Happy February and Happy Lent! You may be thinking why or how is Lent happy? If we use this time during Lent for weekly Stations of the Cross, fasting of some sort and to reduce our cluttered life to a more simple format, our love for God will increase and we will know happiness. Early in the days of Mary’s farm (the Shrine) when I was still working in England and we were financially able to plan as we wished, we invited a young man, Matthew Kelly speak. While he was a teenager, a friend had helped him to open his heart to God. Since he spoke at the Shrine, he has written many books and has become a highly sought-after motivational speaker. I recently listened to a CD he made for Lighthouse Catholic Media. In one of his books, Matthew relates how God spoke to his heart: "Waste no time, I am calling you to love Me completely in everything you do, right now. Don’t say, ‘When this is over I’ll devote myself to God.’ I am waiting here now, calling you to give yourself to Me now, completely, once and for all. "Say it, ‘All that I am is yours, Lord. For me I want nothing, all glory and honor be to You Lord Jesus Christ. You must increase and I must decrease, so that it is no longer I that live but You that live in me.’ "Until each and everyone of you, My children, can say this from your heart and try each day to live it, you will not know the fullest measure of My love on earth, which is a foretaste of Heaven, but only in the tiniest degree. It is only by surrendering yourselves to My love, abandoning yourselves to My trusting care, that you begin to live. Join the Holy Father in saying, "Totus Tuus."                                       WORDS from GOD, Matthew Kelly,1993, p.73 #182 God bless you, Deacon Ed

Deacon Ed's January Letter Happy and Blessed New Year to all. Looking ahead to a very happy new year, I continue to pray for Wisdom, Intelligence, Humility and Purity for the purpose of fulfilling God's will in my life and the life of Our Lady's Shrine. These are gifts each of us need to help us be all God wants us to be. It's almost like the Army slogan only with Divine assistance. A Great Saint to Help Us For the purity part, God recently sent me a great saint to be added to the other great saints that I venerate, implore and quote. If this saint is old news for some people then you should have told me about her. The problem is this great Saint never wrote a book, a sermon or any document about her life. No one knew about her, no legend spoke about her and she laid in silence until the early 1800's. I found her by listening to one of the monthly CD's I receive from Lighthouse Catholic Media. I have been enriched in faith and knowledge by listening to the CD's sent to me this past year and that is where I discovered St. Philomena. Oh, years ago I had seen her story but I passed her up for other Saints and stories that the Holy Spirit inspired for my education. It was not to be Philomena for me at that time. "A Saint for Our Times" a talk by Dr. Mark Miravalle was the title of my December CD from Lighthouse Media. I quote Dr. Miravalle. "Though St. Philomena lived approximately 1700 years ago and was only discovered in the catacombs of Rome in the early 1800"s, her faithful witness as a young virgin who was martyred for her purity and for her fidelity to Christ speaks powerfully to our culture, and especially to young people. Commonly referred to as a Wonder Worker, she has the distinction of being the only saint canonized solely on the basis of the profound miracles attributed to her intercession." Each of us is touched by grace throughout our life, especially when our hearts and feelings are pure and open to God's Divine Spirit. We have an internal intimate experience of the soul that usually brings tears and profound moments of peace and a longing for the feeling never to end. Philomena lived and died in those moments as a young girl of thirteen and became a virgin martyr. We live in a time of unbridled impurity available for anyone at an instant upon request. Babies have become a problem for those living in our hedonistic country. So, we said OK to kill a baby in the womb or, to circumvent certain restrictions, we could partial birth the baby and then kill the child in the so called partial birth abortion. This solves a lot of today's pressing problems for our advanced culture of freedom, especially if one of your young daughters makes a mistake that she would have to live with. The Aztecs killed their enemies by sacrifice to their warrior gods and idols and when no prisoners were available they killed their own. Our Lady of Guadalupe came to Mexico and stopped the slaughter. She comes today in our time to stop a so-called Christian people from killing their own by justifying the murder of their unborn. After listening to Philomena's story, I believe God saved her greatest victory for our time. She is the saint and advocate to Our Blessed Lady of Guadalupe to aid us as we pray to restore purity to our dying country one family, one person; one circumstance at a time. Invoke the help of the thirteen-year-old wonder-worker and experience a grace moment. See the information on the home page of our website to join the Catholic Lighthouse Media CD of the Month Club. I have belonged to this club for over a year and before I would promote it, I wanted to experience the program. The program at entry level is $5.00 a month shipping and handling and it brings you one new CD each month. If you can't join the club but would like the CD, send me an email and I will send you one for $5.00 plus shipping. I wish I could afford to give them away but not at this time. God Bless You Deacon Ed

Deacon Ed's December Letter Advent, the liturgical season of four weeks devoted to preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas, the CCC glossary definition. Returning home today after our two Sunday Masses thinking about all the Blessings and the trials of the year, my thoughts turned to my dad who died this year. He didn’t go to church and he was not Catholic but he stood by his word that his children would be raised in my mothers faith. My maternal grandmother and grandfather were wonderful loving, daily Mass Catholics and I noticed the respect and a bond my father had with my grandfather. This transferred in my mind as respect for the catholic faith for it was apparent when you entered their house by the front door, being greeted by a stained glass window, a holy water fount and throughout the house other statues and pictures of Our Lord, His Mother and our Saints. The four weeks before Christmas were a preparation for me to look through the Sears Christmas catalog and to make a list of what I liked. I also wrote letters to Santa and unpacked our storage trunks of Christmas items. lights for the outside trees, wreaths, angels, garland, tinsel and all the bulbs to decorate our tree. My father had his own preparation. Every night after work and our supper he would disappear to our basement. My brother and I were told by my mother not to disturb our father for he was working on a special project and he must not be bothered. The basement door was locked! We watched TV, played in the snow, built snowmen and sledded down streets blocked off for our safety. One night on the way back from sledding we decided to look through the basement windows to see what was going on in the basement. The windows were covered with newspaper. My mom explained it was to help with keeping the basement warmer like insulation. One week, two weeks, three weeks, and now just a few days before Christmas and we are sitting around our decorated tree and watching Bob Hope and Perry Como Christmas shows and all was good. Dad would come home late and mom would serve him his supper and he would join us for a while and then off to the basement. We didn’t know our dad worked a second job after normal work in the mill to raise extra money to provide for our family Christmas. My childhood Christmas eve memories are still vivid and it seems easier to remember those times than to remember what happened to me yesterday. We were all together on Christmas eve, Mom, Dad, Me and my brother. We would hang the stockings by the fireplace and leave cookies and milk for Santa and it was hard to sleep but eventually it was morning. When we awoke, we rushed into mom and dad and said lets go and see what Santa brought. After all the surprises, gifts and finally breakfast my dad said there was on more thing. Follow me to the basement. When the lights went on, we were greeted with a giant platform about two feet high and twelve by twelve feet square with a large decorated Christmas tree in the middle surrounded by mountains and hills and houses and animals and trees and snow and three Lionel trains running around the tree appearing and disappearing in and out of the tunnels. There are no words to describe the joy in our hearts, after the four weeks of my father’s preparation for the birth of our Christmas layout. Off to Mass to make it a complete Christmas with little boys prayers of thanks, to Santa and mom and dad and God Bless everyone. Those memories of the advent of our Christmas layout remained with me through my adult years and I have shared them with those who would enjoy our moment of Christmas joy. If and when you visit the Shrine here in Windsor, I would be happy to share that memory with your family by inviting you to see my present train layout still under construction but operating. You will then be part of my Christmas story as you visit Our Blessed Mother here at Her Shrine. Merry Christmas and God Bless You. Deacon Ed Read Deacon Ed's story of our Miracle Picture. December 12th is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Deacon Ed's November Letter This is my first post on the Servants of Mary news page. I would like to thank all those who have helped with prayers, donations and labor here at the shrine. The bathrooms are 98% complete and have been functional since late June. What a big job to take on but we have excellent craft and workers to help in all phases of the work but it was tough to try and meet the deadline of June 27th. The finance for the bathrooms came from a matching grant from the Ashtabula Foundation. Many people donated time and money and each one of you should know that the comments are wonderful. Last night one of our grandsons was helping me on the property and we had to come into the new building to get some tools. While he was helping carry tools, he mentioned that he had not seen the bathroom yet. When I showed him he exclaimed, “WOW! These are amazing, grandpa these are just like at the movies, I had no idea.”He was really impressed so thank you, each and everyone who helped prayed and paid for the convenience of restrooms and running water. The dinner with Deacon Ed was well attended and everyone enjoyed the story of our journey back to the farm and the explanation of what it means to “Go back to the farm and wait” It is a joy to share our experiences here especially the story of Carl and his journey. As I look out at the lights of the rosary and Our Beautiful Statue of Our Lady it seems like winter even though the temperature is very mild for this time of year. Thanksgiving is just around the corner which is one of our favorite holidays. Memories of past thanksgiving family dinners at my grand mothers house when I was just a young boy seem like yesterday, so vivid, so happy so full of love. All of those but a few who were a part of those feasts are with our Lord and Our Lady. But we still carry on the tradition especially the sharing loving building memories part for those young grandkids and family friends. What a wonderful holiday to share our faith by giving thanks to God for the opportunity, and having all those leave with a memory of a happy moment on our journey home. Have a Blessed Thanks Giving and may God Bless your Families. Deacon Ed