The 18th Anniversary

    Time flies and it lies. 

    It seems like yesterday I went out for an easy five mile run with my cousin David, showered up and put on my blues ensured these rings were tucked in with my brother Karl and we went off to the church to meet two priests (who are like brothers to me) to get married before God and family.  I remember the door swinging open and my soon to be Father-in-Law smirking at me saying "I loved her first." The whirlwind day of photos, holding hands, being the focus of attention wore my bride and I out.  I remember thinking of the marriage being about the two of us, swearing fidelity to each other before God.  

    Today I started with rescuing John Paul (child number five) from his crib at 4:55AM, resting a few more minutes and then going for a laborious 2.9 mile run (every tenth counts now).  On coming home I see three boys doing chores and enjoying each other's company.  Two girls and a momma fast asleep...and I think...wow a lot happened in eighteen years.  Soon we'll make a doctor's visit and I'll be off to work for the rest of the day.

    Nothing could symbolize the massive change and frozen time better than our wedding bands.  Nicked, bumped, worn smoother, worn 24/7 and still as strong as when new.  If possible, they might even defy the laws of physics and be stronger now than ever before.  It is almost like the rings adapted with us to experience, trial by fire, success, failures, responsibilities and the love of children we're blessed with.

    I love my Carrie Anne, and I truly think no one else in the world would put up with me like she does.  Her wisdom is sound, and heart warm.  This warm heart powers our family, and keeps us on track.  The self sacrificing love Carrie displays with each child she carries is simply heroic.  The nine month sickness and long recovery she fights through each time has to count for something good when see meets our Lord one day!  She is pretty cute too!

   More than loving her alone, I love the "us" our marriage creates.  Our constant lessons of agape love, brought by the opportunity to be a family, allow us to bring Christ into our family everyday.  Mastering these lessons provides the spark I see in couples married and happy at 25, 40 and 50 years.  This is the love which should inspire us all to holy matrimony for life, grows healthy families, and shows us how to claw our way towards heaven through better and worse a fallen world provides.

    I know we have so much more to face in our lives.  The world is right now in a tremendous crisis of faith, and needs Christ more than ever.  I write this not to boast, but to help others see the way to heaven through Holy Matrimony and its foretaste of heaven.  I had a friend who said he was surrounded by friends with failed marriages, and was scared to become married out of fear generated by those failures.  

    I told him what I now know is true...seek out those who succeeded.  Learn the lessons of the happy 40-50 year marriages, and put them into your heart.  Learn sacrificial love, and seek one who wants to give of themselves without limit as your partner.  Pray over everything, and keep Christ front and center in your family life...he will guide you through the tough times which will come.

    So today pray for us, pray for your marriages, and pray for those who need to find peace in self to make either a vocational commitment to marriage or holy orders.  It is the best gift we could give the world!

Capturing the Glory of our Spiritual Dawn

    When I saw this windmill I could see the outline, but not the details.  The vast contrast between the bright rising sun and the shadow side of the windmill also deprived my eyes of fine color detail.  My brain knew what was before me, but my senses could not grasp all the details as the wind gently started moving the blades and changing the scene.  

    I looked into the scene and then began to think of our spiritual lives.  We first know the world as it exists around us with natural light and law.  When God's light falls on the land the contrast between the right and wrong becomes distinct.  What we thought before of our environment will radically change if we embrace God's law as our spiritual dawn arises.

    This is the key moment in the transition between dawn to day in our spiritual lives.  If we accept God's law over us, the light will continue to grow into full day.  If we decide to follow man's law alone, we'll need to wait for the street lamps to come on to make sense of the world.  Street lamps are no substitute for God's light.

    Even with embracing God's Law bringing on our spiritual day, our earthly minds will never see the world as clearly as God sees it.  We will, however, be gifted with the knowledge and graces needed to avoid pitfalls if we ask for them with heart, mind and soul.  If we grasp the offered graces, sacraments, and penance we have a better chance to stay on the path to heaven.  

    If we obtain the prize of heaven through the gift of God's mercy, we will one day see as God sees.  The outlines will suddenly become full of detail, the high contrast will yield brilliant color, and the slightest breeze will be noticed and appreciated.  

   Sounds good to me...

-ehw

Photo Essay: Connecting to the Christ Child's Heart

    At the center of the plaza in front of the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament is the statue of the Child Jesus extending his Sacred Heart towards us.  The heart of a child, broken of it's innate narcism, recognizes the blessings Christ brings to us in some moment of silence.  For most of us, those childhood moments form the closest and purest connections to God we will ever have.  it is the closest we will ever come to touching the Sacred Heart of our Lord.  

    The reason is once we leave the narcism free window of youth, our lives get busy.  Our lives fill with noise and competition needed survive in the adult world.  The moments of peace needed to connect to God in the manger, at the Sermon on the Mount, on his cross, or arising from the dead in his glorious triumph over death get crowded out on the clock.  The devil uses our fallen world to challenge your attempts at connection to Christ using trials to us at work, his mocking us when our children go astray, or physical ailments used fogging our mind and blocking reception of God's treasures bestowed on us.

    We should not lament on this spiritual torment.  We must accept it, and revel in the few moments of childlike joy we do get when our hearts open to the Lord.  We must treasure those moments as a triumph over the forces of Satan, and know this constant spiritual battle is the one the Lord encourages us to have.  A heart constantly striving for the Lord is one which never leaves faith or hope aside, and provides a path where charity can flower.

    See the striving heart, the one cutting through the distractions of the world, is a mature heart seeking Jesus Sacred Heart.  The striving heart completes the circle of spiritual life for those blessed with a childhood connection to the Lord.  See if charity flows through your heart to others, you again stripped yourself of narcism like you did as a child.  In the charitable acts you will build not just a moment of joy, but the potential for an eternity of heavenly joy with Christ.

-ehw

P.S. Thanks to Mom for the inspiration for this blog post!

Photo Essay: Will You Pray for Me?

        Contrary to most descriptions, a Roman scourging was a vicious affair.  It usually killed a person at forty lashes or greater because of blood loss from exposed internal organs.  The entire purpose of a public lashing is to scare away people from either supporting the victim's cause or preventing certain crimes.   It should come as no surprise there were very few of Jesus public supporters and apostles at the foot of his cross when he died.    That was the entire idea behind a cruxifixction.

    So approaching the Shrine, on the southern portico we have this cross at the end.  With a single kneeler just begging you to come and pray with and for our Lord in his suffering.  A suffering which continues today in this world.  Jesus' persecution continues today with attacks on the people of his church around the world.  Jesus' church on this earth needs our prayers as much now as ever!

    So the lonely kneeler begs the question from Jesus: Will you pray for me?

-ehw

A Father's Love

    I started the day with prayer at this statue showing us how much God loved us...through the sacrifice of his only son on a cross.  Below the statue were the graves of two aborted and five miscarried babies.  As a father of four miscarried babies, my first thought was of mercy God provides these innocents by bringing them immediately into heaven.  My second thought came back to praying the men and women who facilitated the abortions come home into God's graces.

    I am a blessed man to have a father (and father-in-law) who taught me the meaning of devotion to family over self, to wife over self, to accept responsibility for my actions, and to honor God's commandments as a way of life.  I know he picked me up, and kicked me along through hundreds of mistakes during my life.  I also know he rejoiced in my successes when lessons applied finally yielded results.  

    As I labored for a living and travelled the world the last 27 years away from home, I came to realize this is not an experience all children receive.   In fact report after report shows the lack of principled fatherhood is the primary factor for increased crime rates, lack of transmitted faith in God, disrespecting women in a hook up culture, and disengagement of boys with constructive endeavors and careers.  

    The only way to correct this problem in the future, is for a slow and steady conversion of hearts towards Christ.  Christ provides the example of selfless love absent in much of our culture today.  Christ provides the example of the stern, forgiving, task mastering, self sacrificing man needed to be a good father to children.  Christ also demonstrates a humble reliance on God the Father, and subordination of his will to the master designer of all time and space needed to be a good husband to a wife.

    If we look to Christ for answers, there would be no more abortions.  We would never allow evil to come to our children if we were truly disciples of the word made flesh.  From that simple beginning, so much more good would flow.  Once we accept our fatherly call to teach, sacrifice and lead our families to heaven we never stop seeking a truth greater than we ourselves can understand alone.  

    So on this Father's Day I will pray graces flow, and men accept the call to be father's in the model of Jesus.  It would simply make the world a much better place for the born and unborn alike.

-ehw

Helen's Best

    Still working on some of my images from Helen, Georgia.  We had a fantastic time there, and I would recommend it as a great place for a family trip.   After living in Germany, and traveling through Bavaria, the facade was fun to experience.  I often wondered what America would look like with some German architecture, well now I know the effect of mixing the two building codes. The most important three things about the town though were: the people were very nice, the recreation readily available, and the ladies loved our John Paul (and he loved them).

    With this final point made...I can say it was fun and could be visited yet again!

-ehw

Everything New is Really Old

    This weekend my wife and I had our first excursion weekend in four year...with only one child in tow.  One topic which we discussed in our adult discussion time was how nothing new is really new.  The reality is every "new" idea is really a permutation on an old idea.  Most "new" ideas are actually as old as the pyramid.  The difference is the new idea is written in English and using a computer instead of papyrus paper.  This photo is just an example of the what I mean. 

    Photographer Scott Bourne loved to preach that no one did anything new in photography (See our discussion was not even new, it was just new to us).  It was just someone found they liked a style they stumbled across and started claiming it was new for marketing.  Meanwhile the photographer was ignorant of the technique of style's history in the photographic art world.  For instance I could say of the photo above: "I really like the deep contrasty colors I put in this photo, it will be my new style for an album!"  Someone like Scott or my friend Skip Cohen would then tell me..."Dude we called that style Velvia film and left it at that."  

    So history is good for something no matter what you do for a living.  It will help you not be a fool in front of your elders, and prevent you from being pompous before your peers and youth.

-ehw

Open to Grace: Two Fruits of Classical Catholic Education

    Today our little Catholic Hybrid School will graduate our senior class.  Through family friendships and school events, I watched two of them grow into peaceful and God Fearing young adults.  These two also became my very first senior photo clients!  

    Neil is a quiet young man of deep thought (like some of my best high school friends).  He will go out west to college, and will begin the study of media production from a Catholic perspective at John Paul the Great Catholic University.  This is a great fit for him.  

    In our school I observed how he is a quiet, humble leader of the younger students.  Many boys looked to him, literally looked directly at him, before doing almost anything to observe the example he would set.  His example became their course of action.  He respectfully fulfilled his duties to the school and family very well.  His quiet leadership leaves a void for the school population, which will be noticeable until another boy fills his vacated role.

    Mikayla is a lovely young woman, of sincere virtue.  She lets God's grace work through her life to help others.  She will enter studies at Aquinas College in Nashville this fall.  She will be more than a normal student though, as she continues her discernment of vocation with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, a teaching order of nuns.  

    Again a great fit for this woman's character.  In our school, and with her family, she is a guidon for a prayerful life. You can see it when she enters a room.  Small children hold her hand, and admire her.  Her baby sister simply adores her.  She also walks with a grace beyond her years.  When she enters chapel with her matillia, she peacefully focuses herself and those around her on the mass and prayer.  She is no wallflower though.  She demands unimproved family campsites, and can rough it with the best of them.

   I hope I captured a bit of the reflected glory of God these two bring to the world.  I enjoyed watching as my children gravitated to them at school and band over the last two years.  I knew their example would be good ones, and not misguide my children on their own path to adulthood.  I continue to learn a great deal from their parents as well, since they are good examples of parenting in a stormy world.

    Mikayla and Neil:  May God's grace continue to fall on you, and your souls never let your eyes wonder off the prize of heaven.  You've started the race for the prize well, and may the finish be even more virtuous in God's eyes as you change the world for His Glory.  Amen!

-ehw

Beauty in the Rough

 Do you edit your photos?  Well of course I do!  The reality is, every photo coming out of a camera is already edited to the exposure and composition tastes (or mistakes) of the photographer, the film or sensor have an effect on what you can actually capture, and the software or physical development of the photo before it even hits the viewfinder.  Very little coming out of a camera will be absolutely perfect to my eye, so I will tweak the photo until it fulfills my vision of the art coming out…and it is art because it is my interpretation of the photo. 

    I know some people will shrill at this, but it is really a reflection on the reality of the fallen world we live in.  God made a perfect Garden of Paradise at the beginning, and then the whole Adam and Eve thing occurred where humanity fell to fear and pride and separating our actions and will from God’s.

    The good news for us is God’s laws permeate into our world naturally.  We can discover right and wrong just as we can discover beauty inside our man influenced environment.  The better news for us is if we look for and listen to God’s Wisdom from the Church’s Catechism, with its rich source material, the beauty becomes self evident.  The best news for us is good materials to learn from are closer than ever to our fingertips, if we but look for them.

    So the story of the lead photograph is no different than what our spiritual journeys should be.  I walked out of my hotel, the pretty new lobby shinny and sparkly, into a smelly alleyway facing the back of an abandoned business.  The brick and paint needs attention, the inside of the business really needs some TLC.  To my my naked eye the natural light blows out the color , the situation gritty, and the remaining beauty hidden in a low contrast area with no eye grabbing potential.  It is easy to see the despair of the building and have no hope for a photograph “straight out of the camera.”

    I had other tools though in my head. Tools and lessons in photography which gave me faith I could find the beauty in the smelly alleyway.  I looked and saw a classic shape inside a shape…good…I thought.  Then saw the flowers and knew they could be drawn out and made a centerpiece brought to prominence by the eye focusing shapes.  I knew my camera and lens.  My trusty 23mm would not distort or give in to great lens refraction at F/16. My camera sensor with a high ISO would be sharp and still have good color detail with a larger aperture giving me depth of field to be sharp from front to back.  I knew the distracting wires would not pull eyes away, but highlight the fallen nature of the setting.  Still in camera I knew the result would be flat, and without great interest.

    So I knew I’d dive into my favorite adjustment set on my Capture One 9 software, and get a quick taste of improvement.  See in the rough photo I knew there was beauty to be brought out, and I was just warming up.  Then I looked at my film simulations on hand, and saw one I like and applied it.  I added some texture and dodged some light in…in a matter of minutes I realized the image in my head which reflected a whole lot of learning and applied photography lessons.  I paused, reflected, worked on other images and returned to adjust a few more items before it was where I wanted it to be for a final product.

   I ask you though, is this any different than how we should approach the world in all our endeavors?  In each person we meet, or situation we encounter, will we ever experience perfection as God intended?  No!  Can we make things perfect ourselves?  No!  We need to know God’s plan to become better.   We need to know how to work with each other as we together try to rise ourselves up to deserving entry to heaven.  We need to not reject every sad situation, and look for the opportunity to glorify God in it.

   So yes I edit every photo I share.  I also work at editing myself and the world around me by bringing a bit of God’s plan into it one snap at a time.  I think if you look at your day in the same way, you’ll realize you do it as well.  I hope and pray we can do all we can to grow into the Glory of God’s light by doing this as a community.  I am really thinking it would be a great work of art…I could even title it “Capturing His Glory.”

And just to demonstrate...here is what the camera generated as a RAW image and the camera generated "correct" JPEG....and my edited image at the end.

Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse

    We went on a nice food adventure this evening to Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse this evening.   This is the Inwood Road location in Dallas, Texas.  The manager even helped me to get a few behind the scenes shots in real quick.  Food was good, and the company nice.  Nice Americana feel to the restaurant, and the warm dry evening made it a wonderful night to sit and eat in the open air.  Again the people of Texas keep being pretty nice to me!  That is a huge blessing in today's day and age where meeting people can be a business full of bruises.

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The Knife selection....

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The Tea Selection

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Old School Seating section...

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Open and fun....nice combo for an evening with friends.

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-ehw

Horse Sense

    In bright sunny midday light some subjects just don't work well with normal color.  The color actually becomes a distraction.  Some subjects also really don't lend themselves to color photos either.  This was one of those days where a good black and white image was able to much more effective at conveying a message from an image.  In this case I just wanted to show off the power of the horse, and I think it worked.

    I'm liking the people I've meet here in Dallas so far...nice town and people.

-ehw

Six Months and Going Strong

    Amidst the winter illnesses and stresses of life comes one great story...John Paul celebrated six months Friday!  He continues to excel in the growth department, weighing in around 19 pounds and long enough to DEMAND twelve month duds.  As the bib says, he is heaven sent and on a mission to be 100% cuteness (so others besides the Dad says).

    I cannot believe we are so lucky to have John Paul.  I cannot believe the love the other children show him, and the care they give him every day.  I am so blessed to watch the creation of new hearts open to life and the work required to bring it to fruition.  It is a series of observations which through pretenses of materialism into the shredder, because their work for John Paul demonstrates the power of agape love.  John Paul detracts nothing from the older kids, and in the big kids work for John Paul they glorify God.

    We still need prayers for Mom to get fully healthy, but for just a minute I want to bask in a moment of God's Glory captured in a digital form.  I hope it gives you as much hope and joy as I get when I see it.  For if our lives are to be full of toil (or so says Proverbs) seeing a moment of God's makes the work worth it to survive to see another day.

-ehw

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Wonderful Time of Loving Labors

    When you see the photo of an adorable, 100% cute child you think of the wonders the child brings to the world.  When he is your child, and you meet him at 1AM for a quick diaper change and handoff to Mom a few other thoughts run through your tired mind about the same child.

    Nothing good in life comes free.  Nothing great comes without great cost and sacrifice. This is not only true of life, but of the path we need to take to heaven.

   Jesus lived a hard life, and so did his disciples.  He even had friends he loved suffer and die!  He was our king, and died a painful death on a cross he carried on his shoulders after a brutal set of beatings.  Yet despite these facts, I think most people imagine Christ in his gloriously transformed body by default.  A transfigured body he only obtained by passing through the painful death on a tree.

    So the next time you see 100% cuteness, don't forget the work it takes to get there.  Also know the moment of glory is worth every sacrifice it took to make a glimpse of heaven on earth.

-ehw

Miracle Photo of our Year

    This year was one of great sacrifice as we worked to bring John Paul into the world.  Sacrifice came in many forms.  Carrie labored daily fighting nausea which would bring me to tears, the children contributed to running the house more than ever, people took time to pray for us around the country, friends and family also dropped all to come and help in moments of need.  The work continues today as my wife recovers and the family adjusts.  We could not be more grateful for the sacrifice of others and health of John Paul.

    John Paul continues to be our miracle of a baby.  He smiles and brings out the best in all of us.  He truly is a gift from heaven teaching us to  live out agape love without restraint.   As a reward our hearts filled with more love from heaven than we could have ever imagined in our materialistic world.

    We'll pray your year wraps up well, and the next one brings you the spiritual direction needed to walk towards Christ with more strength than ever before.

-ehw

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Christmas Magic

    This morning was the first day our tree was up...we follow the old tradition of decorating at the last minute...and out of her room like busy bee on a mission sprang child number four.  Kellie ran to the kitchen, grabbed the stool, and without a skip of the beat sat before the well lit tree (thanks to Kevin lighting it before she got up). "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells..." and the partially remembered songs flowed through the house punctuated by "Kalen sing...Kev Kev sing....Baby Jesus!"

    This is the Christmas Magic we long for in our memory of ages past.  It was the time giants roamed the earth. Mom made magic cookies.  Hugs felt heaven sent.   In these memories, even Dad smiled as we enjoyed another magic tree tree lighting and train run.  This is the memory we wish every child could have, and we could share.  Experiencing it in our children makes our hearts warm and pulse quicken in joyous anticipation of seeing what St Nicholas left once again...

    As parents we too often miss these moments.  Just minutes after I snapped this golden memory, I found myself assaulted by four excited children and one just wanting a diaper change.  The noise became defining...well for our house anyway...and I lost all sense of the magic moment.  I lost it until I developed my "negative."  When the image appeared, I felt the magic arise in my heart once again.

    Our childhood faith filled Christmas Magic images are glimpses of the promises in heaven.  Like the Star of Bethlehem, these moments can lead you to the home Christ prepared for us all.  This Christmas I pray you will find your moments, keep them close to your heart, and let them lead you home.

-ehw

The Blacksmith of My Manhood

Give a lad a training suitable to his character and, even when old, he will not go back on it.

Proverbs 22:6 Catholic Online 

   Good fathers remain indispensable to every child on the planet.  A father is the person God entrusts to look at each child he gives them, and call them into adulthood.  Fathers should take the faith filled heart a mother forms, and steel it like a blacksmith works metal.  The steel must withstand every tempest the world will throw at it until our bodies fade to dust.  I am blessed my father did this for me, and I accepted his molding to form the man I am.

    From an early age I remember my Dad as a pillar of strength and determination.  He still gets up before dawn, works long hours, deployed at our nation's call for forty-five years, learned things from diverse resources way before the birth of the internet, demands honesty and gives it unfailingly, requires common sense be applied to all critical thinking, expects you to know a fact based history on what you speak, and displays a dogged determination to achieve which puts a bulldog to shame.  My father steeled my heart to respect my mother and her core values.  He then slowly built a frame around my heart to carry me into adulthood.  

    My father's greatest wisdom, in forming his children, was to ensure we knew how to think.  My father knew our world would be as different from his as his world was from his father's.  As a result, he knew his children needed well rounded educations grounded in those family core values.  This frame protected us, gave us limbs to build new futures, and a head to seek the wisdom of the Lord in new faraway lands when he was not there to guide us.  My father trained our character traits to last a lifetime.  

    After meeting many people with dads who failed to accept their duties as fathers, I know I am a blessed child.  I also believe this is why I am committed to do the mission my father does, but often shields from view of his own children.  My father throughout the years tended to lost sheep, and got them better prepared to meet the world.  He gave these lost sheep the blacksmithing their fathers should have given, or the sheep rejected out of the pride of youth.  Some responded well, others did not.  In any case he tried, and willingly gave of himself without desire for acclaim or fortune.

   I am blessed with a Dad who embodies God's call for father's to follow.

-ehw  

My Childhood Pillar of Faith

    Teach us to count up the days that are ours, and we shall come to the heart of wisdom.   Psalm 90:12 from Catholic Online

   While reading a great book called The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic, the author postulates a necessary part of raising families of strong faith is a pillar of prayer inside the extended family.  This person's prayer can sustain their children, draw grace towards them and be a beacon home to the Lord's wisdom.  I closed my eyes, and without any thought saw my mother as my childhood pillar of faith.

    I saw my mother with her rosary in hand praying through her asthma attacks when no medicine existed to calm it.  I remember her praying when her children encountered challenges to our faith and souls.  I always remember her humility when she knew a complex problem exceeded her immediate knowledge, asking the Lord to show her the way through the maze ahead one step at a time through prayer and hard work.

   I know she received this the path of prayer from her parents.  My Nana told us to pray for the soul needing the ambulance when it raced past her house in Easton, Pennsylvania.  My Nana and Pappap said the rosary together every night when I lived with them for their family.  So it was generational...and a great gift.

    Now the challenge is to be the pillar for my children to remember, and know the way home always starts with humility before the Lord in prayer.  Until I get it all right I will know my Mom has me covered...

-ehw

A Lesson in Forgiveness for Thanksgiving

    A few weeks ago a most incredible person told me a story, a story of forgiveness which humbled me.  The story goes something like this...

    Years ago this person suffered a great injustice at the hands of another.  Bonds of trust broke, and a relationship broke into pieces.  The breakup effected more than the two inside the relationship.  The shattered relationship hurt many others, and still does to this day.  Defenses went up to prevent additional pain, but the grace of forgiveness remained open to the offender.  Not only does forgiveness flow, the offender gets prayers and encouragement to return to the church and obtain salvation from the victim!  

    I suffered a few injustices in my life, and I will admit my pride gets the best of me from time to time when the wound resurfaces.  When I asked the person, their response was "To hold on to the anger and hate is to condemn your own soul to Hell.  We can only move forward to Christ when we release the hate and let it fade away.  We can only achieve heaven when we wish for those who harmed to repent and join us again on the path to heaven."

    I prayed about this on a few nights since I heard this sermon of word and deed.  I realized how much more I need to grow as a person to reach this type of holiness...and I hope I can imitate their example with a few more years of practice.  Until then, I'll also pray this incredible person continues to show people like me the true path of Christ in this fallen world.

-ehw

P.S. The photo is of Kellie at the Antiedam Battlefield Museum.  It was a wonderful moment to watch her enjoy flowers, amidst the stories of war.  It reminded me of the decades it took to heal the wounds from the Civil War, and the lesson above being the path towards reconciliation.

Go home to Christ with the Holy Family

       Some of my favorite meditations during the Rosary focus on the Holy Family.  I find many lessons in their lives, mostly unsaid, which help us understand how we need to live our lives in this fallen world.  When God gave them each a unique mission for our salvation, each member of the family did as requested.  Take in a bride and adopt a baby as your own...St Joseph check.  Flee to Egypt and leave EVERYTHING behind in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT...Check.  Watch your child die on the cross, innocent of everything except being our just and holy savior...check.

    In our faith community of Regina Caeli Academy we had two mothers pass away during the past month in Texas.  One from cancer, and the other suddenly during delivery of her third child.  Each woman left behind a family lead my faithful men of the church.  For them I pray the example of the Holy Family provides a path to continued holiness, and reunion in heaven.     These husbands had strong families of faith, and now face a period where they may feel the heat and cold of a desert journey until they reach safety of peace in understanding the will of God.  In some ways it reminds me of Joseph and Mary as they carried their child Jesus to from Bethlehem to Egypt and back to Nazareth.  A long journey which must occur under the guidance of faith to succeed.

    As we gather for Thanksgiving, remember families like these two around the country.  Pray the light of Christ stays strong in them and their children.  May it be lit by their desire to obtain the graces of heaven, and rejoin their mother in eternal life.  It should be a prayer for all of us as well.  God wants us all to come home.

-ehw