. He also would not allow her body to know decay. So after her death, her body was raised into Heaven to be with her Son and her God. Pope Benedict 16th writes that "precisely because Mary is with God and in God, she is very close to each one of us. While she lived on this earth she could only be close to a few people. Being in God, who is actually 'within' all of us, Mary shares in this closeness of God." And from Ambrose Autpert, "Mary lifted herself up to such lofty heights of heaven that the Word reached down from the highest pinnacle of heaven and took her in."

Mother's Rule to meet!!

HEY HEY! Just a shout out to anyone who 1)Isn't on facebook (which will be me in 24hrs) and 2) wants to know if I'm still doing the one-time- book study. The answer is YES YES YES. Tomorrow, Friday, August 10th at 6:30 at the OLQH Family Life Center. Even if you didn't read the book AT ALL.... or don't even have it. I'm super excited to share this book/experience with anyone who would be interested in having their domestic lives changed for the better. See you soon!

9 month old Funny Guy

Jacob has now had equal amount of life in and out of the womb! It's a big deal, y'all. Does it mean my baby weight has to have been eradicated as well? In true Dawson fashion I have 1 picture in my phone of Jacob. He is 75th percentile in both weight and height... he's 28 inches long and 23 1/2 pounds! This guys knows he is loved and knows that he is funny. This is his sweet eyes face. He can make it on command and it looks just like that every time. So stinkin' funny. What a gift it it to be Jacob's mommy!

Suffering : difficult but necessary

We all struggle to want to suffer, but the truth is that suffering is the way we can 1) gain a better understanding of Christ's love for us 2) gives us a chance to console Jesus in His sufferings as He looks on a world that rejects His gifts and 3) helps us to gain humility in order that we might better accept God's providence and recognize His mercy... among many other benefits. To quote Pope Benedict XVI. “The world offers you comfort, you were not made for comfort, but for greatness.

And aricle by Thomas J. Neal, Ph.D. --- A veritable over-indulgence in spiritual goods, bordering on gluttony. That’s what time at IPF in Omaha amounts to for me. My one hope for salvation is to obey the counsel of St Augustine to all would-be teachers: “What you learn you learn not so you might arrogantly boast or greedily hoard what you come to know, but that you might give it all away.” That is the joy of acquisition: giving it all away. Ruski Proverb Anyway, in a talk I heard today a priest-theologian referred to a Russian saying that, he said, circles among the clergy: priests are ordained to help people suffer well. That saying led my mind to an extraordinary man I came to know in 2009 who is presently dying in a hospice. Not long before he began to face the final crisis in his long battle with his illness he wrote me a one-line email: “Tom, pray that I might suffer well.” Not, “pray that I might be healed,” but “pray that I might suffer well.” Now, he fought mightily to be restored to health; he did all he reasonably could to stave off death. But he also understood that life is de facto filled with sufferings great and small, and that the most-essential vocation of every human being is not to ‘be well’ but to ‘love well.’ And it is in suffering, one might say, that we find the greatest test of our love for God and for neighbor; that we encounter the greatest opportunity to love with depth, with force, with sacrifice. An old Siberian woman at my Dad’s church once said to me, “You Americans do not know how to suffer, which is why you have so little depth.” After taking some offense at that, I realized that it was spot on – certainly in my case it did. To the same effect, a mystic-woman I met in D.C. (who lived through Dachau) in 1991 said to me, "God wishes you to offer Him your crosses, not throw them in His face." Costly Chrism So I have encouraged these men, these seminarians at IPF that I am privileged to be teaching, to be fully aware of this calling. The sacred and fragrant Chrism that will one day seal their hands for divine service flows freely from the bloodied body of the Christ, the Eternal God who suffered with infinite love for and with us and for our salvation. The Sacraments they will celebrate and communicate come forth from the violently opened side of Christ, costly Gifts that beckon from us a like response. And if it is true that the priest is to help us suffer well, it is also true that we faithful must desire to suffer well. My friend, as he nears death, is a white martyr, a witness to this truth lived out in extremis. May I have the courage to one day pray, and not just admire, his prayer. ------ A great book that dives deep into the struggles we face with suffering is this: Consoling the Heart of Jesus: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat- Inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius BY (now Father) Michael E. Gaitley