Last month the community of the Lord’s Ranch experienced a birth and a death within 48 hours of each other. You may remember our newsletter last year telling about the wedding of Mike and Norma Reuter. Mike and Norma honeymooned in Italy, visiting many shrines and receiving a special blessing from Pope Benedict XVI. Hoping to start a family soon, they were delighted to find out a month later that they were expecting a baby, and on August 3rd Norma gave birth to Kiara Maria at the Ranch with the help of midwives. Kiara is named after St. Clare and Our Blessed Mother, and she was welcomed with much joy and love by all of us.
Meanwhile in another building on the Ranch, Marion Halloran, 92 years of age, was in another kind of labor, undergoing the slow process of dying. Marion was the oldest member of our community after her husband Bill died at the age of 94 four years ago.
Marion and Bill had moved here from Rhode Island in 1978 to live and volunteer full-time with Our Lady’s Youth Center. Bill helped dig wells and build our inter- national shortwave radio station and Marion helped with the administrative work. As she grew older and less mobile, she focused more on her role as intercessor and faithfully prayed for all of our donors and their intentions for many years. Marion lived next door to her son and his family, and she was well-loved and cared for by her children and grandchildren.
As Kiara was getting used to breathing her first breaths, Marion breathed her last and peacefully went to her reward early in the morning of August 5th. In a way, Kiara and Marion both experienced birth — Kiara was born into earthly life and Marion was born into eternal life with God.
