Everything You Need

by Kathy McVady

In 1990 since more and more people were using our poustinia in MH Barbados, sometimes we staff had to use the guest room for our prayer days. It became clear that we needed to build another poustinia.

Fr. Jim Maderak, still in the seminary at the time, was spending part of his summer with us. He participated in our lives and did a number of maintenance jobs.

When I returned to Barbados after our yearly local director’s meeting, Beth, Dawn, and Jim greeted me with the news that Jim had finished many of the jobs we had given him.

They had gotten estimates on the poustinia and figured that Jim could build it while he was there. That way we would only have to pay for the materials.

What could I say against such irrefutable logic! Jim and I went to the lumber yard where he began selecting building supplies.

At a certain point, my intuition prompted me to ask for a subtotal. We were already overdrawn by $200.

Knowing we could make a deposit to cover this much but no more, I called a halt to the buying.

“But we can’t stop now,” Jim exclaimed, “We don’t have the cement or anything for the foundation.” A certain Gospel parable came to mind but I chose not to quote it.

Knowing that things would definitely be on hold for the time being, we returned home. We joined the others in our daily hour before the Blessed Sacrament.

All of us were obviously praying about this problem. I glanced up and, in the small office that opened onto the chapel, I noticed the statue of St. Joseph.

`St Joseph, Provider…’ I thought to myself. “Okay, St Joseph, if you help us with the poustinia, we’ll name it after you.”

When the hour ended, we gathered for supper. The front door bell rang and I went to greet an elderly gentleman who had brought a small food donation from his daughter.

He lingered at the door for a while and I introduced him to Jim. When he asked Jim what he was doing while he was here, Jim replied rather wryly, “Well, I thought I was going to build a poustinia.”

“Well, if you need anything, let me know,” the man said.

I was puzzled. “You have a hardware store, don’t you?” I asked.

“Oh, we’ve got lots more than that. That’s just what’s out in the front part of the store. Out back we’ve got everything you need for building.”

“Like cement?” Jim and I said almost in unison.

“Of course, cement. Lumber, everything. We can give you a good discount and we’ll deliver for free.”

I hesitated slightly. “I’m not sure exactly when we can pay you.”

“No problem. We’ll just put it on account. Come on over tomorrow. I’m not usually at the store anymore. I leave that to my son. But I’ll be there tomorrow and I can introduce you and get you organized.”

So the next day we went.

And soon after that, generous benefactors began giving us donations to help cover the cost.

St. Joseph’s Poustinia was finished before the rains started. When MH moved to a new location, this was the one poustinia they were able to bring along!

Nazareth Today

Unexpected Twists

by Fr. Tom Zoeller

Life in Nazareth takes many shapes and unexpected twists and turns. This is what happened to me during the last two months.

In this column last month, Denis talked of his going to the seminary in the fall, breaking in Paulette as editor, `figuring out who is going to assist her, and training that person’. The one to assist her turned out to be none other than me.

Working with Paulette and laying out Restoration had been the furthest thing from my mind. Oh, 16 years ago it crossed my mind, but that was a pipe-dream with a little pride thrown in.

It all started one day after Mass while my director Fr. Bob Pelton and I were walking back to the main house. He was talking about the need for someone to work in the theological library since Fr. Tom Talentino, who had been working there, might be staying on at our house in Brazil. And, since Denis would be going to the seminary, someone was needed for Restoration.

He was thinking of me for the theological library. “That would drive me crazy,” I blurted out. Further into a five-minute conversation I said, “I’d rather work in Restoration.”

A few weeks later, I bumped into him in his office. He looked at me and said, “I hope you were serious about Restoration.”

And here I am, into my second issue of the paper.

Denis is a good teacher. He’s letting me get my feet wet slowly. I helped him lay out the February `Pilgim issue’. (For any mistakes, and there are some, blame him.)

As we began, he said—no doubt to encourage a fledging before a daunting task—“Layout is a lot like carpentry.”

I am a carpenter. I had a hammer in my hand before I could read or write.

My father was a tool-and-die maker and I’ve always defined that as `making things that make things.’ In the late 40s, he designed tools and dies that made the first series of aluminum pots and pans Reynolds Metal put out. I was pushing ten at the time.

When I was 14, he and my brothers and I built the house my mother still lives in. I almost lost the end of an index finger on a skill saw doing that job.

It is no wonder that, for many years now, here in Combermere and in the field houses, I have done a lot of maintenance carpentry.

And lo and behold, I’ve learned that Denis was right. The laying out of Restoration is a lot like carpentry.

"Six lines on the layout sheet equal one inch. Six lines of type fit into that," Denis told me.

I am used to measuring boards and I easily translated board feet into column inches. And since a wrong cut of a 4x8 sheet of plywood can mean a $40 waste, I measured the column exactly.

But it didn’t quite match up. I guessed `operator trouble’: in other words, my mistake. But when I checked it out, I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong.

“Well,” Denis said, “our six lines of type don’t quite make an inch.” I went back to the drawing board, or layout sheet if you will, much relieved. I can adjust to reality.

I don’t know how many plans I’ve drawn up over the years, whether for walls to keep in the chickens at our farm, or for shelves to hold our books. Little did I realize that this work gave me skills in visual perception.

Now, spacing articles and putting in pictures to break up long lines of print is not a foreign thing. A chair is not just for sitting on. A page of print is not just for reading. Both have to be pleasing to the eye.

No matter what we do in Madonna House, it’s always `back to basics’.

Working on Restoration means doing lots of little things. At this point in my learning, those little things seem like a million and half. But Denis is patient and, thank God, he’ll be around for a few more months.

Love has to flow through everything. After Denis and Bill, Paulette and I had our first meeting, one filled with new information, I was walking toward our adoration chapel. Along with everything else going on in my life, Restoration seemed overwhelming. “I have to do all of it with love” was the word that flowed through my heart.

Unexpected twists? Yes, even this article! Only half way through writing it did I realize how it fit in with the theme of this month’s Restoration: Joseph the Carpenter.

A Strange Land

by Emily Huston

Virile and confident, yet docile and deferent, silently buttressing many passages of Scripture, stands an invisible presence. In a way, it holds and even fondles God’s word just as it once did in the Bethlehem stable, on the flight into Egypt, or within the Nazareth household. This presence is Joseph.

At a pivotal point in life, Joseph struggled mightily with his betrothed’s pregnancy. Despite doubts, abiding as he did in rapport with the God of his ancestors and seeking to honor that relationship, Joseph embraced the perplexing counsel that came in a dream.

Then he plunged into the darkness of an uncharted future. He embarked on a journey of `letting go and letting God.’

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife… she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit (Matt 1: 20). Embracing this, submitting his fears to another concealed guide, the Holy Spirit, Joseph put his shoulders to the plow.

For a son not of his seed, a wife already married to mystery, he created a hearth and sustained a family. He did not look back.

Akin to his forbearer Abraham, the model of surrender in faith, Joseph set his foot toward the unseen: Leave… for the land I will show you (Gen 12:1). Solely on God’s word, Joseph left God’s word (his ingrained assumptions now wrenched askew) to bond with God’s Word in the most mundane of settings.

What a consequential mission concealed in the backwater of the ordinary. Traveling blind—laying aside appearances to fumble for inward vision—Joseph would daily answer God’s call, nurturing the Word made flesh.

Yes, as a voiceless backdrop to the Gospel, stands the figure of Joseph. Are not Jesus’ saying about life with God infused with personal experience of his earthly father?

Does not Jesus’ teaching draw from the ambience that accompanied him from the womb—Joseph incarnating trust and love for the Holy One of Israel and translating this into the nitty-gritty of the ordinary? We might assume that Jesus, being divine, taught Joseph all about God. Certainly this is true, but I think we can allow the reverse.

Joseph taught Jesus volumes about the Heavenly Father. What Jesus heard and witnessed of Joseph’s day-by-day rendering the Father’s love into human form became material substrata for his human knowledge.

This would engender a corridor to, form a springboard for, the fusion of his fully human, fully divine knowing. Thus would Jesus’ human nature be prepared for expressing what is proper to his divine nature.

God called Abraham, and he went: By faith he arrived… and lived there as if in a strange country (Heb 11: 8-9). So too Joseph. He dwelt in the shadow of God’s providing. Abandoning himself, he enfleshed this journey of faith in the company of Jesus.

At every turn Jesus was supported by Joseph’s vibrant reliance on God. Imagine what Jesus received. He sat on the lap of living faith, and was carried on the shoulders of strong and fearless trust.

He played among the tools of his father’s converse with the living God. He drank example from a man ever bending, listening, focusing toward God’s love couched in the sinews of family bonding and the simple stuff of his workaday world.

What must have passed between them as together they walked up hill and down dale on the Galilean terrain. What must have seeped into Jesus, without even a word being spoken, as he witnessed Joseph ever bending into the will of the eternal Father.

Day by day Joseph set out into the `land’ his Lord would show him. Impelled as Joseph was into the center of his being, this land was basically a state of continual conversion.

On this inward journey, Joseph came into possession of who he really was. This faith walk involved letting go of his own agenda, resources, terms of judgement, and plunging into the obscurity of God’s terms, resources, agendas.

Exercising a virile docility, his heart seeking divine light, Joseph put himself fully under God’s tutelage. Bowing repeatedly to the divine will, Joseph became facile at bending, rending his heart, not his garments.

Preferring to forgo self-reliance, Joseph came into the land of deferent trust. Tapping godly energies, he imbibed the Lord’s tenderness and learned to attune his heart to God’s word hidden in the littlest things.

Then he could respond with power or restraint. Serenely non-assertive, Joseph exuded the resilient confidence of one both at home with weakness and certain of his dignity.

By giving himself to the call of God, he came into the `land’ of spiritual fullness. He received a blessed self-possession.

So when Jesus says Come to me, all you who are weary… learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart (Mark 11:28), he also is saying `Learn of me just as I learned of Joseph. How constantly, silently, Joseph invited me to learn of him, his very person radiating meekness and humility before God the Father.’

Or, when we disciples, perhaps jostling for position or power, question Jesus, Who is the greatest in the kingdom? he places a child before us and says Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 18:1-3).

Jesus thus recalls and lays before us the witness of his own earthly father. He says to us, `I know. I played and worked beside Joseph. How much I absorbed from him! Joseph’s own flesh was a pathway for me into the Father’s presence. Drawing from Joseph’s own person, I speak of what I know—God’s Kingdom.

`Yes, listen to me. Learn also from Joseph. Receive our God’s reign of love!’

The Pope’s Corner

An Expression of Love

by Pope John Paul II

This month’s excerpt is from the apostolic exhortation Redemptoris Custos, on the role of St. Joseph in the life of Christ and the Church, focusing on St. Joseph as the patron of workers.

Work was the daily expression of love in the life of the family of Nazareth. The Gospel specifies the kind of work Joseph did in order to support his family; he was a carpenter. This simple word sums up Joseph’s entire life.

For Jesus, these were the hidden years to which Luke refers after recounting the episode that occurred in the Temple: And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them (Luke 2:51).

This submission or obedience of Jesus in the house of Nazareth should be understood as a sharing in the work of Joseph. Having learned the work of his presumed father, he was known as the carpenter’s son.

If the family of Nazareth is an example and model for human families in the order of salvation and holiness, so too by analogy is Jesus’ work at the side of Joseph the carpenter.

In our own day, the Church has emphasized this by instituting the liturgical memorial of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1st. Human work, and especially manual labor, receive special prominence in the Gospel.

Along with the humanity of the Son of God, work too has been taken up in the mystery of the Incarnation, and has also been redeemed in a special way. At the work bench where he plied his trade together with Jesus, Joseph brought human work closer to the mystery of the Redemption.

In the human growth of Jesus `in wisdom, age and grace’, the virtue of industriousness played a notable role, since “work is a human good” which “transforms nature” and makes man “in a sense, more human” (Laborem Exercens).

The importance of work in human life demands that its meaning be known and assimilated in order to “help all people to come closer to God, the Creator and Redeemer, to participate in his salvific plan for man and the world, and to deepen… friendship with Christ in their lives, by accepting through faith a living participation in his threefold mission as priest, prophet, and king.” (ibid).

What is crucially important here is the sanctification of daily life, a sanctification which each person must acquire according to his or her own state, and one which can be promoted according to a model accessible to all people: “St. Joseph is the model of those humble ones that Christianity raises up to great destinies… He is the proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things—it is enough to have the common, simple, and human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic” (Paul VI, Discourse, March 19, 1969).

Cloak of Protection

by Sue Perreca

Every year the men make an ice skating rink on the marsh near MH. They put plenty of work into it. As they do, we continually ask them if it will be ready soon. They graciously update us, skaters and non-skaters alike, on its progress.

On the day it was ready, so was I. I went and wobbled around and around. As I did, some of the men played hockey on the middle of the ice. They flew around me-forwards and backwards and sideways. At first, I was nervous about all those sticks. Then I began to notice that, no matter how furious the game became or how clumsily I went by, they never bumped into me.

I kept to my wobbly skating, trying a spin here, a turn there, even skating backwards. As they kept on at high speed, scoring, screaming, laughing, they never once even brushed against me.

I felt perfectly secure that they wouldn’t. I knew they were aware of me and would skate accordingly.

It reminded me of the day I went cranberry picking. I had heard of an accident on the bog and was nervous about going. Then someone said that Douglas took people out there often. I thought, well, I know Douglas would never risk anyone’s safety. So I went.

When I skate on our rink, too, I have no fear that it is unsafe because when Michael Fagan says the ice is thick enough, I believe him. It never enters my mind to second- guess him.

All this made me think of St. Joseph and how single-minded he must have been. He protected Mary and Jesus from talk and scandal, from cold and Herod’s soldiers. On the trip to Egypt Mary must have rested knowing that, if Joseph said they could go, they could go.

Thinking about all this, I asked St. Joseph to put his cloak of protection around me as he had put it around the Mother and Child.

All God’s Children

by Ronnie MacDonell

“If the Gospel does not apply to the economy, to what does it apply?” said Fr. Jose Maria Arrizmendiarrieta, founder of a co-operative network in Spain.

The resources of our world were created by God, not for the wealth of a few, but for the needs of all his children. Co-operatives provide a good way to ensure that all share in this abundance.

What is a co-operative? A co-op is an organization of people working together to fulfill a felt need or needs. Such needs include food, clothing, work, medical care, and housing—in fact, everything that involves the livelihood of people. In a co-operative, ownership is in the hands of the members.

In a co-op factory, for example, the workers together own and manage the factory.

In a co-op, each person works closely with others, not only for himself and his family but for the whole group. Because this does not come easily to fallen human nature, only deep Christian motivation—that is, the love of God and neighbor—will sustain the effort.

To foster this, members study and share Scripture together.

The building up of people is essential to the co-operative movement and, from the outset, a constant education program is necessary.

All members learn both the techniques and the broad vision of the co-ops. This includes respect for the dignity of man and the laws of God, and good stewardship of the earth.

Members of a food co-op learn about nutrition and the intelligent purchasing of food. Members of a work co-op learn respect for the dignity of man and use methods that avoid any exploitation of either people or nature.

Co-operatives of various kinds are currently operating in many nations, especially, but certainly not exclusively, in the developing world.

In Canada, for example, co-operative banks or Credit Unions have a total asset base of over 90 billion dollars. Also in Canada, the Antigonish Movement, which developed new co-op techniques, greatly influenced the Atlantic provinces especially Nova Scotia. There Coady International Institute, the educational centre for the movement for close to 50 years, continues to attract students from around the world.

Perhaps the greatest success story is in Mondragon, a Basque area of Spain where every area of life is covered through the co-operative network. There the products produced by 30,000 workers have an annual sale value of six billion dollars.

The co-operative approach aims at a better world, one in which we work together as children of God to develop our resources so that all people have their basic needs met, give glory to God, and live in love and peace.

For more information contact: Coady International Institute, Box 5000, Antigonish, NS, Canada B2G 2W5. FAX: (902) 867-3907

Phone: (902) 867-3960

Internet: http://www.stfx.ca/institutes/coady/

Who’s Who in MH

Out of Rich Soil

by Paulette Curran

Though many in MH come from unlikely backgrounds, there are others whose life with God grew naturally in the rich soil of a family and culture steeped in the Gospel. Such a one is Ronnie MacDonell.

The culture which nurtured him, one little known outside of Canada, is that of the Scots of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

On this beautiful Atlantic island, isolated by ocean and with highlands much like those of their ancestors, the people kept their Catholic faith and Scottish ways.

Ronnie’s family farmed and owned a hotel, and he learned early to work hard. From his mother, who often gave rooms to people who could not pay, he learned that nothing is more important than loving and serving others.

Ronnie was still a child when the co-op movement, begun by Dr. Coady in Nova Scotia, was brought to Cape Breton, greatly enriching the lives of the people.

This worldwide Catholic movement brought bookmobiles and libraries. There was a folk school which encouraged people to stay on the land and taught them ways of bettering their lives. They were made aware of their economic exploitation, and taught how to change it.

Ronnie listened wide-eyed as the adults talked about these things. As he grew older, he helped start both a consumer and a fishermen’s co-op. As he did so, he imbibed co-op values: the importance of working together for the common good, and belief in the dignity of all people as children of God.

Ronnie’s heart was aflame. He wanted to help the poor everywhere. When he graduated from school, he knew he wanted to be a missionary priest. Little did he dream it would be years before he found his vocation.

He applied to the Scarborough Foreign Mission Society, but to his deep disappointment they told him he did not have a vocation with them. What to do? To find out, he travelled to the States to visit various groups that worked among the poor.

Among them was Catherine Doherty’s Friendship House in Harlem. Though the work there drew him, he didn’t stay long. He was looking for a lifelong commitment and Friendship House did not offer this.

His search was soon interrupted. His parents were both sick, and with his brothers and sister all at school, needed his help. He returned home.

Besides the work within his family, he found much to do that stirred his heart. He was involved in the folk school, started a cell of the Young Christian Workers, and seeing that young people needed recreational activities, organized folk dances and movies.

Ronnie was also interested in farming and, along with other YCWs, talked about forming a community of families farming together. His parents offered him the family farm, and he seriously considered marriage.

He also wanted to get into adult education, but to do this, first needed to get more education himself. In the providence of God, the course he planned to take was in Ottawa, a three-hour drive from Combermere.

Since he was so close, he decided, just before class began, to hitchhike to MH for a weekend visit. On arriving, he was surprised and happy to discover that members now made promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience. One could join it for life!

Perhaps this was his vocation. He postponed his course for a semester and stayed to see. When the time came for a decision, he was in agony.

He could clearly see the fruitfulness of celibacy, that there were needs in the world that required the full dedication of single people, and he loved MH. But he also loved his life and work in Cape Breton.

What made his decision so excruciating was that at MH, one does not choose the work one will do. If he joined, he might never work directly for the poor or for social justice.

But he felt God was calling him to MH and knew that, if this were so, he would never be happy elsewhere. He made an act of deep surrender and faith. In 1955, after years of searching, Ronnie, then 27 years old, joined Madonna House.

These were pioneering years in Combermere. At a time when almost none of the members knew anything about farming, Ronnie’s experience proved invaluable. Along with two men from large American cities, Ronnie was assigned to begin a farm. He knew, as the others could not, that the task was overwhelming, that it would take 25 to 50 years to develop our sandy, rocky soil so it would really produce.

For the next 33 years, Ronnie worked on the farm. “What kept you at it?” I asked.

“I trusted that God’s plan would unfold in my life, and in faith I believed that a celibate life would bear fruit in the kingdom.

“I was also sustained by Catherine’s vision of restoring farming to what God meant it to be, to methods that respect and nourish the land,” he said.

“I knew that it was a vital part of restoring the world to Christ. Also, I was working to feed the family. And, though I myself was not working directly for social justice and with the poor, it was enough to know that others in MH were.”

Ronnie’s love for the poor and hunger for social justice continued. He never ceased reading about what was being done worldwide. Whenever a visitor came who was involved with this work, Ronnie would learn from him and share ideas. He spent his vacations visiting people, organizations, and farms working for development and justice.

In 1989, when Ronnie was 61 years old, he was assigned for the first time to a foreign mission. “I would have been content to stay at the farm for the rest of my life,” he said, “but the directors of the community thought I needed a change.”

He farmed in Ghana, in our house in West Africa where people marveled to see a white man working in the fields. He worked in a co-op in Liberia, teaching young African men, one of whom has now joined our community.

During the civil war in Liberia, after the women staff had left the country, he stayed on for a time and with the help of volunteers carried on the work of the house.

In 1997, while Ronnie was home from Africa, the MH farm was suddenly left with no one trained in animal care. Ever faithful, Ronnie stepped in.

And so the Cape Breton farm boy, the social justice activist, the foreign missionary, is now back at the work he’s done for so many years, serving God and neighbor in the daily duties of a farmer.

A Man of Passion

by Patrick Stewart

St. Joseph was not a wimp! Though Scripture gives no indication of his age when he took Our Lady as his wife, I see him as young and vigorous—contrary to how artists throughout Church history have portrayed him.

According to St. John Chrysostom, without passion there can be no virtue. So, whatever his age, St. Joseph had to have been a man of great passion.

I can’t find the word `wimp’ in any dictionary, so I’ll define it as a `person who operates out of a weakened state of fear’. In popular usage, it generally refers to one who is `afraid of his own shadow’, one who does not have the strength of character to stand his own ground or defend another.

I would suggest that the word `wimp` also describes bullies, womanizers, the power hungry, and users and abusers of others. Wimps operate out of fear. They are weak in character, self-control, self- respect and respect for others.

Some of the strongest people I know have no physical prowess. They are the last to speak, take crowd-displeasing positions in defense of the oppressed, and support unpopular authority.

Our world calls wimps many who love hiddenly, serve quietly, and take the last place. Here at Marian Centre in Edmonton, I know such men and women. I’ve seen them listen when others speak, and serve the most down and out addicts with gentleness and compassion.

On the wall of every Madonna House is a placard with the words, I am third. We display it to remind ourselves to consider God first, our neighbor second and ourselves third.

It takes strength, not weakness, to live like that. The truly weak consider themselves first, their neighbor second, and God last. Our world is plagued by this kind of weakness.

St. Joseph is the embodiment of I am third. `Jesus, Mary and Joseph’: we even name him and pray to him third.

By accepting his life’s mission of protecting Jesus and Mary, he also accepted subordinating his needs and desires to theirs. Whatever dreams he had of numerous sons and daughters and the intimacy of married life, he had to leave behind.

A weak man does not have this kind of control over his passions. He is not able to honor the purity of others, much less his own.

For much of my life, I operated out of a weakened state of fear. I did not honor the purity of others and I scurried for first place.

After God, most of the credit for my growth in character goes to my MH brothers and sisters, who taught me by their example, had the courage to point out my shortcomings, and called me into greater wholeness.

I’ve also had the example and help of St. Joseph. As time passes, I grow more and more convinced that, after Our Lady, he is the major intercessor we must call on. St. Teresa of Avila said she never knew anyone who was truly devoted to him who did not advance greatly in virtue.

St. Joseph was not a weak man, not a wimp. He was a man strong enough to be third, the greatest `third’ who ever lived or ever will live.

All who desire the courage to be third should pray to St. Joseph to strengthen their spirits. It is time for all of us, men in particular, to quit taking the wimp’s way out. St. Joseph, we need you. Pray for us.

The Road to Paradise

by Fr. Robert Sharkey OP

Immediately afterward the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, and he remained there for forty days, and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him. (Mark 1: 12-15).

This brief account of Jesus in the desert suggests a return to Paradise: to a harmony— once lost, now recovered—with both the animal kingdom and the angels.

Man is now back in his place between those two levels of creation, and in harmony with both.

The return to Paradise is an ancient human theme, isn’t it? Stories going back as far as literature goes record human attempts to return to a place where everyone lives in harmony and mutual respect. A place where children are happy, joyful, and obedient; young people chaste and cheerful; adults responsible and dignified. Where everyone loves everyone, no one goes bald or gets sick, and everything is just fine.

You see the same thing in art, especially in the landscapes of the 18th and 19th centuries: lush, green rich meadows; quiet, peaceful cattle in them, and happy peasants. Lofty mountains, dignified and solid, and human beings dancing happily in the common.

So, where is it? Some of us reach back to our childhood, to a time when we were happy and everything was fine. We were safe and secure in the care of mom and dad, and our brothers and sisters weren’t too much of a problem. We hadn’t started school yet.

We’re on a life-long search to find our way back to Paradise. If only they would stop that which irritates us so much… if we could just get this job… if we could only rearrange things somehow.

The human heart longs for Paradise. This is right, somehow. We were cast out; we lost it. There’s a painting by Masaccio depicting Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden. They are coming out naked, Eve with her hands over her face.

I see her saying to herself, “I’ve lost every hope I ever had for happiness—it’s gone forever!” Total despair.

At her side is Adam, bent over. I hear him saying, “I did it to myself! How could I have been so stupid!”

How did we get cast out of Paradise? How did we get into this desert? Where in the world is the road back?

We tend to see two roads. There is our own will: various theological and political ideologies that try to rearrange human society so that we can set up Paradise again. Marxism is a classic example, but it wasn’t the first. The attempt goes back through history, to the Roman Empire, and even the Middle Ages with its attempt to rule society by the norms of the Gospel. It was an effort to make human society the Paradise that was lost, and it didn’t work.

The other road is the way of obedience.

Leon Bloy said that obedience is the theological term for the Lost Paradise. If I understand him correctly, he means that when I enter into obedience, I’ve recovered the essence of Paradise. Maybe the garden isn’t quite as nice, and my associates aren’t as charming as Eve was, but I’ve come back to it in essence.

Now, I’m going to ask a question, and you have to answer it honestly—at the level of your gut, not your head (you know how we all have one thing in our heads and another actually working in our lives). How do you conceive obedience? How do you understand it?

Is it a submission of a portion of your autonomy, your right over yourself, to some authority—in order to get a reward? You obey God, and he repays you by taking you to heaven. Is it like having a job: do what the boss tells you, and get promoted?

Or do you see it this way: God has poured forth all of creation out of the richness of his own Being, in order that he might bring it back to himself, penetrate it with his own presence, glorify it.

The peak of that creation is the free person, who can enter into God’s plan consciously, knowing what he is doing, freely enter it out of love. Love, by definition, is free.

Obedience then is our embracing of this wonderful plan of God to transform us and the whole universe, freely doing our part to bring it about.

Which view of obedience is operating in you? It makes a lot of difference.

If it’s the first, you want to keep your autonomy as much as possible, don’t you? You give in where you have to, but you are going to draw lines.

If it’s the second, you want to give yourself away to get into this wonderful thing that’s happening. You want to throw yourself into it, move with it, forget your own plan, forget trying to save anything for yourself.

Adam and Eve failed that test, didn’t they? Israel in the desert failed, too. But Jesus passed it. In the desert, face to face with Satan, but also on Golgotha. His self-surrender to the Father’s plan was total. And so, he opened the way back to Paradise.

Obedience is the penance of all penances, the asceticism of all asceticisms. Temptations are there: to take back our autonomy, our control over our own lives. They are always there, confronting us. Our overcoming them is our return from the barrenness of the desert to the place of life, where the water of life flows.

If we look at it thoroughly—theologically—we don’t really return to Paradise. Instead, we go to the future, to the goal. We move towards the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.

This is God’s dwelling among men, where God lives in our midst. His presence, and the presence of the Lamb, are the light that fills our spirits, minds, hearts, and lives—transfiguring everything, giving us new eyes to see.

We are planted by the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing in the midst of the city. Drawing the`paradise life’ from the Holy Spirit, who is the river flowing from the throne of God.

This is where the whole universe is moving. This is the plan of God. We are invited to take our place in that plan, to help bring it about.

Our pattern is Mary. Her Immaculate Heart is one of utter surrender to God’s will. Born in a little village in a little backward province of the Roman Empire, she surrendered to the strange angelic message, to the role she was invited to assume.

Giving up whatever plans she might have had for her own life, any glory she might have had even within her village, she surrendered herself and her life to all the implications of this new role (most of which she probably didn’t know at the beginning); surrendering herself for God to do whatever he wished through her.

Well, she wasn’t erased from existence, was she? She’s not just a nobody now, is she? She is at the peak of the Father’s plan to transform the world. And she is still the channel for this lavish outpouring of the transforming Spirit on all of creation.

The Blossom of a Faithful Life

by Charlie Cavanaugh

For much of the first year of our house in England, Fr. Ron Cafeo and I were the only staff. During that time, we had many first-time visitors; one of them gave us a plant. It had very little stem, a few long leaves growing out of the center, and nothing else. It was not an eye-catcher.

Fr. Ron, who is good with plants, did a little research and discovered what it was—a clivia—and what it `liked’. But, though it was helpful to know its name, that did not make it more interesting.

Fr. Ron put it in our chapel, in a big clay pot on a stand in front of the bay window.

In its former life (before we moved in), the chapel had been a dining room, and the bay window let in lots of light. The plant seemed to like the spot and, since Fr. Ron said that clivias don’t like to be moved, we left it there.

The plant took very little care—a little water once a week, `always from the bottom’, Fr. Ron would remind me. On Saturday mornings, when we cleaned the chapel, we were careful not to tip it over and we moved it very little.

Every day, we said morning prayers and had Mass in the chapel and so we spent a lot of time with this plant. But I confess that I hardly noticed it. It didn’t do much of anything.

After this plant had been with us a long time, maybe seven or eight months, Fr. Ron said it was going to blossom, probably in time for Easter. And, sure enough, from the center of the few green leaves, a stem soon appeared and gradually grew taller and taller.

Our chapel serves as the parish church and when Lent came, Fr. Ron was concerned about following the parish’s practice of having no flowers in the chapel during Lent. But, because clivias `don’t like to be moved’, he gave it permission to stay.

I began to get excited. This dull plant which I had lived with for so many months now had a shoot which was growing taller by the day. By mid-March, it had a blossom!

“It’s going to blossom for the feast of St. Joseph!” I told Fr. Ron.

This meant a lot to me. I was the only layman at the house and St. Joseph is the patron of the MH men’s department.

Sure enough, the clivia blossomed for this great feast—one large, fragrant, light peach-colored blossom on a tall stem.

I was stunned and delighted. After such a long time of looking so plain, the plant was now beautiful and fragrant. And it blossomed near the end of Lent, when our longing for life and beauty was so great.

I thought of St. Joseph and his long hidden years in Nazareth working as a carpenter to provide for his Holy Family. His was a hidden beauty—his life not much to look at in the eyes of the world. But the long years of his faithfulness were crowned with nothing less than the redeeming work of Our Lord and Saviour.

The memory of that blossom still awakens my heart. I pray to St. Joseph for the grace to be faithful, and thank God for the beauty and faithfulness of this great saint.

Best Kept Secret

by John Carsone

Fourteen years ago in March, my only sister Madelyn lay dying of leukemia. She had been diagnosed just two weeks earlier.

She was in a coma and on life support systems. As I sat tearfully by her bed, I begged St. Joseph to take her, if I had to give her up. She had been like a second mother to me.

March 19th arrived, the feast of St. Joseph, and I waited all day to see if he had heard me. He had. At 6 PM, Madelyn quietly slipped away.

I have loved St. Joseph from my childhood, but never more than I have since that day.

St. Joseph is perhaps one of the Church’s best kept secrets. We know only a few things about him: that he is of the lineage of David, that he was a carpenter, and that he was the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus.

He has two feastdays— March 19th and May 1st—and the entire month of March is dedicated to him. St. Joseph is patron of the universal Church, of the dying, of workers, and of Canada.

If there were a patron saint of obedience to the duty of the moment, I think it would be St. Joseph. When he feared taking Mary as his wife, he obeyed the angel who told him that the child she was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Then he obeyed the civil decree that ordered him to journey to Bethlehem to be registered. After the birth of Jesus. when instructed by an angel to take the Child and his Mother to Egypt, he again obeyed, leaving immediately.

In each of these situations, he was asked to move in faith, to `arise and go’, as MH’s Little Mandate says.

For most of us spiritually flabby North Americans, these three words of the Mandate can be difficult. But it is only after we `arise and go’ that things fall into place. Not before.

On the way to Egypt, and in all Joseph’s sojourns, there were no coffee shops along the way. He had only his faith and hope to comfort him.

St. Joseph is a good patron for all of us.

Love One Another

A Sacrifice of Praise

by Fr. Emile Brière

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

The normal, classical good works of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. This Lent, I suggest, in addition to physical sacrifices, we do what Scripture tells us: Let thanksgiving be your sacrifice to God (Ps 50:14). This Lent, I suggest offering a sacrifice of praise.

Start by considering the love of people around you. Individual people have served you and shown their love for you in the past and even today. Maybe you took it for granted. Offer praise to God for that love.

Take one person after the other—a husband or wife, a child, a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker—and consider the specific things each has done for you, the ways he or she has loved you.

Then review, one by one, the good qualities of that person, his or her goodness. Then thank and praise God for each of these things.

Next, do this with each person you find difficult—the ones who irritate you, who put you down, who do not understand you, who reject you. If you need to forgive someone, do it. You may need to do this many times a day.

Then, put a veil over the faults of each person. This Lent, fast from looking at the faults of others. For the next six weeks of Lent, put aside any complaints about anybody. Instead, focus on the good qualities of each person. Ask God to let you see everyone as he sees them.

Praise and thank God for all you see in each person. When you see goodness and beauty in someone, you cannot condemn him.

When you praise and thank God for the love you receive, you are really praising and thanking God for his love. All love is from God—every bit you receive from anyone.

Try to love your enemy and everyone else as God does. Ask God to give you some of his love for each person you know.

This Lent, as St. Paul says, Let us offer God an unending sacrifice of praise (Heb 13:15).

Is Thank-You Enough?

by Mary Ellen Kocunik

Lord, the fire in the woodstove is beautiful. The poustinia I’m in was the only one available today, and it wasn’t my first preference. But this stove has glass windows and I can watch the dance of the flame—so soothing, so uplifting. Thank you.

I never get to poustinia this early in the evening. It seems there’s always one last thing to do, and I usually arrive so late and so tired.

Today I arrived early, and could take a walk. I picked some wild flowers, and found a pop bottle to use as a vase. It was fun to make a wild-flower bouquet for you, dearest Mother.

I placed it at the foot of the poustinia’s cross. That’s where you stood, Mary, isn’t it? Thank you for standing by me, too, when I’m struggling on my own cross. Thank you.

I don’t know if `thank you’ is enough. I could say `I love you’, but sometimes I’m not so sure I know what love is.

Even in my caring for others and my attempts to live in your will, there is so much self-concern. But when I’m grateful, it’s more straightforward. And I am, you know.

I’m grateful to be alive, at least most of the time. I’m grateful for the struggles, too; they help me to understand the difficulties of others. Thank you for the struggles shared by others; they help me to accept my own.

Thank you for each day, whether its prospects look at least possible, or its just another hard day to get through.

Thank you, Lord, thank you. I want to say `I love you’, but I’m not sure I know what I mean by that. But I can say `thank you’ and know what I mean by that.

Do you think that’s enough, at least to start with?