My Dear Family

LOVE SINGS ITS SONG

by Catherine Doherty

Written in 1962, this Christmas letter to the staff of MH is just as relevant today in its focus on the essence of our Christian call in the face of global conflict and uncertainty.

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All around us is the struggle for political autonomy, power, and glory. Whole continents such as Africa and Asia are splitting up into smaller nations. The struggle for power among these new countries continues. Dominating them all is the struggle for power between East and West—between Russia and the United States.

Every country seeks its own glory at the price of someone else’s. As a result, the ordinary little people suffer in silence, and pray and hope for someone who will come and truly set the world free.

The tragedy is that half of the world doesn’t know—and the other half has almost forgotten—that the King has come in power and glory.

He came as a spring breeze, as a gentle wind in the summer comes to refresh us. He came as the mysterious whispers of the night, when tree talks to tree, and grass whispers to grass, and flower to flower.

He came in the dark of night, humbly, the Child of poor folks. He was born in a cave. His first human contact was the gentle hands of his mother. His first sense impressions were the gentle whisper of the straw in which he lay, and the sound of ox and ass chewing some hay.

The only people who came to render him homage on that holy night were the humblest of the humble—the shepherds of Israel. The only mysterious signs of his heavenly origin were the angelic choir, and a strange light in the sky.

How far removed is his gentle coming from our centuries-old war and struggle for power which still continues.

But make no mistake! The Child who lies in the manger, listening to the sound of the straw and the munching of animals, possesses all power and glory! He has dominion over life and death, and not a hair of your head falls but he knows it and wills it! Even as you read my words, your life lies in the palm of his hands!

Nothing escapes his dominion, and his will reigns supreme over a thousand universes. Man prides himself on his discovery of space, but in the eyes of the Lord, a thousand universes are like a grain of sand. He has made all of the laws which have brought them into existence. They are created by him and are subject to him.

Yet it is the same Child in that manger, the same humble carpenter of Nazareth, the same Man who walked barefoot in Palestine and died naked on a cross, who possesses all power and glory. He is an eternal King, to whom nations and universes are but a footstool. Note how he rules, the Just One:

A bruised reed he will not break; a sinner before him finds mercy; gentleness shines in his footsteps; in all he does, love sings its eternal song.

Dearly beloved, this Christmas, my heart goes out in torrents of love to each one of you. As I kneel before the crib in the MH chapel, I ask the Lord of Hosts, the King of power and glory, who lies before me—a little Child—that you might meet him in both guises. I ask that you might know the Child and the King, the Man and the God in one person.

I ask that you might know him who has called you so specially to himself, who changes himself into a tremendous lover, and desires of you but one thing: the you might love him back by surrendering totally and completely to him.

If, by some miracle of God’s grace, you were to find yourself transported to Bethlehem on this holy night, and Christ the Child were to ask you directly, as he did to Peter: "Do you love me, Sally, Dick, JoAnne, Joe?", what would you answer him? Could you answer like Peter, "Lord you know that I love you!"?

Or would you have to say, "Yes, I love you, Lord, thus far, but no further! I love you Lord, but I find it so hard to grow in love." Perhaps others of you would answer, "Yes, Lord, we do love you!"

But, before you answer, you should be very sure that you understand what he understands by love: a total surrender, a total consecration, a total dedication. That’s what he considers love, and that is what it truly is. That’s how he loved us.

We are not kings, or tribal chieftains, or men and women of importance. Nevertheless, we seek to be kings and queens when we glorify our own wills and enjoy our own power.

Let us beware of ourselves and let us implore Emmanuel, the Child, who is the King of love, of gentle power, and of hidden glory, to teach us the one virtue which will bring us to our knees before his face—the virtue of humility, which is only another word for truth.

In this humility, we can tell him that we love him and that we want to be his completely; we can also humbly and truthfully beg him for the grace to do so.

I will pray for this before the crib, and I will ask the Divine Infant for one special gift for each of you. This is my Christmas present to you. Pauper of the Lord that I am, I have nothing but my love and prayers to give. They are yours in their totality, because you are Christ’s and he is yours, dearly beloved.

I wish that the coming year be one of growth in faith; for as you grow in faith, you will grow in love and surrender, and that is really all that matters! From Dearly Beloved

Vol. 1, pp. 291-293

Nazareth Today

HOW ARE WE TO WAIT?

by Denis Lemieux

Each Advent, the working guests at MH take part in the ‘liturgy class’—a tumultuous, breathlessly busy, action-packed combo of study and prayer, enlivened by work projects, arts and crafts, drama and music, all centering around the liturgical season of Advent and numerous feasts that coincide with it.

Wreaths and cookies, carols and coffeecake, scripture, song, and ceremony—all serve to inspire us, draw us in, and help us put flesh on this rich liturgical time.

The class varies a lot from year to year, depending on the staff and guests involved in it. One thing it always is, however, is hectic. Advent, as you have no doubt noticed, is a rather short season, and the main feasts that fall during it all occur within a seven-day period (Dec. 6 to 13).

This year Dina Lingard, Fr. Charlie Stubbs and I are the MH team coordinating the class. At our last team meeting, Fr. Charlie was lamenting that in other years, the class would have para-liturgical services, at times sitting in silence and darkness for long periods so that the guests would grasp what it is to wait on the Lord.

We haven’t had much along those lines this year (sad to say), but, faced with our very limited class time, and the huge amounts of activities we have to coordinate and teachings to impart, I blurted out at one point, "Yes, but Father, we don’t have time to wait!"

We all laughed (and, by the way, wound up organizing a simple presentation along the above mentioned lines for our next class), but those words— no time to wait—began to rumble around in me.

Isn’t that our problem, we moderns? No time to wait? This is the age of instant gratification, and for us even that, as one writer recently lamented, "takes too long!"

Yep, we want it now, whatever ‘it’ might be. Happiness, prosperity, mental, physical and spiritual health. Now! Love, peace, justice, joy, intimacy. Now! We want instant community—just add water and stir! Minute holiness—takes just five minutes!

So here we are in Advent. By the time you get this paper, most of you will be well immersed in the ‘Christmas rush’. I can assure you that, while our MH ‘Advent rush’ may differ in detail, the lived experience is pretty much the same.

It’s not like there’s much to be done about it, either. After all, most of our busyness is unavoidable. Children have to be fed, bathed, clothed and schooled. Businesses are to be run, jobs are to be worked at, feasts prepared. The obligations of community or family press in on us, and are, after all, the will of God expressed in our individual lives.

But the Church says, "Wait! Stand ready! Be silent and expectant! The King is coming, and you do not know when. Factually, he comes to you each moment, bearing gifts to you, who once brought gifts to him. Be watchful and waiting, so as not to miss him!"

Ah, but how are we to do this, we frantic, harried, displaced, and occasionally slightly ridiculous modern people?

How, we cry, as we drive bumper to bumper on the rage-filled freeways of modern megacities. How, we plead, crushed under the constant cycle of laundry, house cleaning, cooking, diapers.

How, we gasp, in the airless, lightless cubicles of modern offices, those lifeless corporate workplaces that sprawl like arid deserts in our modern downtown wastelands.

How, when pressed body to body on city buses and subways, when bowed low under injustice and poverty and heartache, when the flesh’s demands are heavy and insistent, when God seems silent and heaven remote.

Yes, how Lord? How can we wait, we the busy, the consumed, the forlorn? The alienated and confused? The whole human race lifts up its voice, in many tongues, expressing the question in many different ways. Even those who don’t know they are waiting, or for whom they wait, cry out in their mute spirits. Our voices rise in a crescendo of pain and longing: How, Lord? How are we to wait, and for how long? O God, where are you?

After a time, exhausted and spent, we fall silent. Our poverty of words beggars us. A silence takes hold, first of our lips; then a hush slowly comes over our fevered minds, and a quiet—not yet a peace—comes over our hearts. Not peace yet, but perhaps an expectancy of peace. Silence grows and enfolds us in its mantle.

Our questioning, our fevered demands, our frantic pleas, have, oddly, brought us here to this place of quiet. We cried out "How, Lord?" Now, he answers, "By crying out, my child."

"But it’s too hard, Lord."

"That’s right, little one."

"But how, then? How are we to await you? How will we know when you come? We’re so broken, so confused, so alienated. We’re sinners, Lord! And we’re so busy! So grindingly, exhaustingly busy! How, Lord, are we to keep our hearts open and still, our longing sharp and keen, our hope alive. Life is crushing us! Our lives are burying us alive!"

"Do you know how much I love you, my child? Do you? Know it now, and come abide in my love.

"Is your burden too heavy? Then take mine (easy, and light), and let me take yours. That is what I came for, why I lay for nine months in the womb of Mary.

"That’s why I lay on straw in the cave at Bethlehem, why I lived 30 years in obscurity and hiddenness, pacing out the endless days and seasons of love’s labor in Nazareth.

"Is your heart crushed, or broken? Then take mine. For this I came, you know. To give my heart for yours, and take yours into mine. For this I worked my miracles, for this I taught my disciples the life of the kingdom.

"Is life crushing you? Are your lives burying you alive? Take my life, for I too was buried, and I know the way out of the tomb.

"For this I died, and for this I rose. To give you my life, and to breathe into you my Spirit. Does the world grieve you? Trouble you? Take heart, for I have overcome the world. Even now, when hope seems lost and evil strong, I have overcome it all.

"You asked how you are to wait, and I answered ‘By crying out.’ Yes, for it’s in crying out, in the heart’s cry for mercy, for help, for understanding, for me, that it remains open, that your longing is made sharp and keen.

"Behold, I come very soon, and I make all things new. Even now, in this feast of my birth, as I lie, small and helpless in my mother’s arms, I am the sovereign Lord of all. Even now, in your life’s pain and confusion, in the darkness of your pilgrim way, in your alienation and distress, I am sovereign and mighty.

"I am your faithful God, and those who hope in me will not be disappointed."

The Pope’s Corner

RICH IN MERCY

by Pope John Paul II

As we begin the ‘Year of the Father’, we present this excerpt from the 1980 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), on the mercy and love of God.

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It is God, who is rich in mercy (Eph. 2:4) whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us as Father: it is his very Son who, in himself, has manifested him and made him known to us.

Memorable in this regard is the moment when the apostle Philip turned to Christ and said: "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus replied, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:8-9).

These words, spoken during the farewell discourse at the end of the paschal supper, were followed by the events of those holy days, during which confirmation was to be given once and for all of the fact that God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:4-5).

Following the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and paying close attention to the special needs of our times, I devoted the encyclical Redemptor Hominis to the truth about man, a truth that is revealed to us in its fullness and depth in Christ.

A no less important need in these critical and difficult times impels me to draw attention once again in Christ to the countenance of the Father of mercies and God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3). We read in Gaudium et Spes:

"Christ, the new Adam fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his lofty calling," and does it "in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love."

The words that I have quoted are clear testimony to the fact that man cannot be manifested in the full dignity of his nature without reference to God. Man and man’s lofty calling are revealed in Christ through the revelation of the Father and his love.

For this reason it now is fitting to reflect on this mystery. It is called for by the varied experiences of the Church and of contemporary man. It is also demanded by the pleas of many human hearts, their sufferings and hopes, their anxieties and expectations.

While it is true that every individual human being is, as I said in Redemptor Hominis, the way for the Church, at the same time the Gospel and the whole of Tradition constantly show us that we must travel this way with every individual just as Christ traced it out by revealing in himself the Father and his love.

In Jesus Christ, every path to man, as it has been assigned once and for all to the Church in the changing context of the times, is simultaneously an approach to the Father and his love.

The more the Church’s mission is centered upon man—the more it is, so to speak, anthropocentric—the more it must be confirmed and actualized theocentrically, that is to say, be directed in Jesus Christ to the Father.

While the various currents of human thought both in the past and at the present have tended and still tend to separate theocentrism and anthropocentrism, and even to set them in opposition to each other, the Church, following Christ, seeks to link them up in human history, in a deep and organic way. This is one of the basic principles, perhaps the most important one, of the teaching of the last Council.

Since, therefore, in the present phase of the Church’s history we put before ourselves as our primary task the implementation of the doctrine of the Council, we must act upon this principle with faith, with an open mind and with all our heart.

In Redemptor Hominis I tried to show that the deepening and many-faceted enrichment of the Church’s consciousness resulting from the Council must open our minds and our hearts more widely to Christ.

Today, I wish to say that openness to Christ, who as the Redeemer of the world fully reveals man to himself, can only be achieved through an ever more mature reference to the Father and his love.

Although God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16), he speaks to man by means of the whole of the universe. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Rom. 1:20).

This indirect and imperfect knowledge, achieved by the intellect seeking God by means of creatures through the visible world, falls short of the vision of the Father.

St. John writes, No one has ever seen God, to stress the truth that the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known (John 1:18). This ‘making known’ reveals God in the most profound mystery of his being, one and three, surrounded by ‘unapproachable light’.

Nevertheless, through this ‘making known’ by Christ we know God above all in his relationship of love for man: in his ‘philanthropy’. It is precisely here that his invisible nature becomes in a special way visible, incomparably more visible than through all the other things that have been made: it becomes visible in Christ and through Christ, through his actions and his words, and finally through his death on the Cross and his Resurrection.

In this way, God also becomes especially visible in his mercy; that is to say, there is emphasized that attribute of the divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and terms, already defined as ‘mercy’.

Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God’s mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in him, and finds it in him, God becomes visible in a particular way as the Father who is ‘rich in mercy.’

THE GLORY GOES TO GOD

by the staff

After one of our staff has been buried, the MH community gathers in the evening to tell stories about the person.

It seems appropriate to share some of these stories with you, our readers, to give you a better sense of Bill’s greatness of spirit, his humor, and the depth of his life with God.

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Chuck Sharp: We were living up at Carmel Hill dorm in the 1970’s, and had just had a staff meeting in which Catherine got rather upset with the men of MH.

Without checking with her, we had removed something from MH that meant a lot to her. She was hurt, and felt that we men were indifferent to our family traditions and history. She let us know she was upset with us, at great length!

Many of us were hurt by this, not really understanding what she was saying. Later, we came to understand it, but at the time we didn’t.

So, there we were at Carmel Hill, late at night, sitting around and saying: "That wasn’t right. She didn’t understand what we did. It wasn’t true, what she said. Someone should tell her the truth."

The discussion went around and around, not going anywhere. Bill was part of it, but at a certain point he got very quiet. After what seemed like a long silence on his part, one of us said again, "Someone should tell her the truth!"

Bill spoke up: "We’re not called to truth. We’re called to love." That ended the discussion. His words seared into my heart and have stayed with me for over 20 years.

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Fr. Paul Béchard: Bill and I worked together in carpentry for many years. I taught him, perhaps in a way that involved ‘tough love’! Catherine wanted us to learn how to go to the missions and not just ‘survive’, but be able to teach others how to do things.

In the late 1950’s, Bill and I were building the cabins at Cana Colony, and I had to teach him to work with almost no tools. We were making one of the buildings level and square, using only a tape measure and a primitive level.

It took a long time, but we got it straight, and he learned how to do it. After this long and difficult job, I showed him the ‘quick and easy’ way to do it. (He could have killed me!)

In the early 1970’s, he had to design the island chapel. The time he spent on this was incredible. In those days, the men’s planning center was on St. Peter’s porch, which wasn’t heated. Night after night, Bill was bent over a table, drafting the plans.

The first design had been accepted by the DG’s, but Bill just wasn’t satisfied with it. So he started again, and came up with the chapel we have now. He was stuck, though, in trying to figure out how to do the braces that would hold the onion dome. Finally, to figure it out, he spent all night making a little scale-model out of wood.

As we were building the chapel, we had to lift up the onion dome with a crane that Albert Osterberger had rigged up. It was going up okay, until it started to swing.

The dome was fragile, and could have been damaged if it had hit the walls of the chapel. So Bill put himself between the dome and the building. The dome hit him rather than the wall of the chapel.

That was Bill. He was very strong, and he did these things as if they were nothing.

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Janette Hills: I have two stories. The first was when I was working in the MH kitchen years ago.

Bishop William Powers [of Antigonish, Nova Scotia], a good friend of Bill’s from his YCW days, had come to visit. I was asked to make a banana cream pie for him for supper. I did, and I think it was one of the most beautiful pies I ever made. It was the most beautiful! And the meringue was just right. As I took it out of the oven, however, reaching in with just one hand, I dropped it upside down on the floor!

Bill and I were very close, and spent many years together. He seemed to have a knack for walking by, just when I did the wrong thing or made some mistake. So he walked by at that moment and asked "What’s that on the floor?"

"It’s a banana cream pie," I answered, as I tried to save what I could. (It wasn’t entirely ruined. The part that hadn’t touched the floor was perfectly sanitary!) So I scooped it up and put it in a desert bowl, rather than a plate, and served it to the bishop that night.

Bill was sitting at the bishop’s table. I was seated at a nearby table, but I overheard him say: "Bishop, see that desert? It was a banana cream pie—but it got dropped on the floor and she scooped it up to give to you for desert!"

I was so mad at him! Bill had a sense of humor that I could never quite match!

My second story shows Bill’s more profound side. After he got back from his trip to Florida in 1992, he told me what had happened to him.

A few years later, when he started to get very sick and was suffering a lot, I talk to him about his time in Florida and his encounter with God’s love. And he said, "This [his illness] is all part of that."

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Beverly Maciag: One day, I was sweeping the floor on the back veranda. I was almost done, just as Bill came by. He stopped, and we chatted for a bit. Then he reached down into my pile of dirt and picked up a wooden match.

"You could light a fire with this," he said, as he put it in his pocket and walked away. It was one of the most profound lessons on poverty I ever had.

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Jean Fox: In the 1960’s, there was a lot of turmoil in the Church about missiology and ‘relevance’ and lots of other big words. MH was in the middle of it all, and many people would come here to discuss the issues of the day.

One day, Bill found himself in the midst of some heated discussion; some avant-garde people were here telling us what we should do in the missions.

Bill stood up, towering over them, and said: "Well, the Church has been going to the missions for a long time. Some things we did were right, and some were very wrong; but all that will last is how much people loved." I never forgot that.

Bill poured his life out here. In the early days, no one had time to be pious or look holy or do ‘holy things’! The work was back-breaking, and went on from sun-up until you went to bed at night. It never stopped. Bill was one who poured his love and energy and presence into things. We can’t thank him enough.

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Sandy Brewer: Just one comment about the island chapel: Bill often went to Cana Colony and speak to the families. They’d bring up the chapel and praise him for it.

Once, he said to me: "My only fear is that the glory will come to me and not to God. The glory for that chapel goes to God, not to me."

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Denis Heames: I didn’t know Bill too well before he got sick. One day, though, he and I went to Barry’s Bay, just shortly after Bill’s time in Florida. I was new here, and had heard about the graces he received. He’d been quiet all morning, so I asked him: "What can you tell me about love, Bill?"

I didn’t know what to expect; but his response was: "If I had known it was going to be this painful, I don’t know if I could have said ‘yes’!"

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Kathleen Thompson: Bill moved into St. Luke’s infirmary in 1995. He was having a very hard day, and was depressed. I happened by, and he said, "Is that you, old girl?"

So I sat with him a while. I said, "Are you okay?"

He replied, "Oh, well …" and we sat there in silence. After a time, he said, "Well, what are you doing?"

"I’ve just finished making the wooden cross for Rae Gene Neubig’s grave." (She’d died a few months before).

Bill asked: "Now, what kind of paint did you use? What color did you use for the letters?"

I told him all about it, then said I’d like to get it in the ground by August 15th.

"Oh, that’s good."

We sat in silence for a while longer. Then he said: "Old girl, you know what I want on my cross? Precious is the love of God."

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Malcolm Delaney: I was with Bill in the late 1980’s at our fish pond. One day, he had me work on the raceway where the young fish are raised. Well, I thought I understood what he wanted me to do. At one point, however, I felt this presence behind me. I turned, and there was Bill—glaring at me. He said, "What are you doing?" (He said that to me a lot!)

Later, I saw another side of Bill, when I was helping to care for him in his last years. Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s isn’t something I’d have chosen to do, but it became an incredible gift to me.

For some years, I’d been out west in our field houses. When I returned to Combermere, I found that we had started having daily Adoration at MH. What hit me, at Bill’s bedside, was that being with him had the same effect for me as being in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Just being with him.

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Kieran Kilcommons: I was with Bill at the Valley Manor, the nursing home where Bill spent the last year or so of his life. A doctor came by and asked: "Bill, how are you doing today?" No response. "Anything to say today, Bill?" No response. So the doctor said to me, "He’s not talking much today, is he!"

As just as the man walked away, Bill said, "Well, I never did say much."

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Gerard Lesage: I came to MH eleven years ago, and began working right away in carpentry. By some grace of God, I always knew Bill loved me. He was like a father to me, though (as Kieran mentioned) he really never said much.

For the first three years, the only thing Bill said was, "You have to learn how to think, Gerard." He said it in many ways! Bill really saw potential in me, which I could not see myself.

After three years of being told this, something clicked inside me as I worked in the carpentry shop. I knew exactly what he meant by ‘thinking’. That night, walking back from Mass, I said: "Bill, I figured out what you mean by ‘thinking’. It’s clicked for me!"

There was a moment of silence; then Bill said: "That doesn’t matter. It’s your spiritual life that counts!"

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Albert Osterberger: At one point, Bill moved into a private room at St. Mary’s. He had diabetes, and was suffering a lot from nausea. Oftentimes, he couldn’t sleep, so he kept irregular hours, and couldn’t stay in a dorm anymore.

A week after he moved in, he said: "You know, Albert, when I moved in there I put a cross on the wall; then I put my bed where I could see it at night. One evening, I was just miserable; I could hardly stand the pain. So I looked at the cross, and I heard the Lord say, ‘Bill, I want more.’

"I said, ‘I can hardly stand what I have right now.’ But I said yes."

Bill never took that ‘yes’ back. He was offered the gift of long-suffering, and he carried it right to the end. I think he was given an awareness of the glory of the cross, and that’s what sustained him.

THE ENCOUNTER WITH LOVE

by Bill Jakali

The following was written in May, 1992.

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Lord Jesus, I love you with all my heart. Lord Jesus, may I praise you with my whole being, may I place everything into your loving heart!

You are a powerful, majestic, loving God; the one who loves all mankind without reserve. You are a beggar for man’s love, and you cry to us: "Please, give me the little crumbs of your love!"

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I want to give a little background of when God started to move in my soul.

In 1953, I was a happy-go-lucky pagan of Protestant descent. My mother owned a restaurant in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. I worked at the Hamilton Bridge Company, and was making good money. But in a little corner of my heart, something wasn’t right.

I was a wheeler-dealer, buying used cars and repairing them, painting them with bright metallic paint, then reselling them. I’d just bought a new Studebaker, with overdrive and all the hardware I could pack into it. I had painted it canary yellow—it was the flashiest car around!

I dated enough so that I was respected among my peers, but in that corner of my heart, something still wasn’t right.

I’d gotten involved with the Young Christian Workers in Hamilton, founded by Romeo Maione; and he mentioned that there was a Baroness and a bunch of crazy women running around up in Combermere.

So, in 1957, I made my way to the Madawaska Valley for a fishing vacation. This place called Madonna House sounded interesting, yes, but not as much as fishing for a few days. But that little corner of my heart started to grow in leaps and bounds …

This February, I went on vacation to Florida. The second night in a hotel room in Lakeland, I got very sick and passed out. For two days, I was miserable. I guess God had some unfinished business with me. I could sense a softness coming into me; I was losing the hard attitude I had.

A nurse from the local hospital came to take my blood pressure. Surprisingly, it was normal. I told her that her equipment must be faulty—I was still feeling lousy! But I started to know then that I was going to get better.

My Epiphany gift in January was happiness. Well, I was ready and waiting for it! I started walking around Mirror Lake, saying the rosary after meals. Joy gradually crept into my heart, and I was full of gratitude to God.

Two weeks later, in St. Petersburg, things started to change in me. I didn’t know then that God’s love was penetrating me. I was falling in love with him! It came like a flood washing over me. His love came across so strong, so beautifully.

I shouted aloud: "God, I love you! God, I love you with all my heart! Lord Jesus, I am sorry I ever offended you!" Tears were streaming from my eyes. This didn’t happen in church or in my room. I was somewhere in downtown St. Petersburg on my prayer walk.

Never in my life had I said ‘I love you’ to anyone. Well, I had once tried to say it to a girl I was dating (so I could do it properly when I met the right one). But my voice had stuck in my throat. I almost choked.

Now, on my walks praying the rosary, the Divine Presence came so strong—awesome—that no words can properly describe it. God’s presence shook me!

I felt terribly naked before him; I understood that he knew all my thoughts; and it felt like I was standing in a storm.

I thought of St. Paul, who had always been a mystery to me: Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9:4). Jesus placed the answer in his heart even before he had completed the sentence.

I thought of Bartimaeus, the blind man. Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me! (Mark 10:47). The people tried to shut him up, but he stood firm. This was his last chance to get cured, so he cried all the louder. Jesus stopped and said: "Call him."

I thought of Zacchaeus. "Hurry down from the top of the tree. I must stay in your house today" (Luke 19:5). Afterwards, Zacchaeus blurted out all kinds of promises to the poor, filled with excitement. I knew what it was like. I was feeling the same excitement—totally out of control!

I understood that no one in sin could stand before God—he would melt away. I knew that seeing God face to face would be an impossibility in my sinful state. I understood purgatory for the first time, and the need to purify oneself before going to God. A heart full of love is the only thing that can stand before him.

I said to myself: "Everything has to go out of my life that is not of God, no matter how trivial!" And I say the same thing to everyone.

Everything—small disobediences, bad TV or books—we each know where we fail, and what is wrong in the eyes of God. It’s all pure ‘garbage’ in us, which grows into a mountain, blocks our presence to God’s love, and robs us of joy.

I continued walking and praying the rosary. I was overwhelmed, awed with the power and majesty of God that had eluded me in the past.

It was the greatest holiday of my life! People would ask me questions, and I’d know the answer before they had stopped talking.

It’s too much to say all the things that happened; I don’t want to drown you in words and destroy the ‘real’ message: the encounter with God’s love.

What a change it has made in me! I can no longer stay limited to only the friends I choose. My heart must flow out—like a river—encompassing everyone the world over.

No, I can’t do it. It’s impossible. But God can and will. I can sit back and adore, and say ‘Dada’ to God.

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The following was written a month later, June 1992, for those making promises in MH.

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St. John the Beloved is leaning against the heart of Jesus at the Last Supper. Here is a prayer where no knee is bent, no arms raised in adoration, no lips that move. Man and God are united in love beyond any human understanding.

The majestic greatness of our God is wonderful! It permeates our whole being and invades the inner sources of our hearts. There is no fear; just utter wonder. For God’s love shatters, purifies all things that stand in the way.

In his holy presence, understanding is complete. Not a word is spoken, but hearts meet and surrender to one another. Such is the love of God!

Love One Another - Part 6

I AM YOUR MERCIFUL MOTHER

by Fr. Emile Brière

This column explores the dimensions and challenges of being a committed, dedicated, loving Christian in today’s world.

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To love one another requires patience and often heroic virtue. Living in community, we can easily get on each other’s nerves. It’s the little things often repeated which may irritate the most.

So often our words are judgmental and even slanderous. Without even thinking, we can so easily diminish another person’s reputation by casual judgments and gossip.

In MH, it takes constant vigilance on the part of each person to protect the family from divisiveness, from uncharity which leads to self-destruction. Prayer is constantly needed by all of us.

To help us in this constant struggle (we do bring each other a lot of joy, too!) we need all the help we can get from Jesus, and from Our Lady.

In 1531, Mary appeared to a humble Indian man named Juan Diego and spoke to him many consoling words. These words are also spoken to us today. She said:

Know for certain that I am the ever Virgin Mary, mother of the true God from whom all life has come. Thus she evangelized Latin America from its beginnings, preaching the one true God.

Here I will show and offer all my love, my compassion, my help and protection. Those who visit the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe have been impressed by the millions of pilgrims who come from all over Mexico, little children going to visit their mother. To all who approach her, she gives help, love, compassion, and protection.

I am your merciful mother. That’s the beauty of having such a mother. She’s such an immense gift from God! In the Middle Ages, plays were written contrasting the mercy of Our Lady with the justice of God, showing Our Lady bringing sinners into heaven by the back door, or by a secret hole.

That, of course, is an erroneous idea. God’s mercy is infinite, and all of Our Lady’s mercy comes from him. But it shows the tendency of the human heart to trust a mother. What goodness God has in giving us a mother we can trust, even if our own mother has failed us!

I am the mother of all who love me, who cry to me and who have confidence in me. Mothers know the weaknesses and the strengths of each one of their children, and are there to assist them.

I hear your weeping and your sorrows, your hardships and your sufferings. How close to us she is! God hears the cry of your heart. The Blessed Trinity shares in every moment of your life. So does Mary. When you go to her with confidence—in every pain, in every longing of your being—she will lead you step by step to Jesus. Your life will become more secure, your soul at peace, your spirit at rest within the secret part of your being where the Trinity lives. Gradually you will begin to believe in love. Very gradually, you will see how much you are loved.

I will repay you for all the worry, work, and trouble you have taken on my behalf. At Guadalupe in 1531, Our Lady asked Juan Diego to see the bishop and ask him to build a church in her honor on Tepeyac Hill. This was hard for a humble peasant to do, yet he did it. God is never outdone in generosity, and neither is Our Lady. Whatever good we do, whatever love we give to anybody, will be returned to us a hundredfold. We are not dealing with stingy people!

Listen and let it penetrate your heart. You have no cause to be frightened and anxious. Juan Diego’s uncle had fallen ill. A good nephew, he wanted to visit him and tried to avoid seeing Our Lady. He went by another path, but she met him there and told him not to worry, that she was in charge. She would take care of everything.

The same is true for us. Our Lady takes care of everything. We’re often faced with difficulties, with problems that seem insolvable, situations which may be very painful.

I can testify, after 42 years in Our Lady’s house, that she does take care of us, even in the most excruciating, sorrowful experiences that we can go through. I’ve discovered that when something painful happened, in which I was totally helpless, as soon as I really put my trust in her, the situation changed, the burden fell off my shoulders, and my heart began to experience joy instead of pain. Let your heart be troubled no longer.

Have no fear of this sickness or any other. Again she refers to Juan Diego’s uncle’s sickness. Ponder Mary’s tenderness, the way she speaks to all of our hearts if we allow her. She is so eager to take care of all our sorrows, of all our hopes and longings.

Am I, your mother, not here? Again she pleads for a little bit of faith and trust on our part. Try it out the next time you have a situation in which you find yourself weak and helpless. I’m sure you’ll realize that your mother is present. She’s right there with you. She will help you.

Are you not under my shadow and protection? Isn’t that great? We are protected. There is a veil over those who believe in her, over those who rejoice at the fact that she is their mother.

Am I not your fountain of life? Now that’s beautiful, isn’t it? We want to live a full life here upon earth and a glorious life in heaven. Mary is with us to feed us with all the life that God has given her, to pass it on to us in fullness. We can live as fully as we are able to absorb life from her, from God of course, through Jesus, through her.

Are you not in the folds of my mantle? This reminds me of our MH prayer for travellers. Mary, cover us with the mantle of your love and keep us safe and lead us first to our earthly home and then to that of your Son in heaven.

Are you not safe within my arms? Now what could be safer for a little child than the arms of its mother? Let us be little children and let Mary enfold us in her arms, even in our moments of greatest despair.

Is there anything else you need? Yes, Mother Mary, there is so much I need:

To be totally submissive to God’s will. To open my heart to Him, moment by moment. To never judge any of my fellow human beings, here or anywhere else in the world. To open my poor heart to all the love that God wants to pour in it, through you, through Jesus, from whom all graces come.

BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT

by Fr. Robert Pelton

This is a letter sent to our MH associates last November.

In 1974, Catherine gave a talk to the Local Directors of our fieldhouses. In it she said: "You know where our strength lies? In our weakness!

"God help you, when I’m dead, if you should try to be big in any way. Remain small, weak, depending totally on God. For it’s in this weakness, through this weakness, that God comes.

"We have to examine our souls all the time about this. It is deep and profound; at the same time, it deals with the nitty-gritty stuff of daily life."

In 1997, on the second Sunday of November, Archbishop Raya celebrated the Byzantine Liturgy in our chapel on the island. The missal that was put out for me had belonged to Fr. Tony Pease, who died earlier in the year; so, of course, I wanted to see what treasures he might have left in it. There were only two—a postcard icon print of the Lord and the above quote from Catherine.

Her words pierced my heart, and I’ve been carrying this little clipping containing them in my breast pocket ever since—a great gift of love from Christ himself through Catherine and Fr. Tony.

I could write pages about these few words. Catherine lived them for the last 55 years of her life, after a year of torment and grief had brought her to tell Jesus that—in her pain and absolute poverty—she wanted only to sit at his feet like a little child to be taught, consoled, and filled by him. This was her great moment of beginning again.

Through all the years of triumph and defeat, growth and transformation that followed, her heart remained in this place of weakness and total receptivity to Christ’s infinite love.

I don’t want to give you a lengthy explanation. I only want to point to the place where Catherine’s heart lived and received and rested. I simply want to call your hearts, and mine, to this place where MH life comes from, where the Gospel we are to proclaim without compromise enters us and radiates from us.

As much as we give lip service to complete dependence on God, do we really want to be small, poor, childlike? And weak? Isn’t weakness unmanly, inhuman—and, therefore, ungodly as well?

On the contrary! Weakness is the condition of fallen humanity. Our Lord embraced it, became it on the cross, and in the tomb redeemed and transformed it. He not only restored weakness to what God intended it to be for his children—that is, need of him—but, in uniting it to himself, the Lord made it our opening to grace and divine life and sacrificial love.

To paraphrase St. Paul (Gal 2:20), our weakness has been crucified with Christ, so that ‘it’ no longer lives. Rather, Christ lives in our weakness and our weakness lives in him who loved us and gave himself up for us.

To quote St. Paul directly: I will glory in nothing except my weaknesses. … Concerning [my thorn in the flesh], I asked the Lord three times that it leave me. He said: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ Gladly, then, will I glory in my weaknesses that the power of Christ may dwell in me. … When I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:7-10).

More simply still, Our Lord began his public proclamation of the Good News with the words, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3).

Or, as Catherine has said: "Through our weakness, God comes to us; and, through us, to others."

‘Christmas is coming’, as we say. What a magnificent, sacramental way to put it! Christ is coming; our Savior and King is coming; our glorious Lord God comes to give us a new heaven and a new earth, and the fullness of his Kingdom.

In this sacramental time between the ascension and the Second Coming, Christ still comes to us as a baby as well as our glorious Lord. He brings us the heart of a child, wholly dependent on the Father, and the awesome courage to live it out.

Our weakness in Christ is truly ‘deep and profound’. As Catherine insists, it does indeed ‘deal with the nitty-gritty stuff.’

This daily ‘stuff’—what is it but our crucifying and resurrecting struggle in the Holy Spirit to live his new commandment to love one another as he has loved us?

We can’t even begin to do this unless we ‘abide’ in our weakness—with him, with Our Lady, and with all the saints. There, in our redeemed and absolute need of him and his Father, we abide in his love, where all things are possible.

May Our Lady of Combermere show you how to surrender to and abide in her Child’s heart, where the whole universe is safe and free and joyful in the infinitely powerful tenderness of the Father.