Combermere Diary

God Among Us

   by Ellie Pettersen

  I, the Lord, am coming to dwell in your midst (Zech 2:14). The Lord’s coming is not only the promise of Ad­vent, but it is the reality of our daily lives.

  The Lord’s presence here in Combermere is very obvi­ous in his creation and in the cycle of the seasons. We had a beautiful late fall which en­abled us to get out for hikes and bike rides and even, some­times, to sit in the sun. And there have been a couple of won­­derful displays of northern lights—God’s night­time sym­pho­ny.

  The Lord is also present in the rhythm of our daily life, and in his provision for our every need. Since we are called to be `beggars for God and his poor’, a central reality of our vocation can be seen in process of handling the dona­tions that come to us.

  Every month, there is a regular procession of work `bees’, that is, tasks on which many of us work together.

  One bee, which occurs twice a year, is the addressing and mailing out of our begging letter, a letter which many of you recently received and to which you responded so gener­ous­ly.

  In the past month, we had  several evening bees to hand­write thank you notes for what you sent us. It is wonder­ful for us to have this personal contact with you, and we pray for each person to whom we are writing. These bees take place in our large dining room, as does the monthly bee for mail­ing out Restoration.

  Other bees include the sort­ing of donations that come in. This occurs at St. Mary’s, in what used to be a classroom. I used to wonder why we chose for sorting this beautiful room with a view of the river, but then I realized that, by do­ing so, we are giving proper place to this most crucial part of our life.

  Neither MH nor our many works would be possible with­out this constant provision for us and for those we serve.

  Approximately one day per month is devoted to each of these sortings: clothing, mis­cel­laneous (which includes every­thing imagin­able), books and fabric.

  In miscellaneous sorting, each item is sorted first into general categories, then into more specific ones to go from there to every work depart­ment of MH, to the gift shop, or to our many outlets, both local and else­where, through which the donations are dis­trib­uted where they are need­ed.

  Finally each depart­ment devotes at least one day per month sorting and cleaning items specific to that depart­ment.

  At each sorting we pray for the donors and those who will be receiving the donations. And since many of the items we handle are made elsewhere than in North America, we ask the Lord to bless our broth­ers and sisters who often work for in­adequate wages and under poor working conditions. If we have eyes to see, we can, in this way, touch Christ in dis­tant places, in the poor, and in our benefactors.

  Other activities are specific to this time of year. The bush crew has started its work in the forest, cutting mature trees for fire wood. Another crew splits this wood and delivers it to our various wood sheds. Still another put up the storm windows needed to hold in the prec­ious heat in this cold cli­mate.

  The carpentry department put siding on Bethany House, the newly acquired farm house where some of the women who work at the farm are living. It’s the first time women have lived by the farm.

  St. Raph­ael’s, our craft workshop, is making candles, restoring sta­t­ues and other items, and pre­par­ing for Christ­mas decor­a­ting. MH Pub­li­cations has re­cent­ly pro­duced two new audio books—The Secret of Mary and Sobor­nost, plus two wonderful book­lets called “Mothering” and `Fathering” with quotes by Catherine, the Holy Father, and various saints on these im­portant roles.

  This year’s Spiritual Forma­tion Program in full swing, with a course using the pope’s encyclical on priest­hood, Shep­herds After My Own Heart, for these young men looking at the priestly voca­tion. This year, there are seven of them. Their pro­gram also includes a course for all the guests on the `Fun­da­­men­tals of the Spiritual Life’.

  The second talk in the Win­ter Lecture Series men­tioned last month featured Dr. John Scott, former direc­tor of the Univer­sity of Ottawa Institute of Palliative Care, who spoke on `the Christian Perspective on Death and Dying”—a time­ly topic for us and for the local people, as members of MH and many of our blood families are aging or unwell.

  We continue, for example, to pray for staff worker, Ther­ese Fajardo, who has multiple melanoma and has had a se­cond bone marrow trans­plant.

  How does one provide ade­q­uate, loving, faith-filled care of the elderly and sick? How do we communicate to them that the `prayer’ of their suf­fer­ings and sickness is possibly the most important work of their life? Do we appreciate this ourselves and ask them to pray for us and for the whole world?

  Along with the universal Church, we celebrated All Saints’ Day. Archbishop Raya said that “A saint is a brother or sister who leaves a trail of light for others to walk on.”

  Advent helps us to prepare anew for the coming of Christ at Christmas. By the time you receive this paper, we will be smelling the Christmas cook­ing, singing the Advent songs, and celebra­ting such feasts as St. Nicholas Day, St. Lucy, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the anniversa­ry of Catherine’s entry into heaven. It’s a full season to say the least!

  (Rejoice with us as Cather­ine has been declared a `Ser­vant of God’, the first step towards her beatification!)

  We are blessed to continue to have our beloved Archbish­op Raya in our midst. He is able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy for us every other Sun­day in our bi-ritual chapel on the island, as well as week­ly liturgies in our smaller house­holds (the farm and St. Mary’s). His very person ra­diates love, joy and light!

  Since leaving his sees in Galilee and southern Lebanon, his `retirement’ has been any­thing but idle. Among other things, he’s written a dozen books on Eastern Christian lit­ur­gy, spirituality, and culture.

  The Lord’s last words to his dis­ciples were, Know that I am with you always, yes, to the end of time (Mt 28:20).

  Jesus Christ yesterday, to­day and for ever! Wishing you a blessed Christmas.

  

Israel

Our Hearts Were Changed

   by Theresa Davis

  The Lord works through lit­tle acts of service done in love. I’d like to tell you about an incident that hap­pened in the early `70s during our apos­to­late among the Palestin­ians in Israel.

  At that time the government would not allow young Pales­tin­i­an men to congregate. But since we were under the aus­pices of the bishop, our house was one of the places where they could.

  We used to serve them cof­fee, good Arabic coffee which they had taught us how to make. We would empty their ash­trays and serve them royal­ly.

  We developed a great love for these young men and wom­en, as we watched them change before our eyes.

  Some of the young men gath­ered by themselves and seemed to talk quite seriously about something, but we did not understand the language well enough to know what they were talking about.

  When Vespers time came for us, we would gather around the icon of Our Lady in our drop-in center and pray it in Arabic.

  Of course, we didn’t know what we were praying, and our pronunciation of this most difficult language was atro­cious.

  We would tell them that they would either have to join us or leave, because we could­n’t have anything going on that was not praying while we were praying.

  Most of the time, they would rather not leave. It was either too hot or too cold or too rainy. So the easiest thing for them to do was to join us in prayer.

  Of course we made them read the psalms and lead the prayers. None of us had enough humility to read their language so badly in front of them.

  Then one day, after the house had closed and we were back in Combermere, one of those young men, Kamil She­hade, who was visiting, shared the fol­low­ing story at our after-dinner spiritual reading.

  “There was a group of young men who worked in the armory as painters. The gov­ern­ment needed to employ Pal­es­tini­ans because the Jewish men were in the army. These young men, led by me, were go­ing to steal seven ma­chine guns and station our­selves at the busiest inter­sections in Haifa.

  “When the traffic lights turned green and all traffic converged, the plan was to kill as many Israelis as possible.

  “However as the time neared for us to carry out our plan, each one of us realized that we could not go through with it because our hearts were changing. The prayers at MH were having a softening effect on our hearts.

  “We talked about how we were served and waited on by the women, and how they tried to learn our language. Up to now, most of the missionaries who ran schools made us learn their language, which indicated to us that our language was sec­­ond-class compared to their `first-class’ one.

  “We had hated the Church: it was foreign to us. Up to now, we had not seen a group of missionaries whose sole in­ten­tion was to come and iden­ti­fy with us, live like us, live where we lived, serve us, and con­sider us first-class citi­zens.”

  After he had told this story, Catherine Doherty, who was lead­­ing spiritual reading, turned to me and said, “Now do you see the power of doing little things with love?”

  

My Dear Family

Story Telling

     by Catherine Doherty

  How we love stories! Why are they so powerful in helping us understand and remember deep truths about life? Isn’t it because stories are closer to life than mere ideas are?

  Jesus knew this. He, the Master Teacher, told the most beautiful and the most unfor­get­table stories in the history of the world. They are so deep that they are woven into the very fiber of our hearts and minds.

  In all this Jesus spoke to the crowds in para­bles. In fact, he never spoke to them except in parables. (Mt 13:34).

  Stories, then, are simply another way of sharing the Gospel with others. That is why Jesus often spoke in story form.

  From the very beginning of my apostolic life, I have used stories, and they have been un­der­stood and loved by young and old alike. I still speak in stories. They come naturally to me.

  I have found, living in these sophisticated, technological times, that the hearts of people still yearn for stories, for an explanation of things `wrapped up’ in sym­bols, which are sim­ple yet somewhat mysteri­ous.

  When I was a child, my father and mother taught me through stories. Because I travelled much during my child­hood, these stories were in many languages. And many of them were taken from the folklore of the pilgrims and peasants.

  Yes, I come from a coun­try and a generation that lis­tened, an oral generation in many ways, one that trans­mit­ted its lore, history, and tradi­tions through stories and par­ables.

  Almost every family has its own tradition of stories that have been told and retold by gen­er­ations. Some of these stories really happened to the parents or grandparents or dis­tant ancestors. Others are beau­ti­ful legends or folklore of the nationality to which the family belongs.

  These stories flow from the lives and adventures of people on pilgrimage in search of God. These stories are true be­cause their message is true. The rest must be left to the heart of each reader.

  Whether factual or legend­ary, these stories should truly be cherished because they are the very soul of a family’s tra­di­tion and continuity. They help to create and perpetrate a close `family feeling’ be­tween young members and old­er ones, and between all living family members and those who have gone before them to their eternal rest. Through traditional family stories , these ancestors live, once again, in the bosom of the family.

  Perhaps your family has a story or two that you can tell to one another. It may be a hu­mor­ous story, or one with re­ligious significance.

  Children love stories; and even adults rarely tire of hear­ing a good tale well told. In to­day’s world, it costs little to tell a story—simply some `fam­ily time’ together.

From Donkey Bells, pp. 114-115.available from MH Publications.

  

Christmas

A Christmas Tree Blessing

  by Paulette Curran

  In the daytime, sometime dur­ing the week before Christ­mas, we in Comber­mere put up a Christmas tree and deco­rate it. But we do not light it then. We do not light it until it is blessed in the eve­ning. Blessing the Christ­mas tree is a beautiful custom which we would like to share with you.

  Here is one way in which it can be done.

  All gather around the tree as a reader reads Psalm 95/96—O sing a new song to the Lord…. Between verses, all repeat the following antiphon:

  “Let all the trees of the forest sing for joy, for the Lord comes.”

  Someone then ex­plains the symbol of the Christmas tree. It is a symbol and re­minder that Christ is the `Tree of Life’ and the `Light of the World’. The fact that it is an evergreen is a symbol of eter­nity.

  Next someone (the father of the family) reads the follow­ing and blesses the tree.

    ───────

  After the fall of our first parents, the earth was bare and desolate; the world stood in the darkness of sin. But when the Saviour was born, our earth shone with a new bright­ness; the glory of the Almighty Father had renewed the world, making it more beautiful than before.

  This tree once stood dark and empty in a cold world. But now glowing with lights and ornaments in its new glo­ry, this Christmas tree reflects the new beauty God brought to earth when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. By a tree the whole world has been re­deemed, and there­fore, with great joy we cele­brate the glory of this tree.

  We beseech you, O Holy God, Father Almighty, to bless this tree—(Sprinkle tree with holy water)—which we have adorned in honor of the new birth of your only-begot­ten Son, and may you brighten our souls and bodies with the richness and beauty of your grace. Then inwardly enlight­ened by your splendor shining in this tree, may we come like the wisemen to adore him who is eternal Light and beauty, the same Jesus Christ, you Son, our Lord. Amen.

    ───────

  The ceremony ends with the lighting of the Christmas tree.

   Adapted from Donkey Bells,

pp. 87-90.

Advent

We Are Not Lost

     by Catherine Doherty

  I was meditating on fear last night, and I came to the ques­tion of hope. It is said that per­fect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18). So I said to myself, “What is hope doing in that com­bin­ation?” And it took me quite a while to think this out.

  I settled on Joseph. There was Joseph and there was his pregnant wife, and he had not touched her. He had a dream, and he had to believe in that dream, which was, in itself, an act of faith.

  I wondered, “How much hope did St. Joseph have during those nine months?” Since he was human, he must have gone up and down emo­tion­al­ly. I imagine he’d look at Mary and say to himself, “Well, maybe that dream was right after all.” And I real­ized that in a sense he personified hope for us in the nitty-gritty.

  I said to myself, “Where does hope come in?” The world news is such that it seems like every moment every­­thing is falling apart. So where is hope?

  Slowly I focused on the thing that really matters—the moment of beginning again. And that’s when I tied it in with fear. It should allay fear, and it should kill fear.

  The world has always known that it was in the throes of evil. Human beings are free to choose good or evil, and that is why the Gospel is not ful­filled in us. Because we say `no’ to the Holy Spirit.

  But with God, every mo­ment is the moment of begin­ning again. And when we `be­gin again’ with God, we enter the valley of joy, of plenty, of honey, of bread, and of wine. We do so be­cause, no mat­ter what we’ve done or where we’ve been,  we are not lost.

  A man we call the good thief, crucified next to Christ, asked God to please take care of him. And Christ said, This day you will be in my king­dom (Luke 23:43-44). Be­tween the speech of the thief and the speech of God, every­thing began again. Hope surged forth in the thief’s heart, immense and all-em­bracing.

  In our search for reality, in our running away from fear (and all those other emotions we are battered with), we still can possess hope. If we stretch out our hand, it will come to us. And whatever seems hope­less will be filled with light.

  Yes, we may say that per­fect love casts out fear. But do we believe it? It would be a very good exercise for us to re­­peat it over and over, or to write it on a blackboard. Then maybe it would get into our hearts. For if we turn our face to hope—look hope in the eyes, as it were—our life will be­come very simple, because hope always holds love in the hol­low of its hand.

  And faith too holds love. “Look,” faith whispers, “It’s not so tragic! Nothing is tragic in the Lord; every moment is the moment of beginning again.”

  There is only one thing that can stop hope and that is when we desire to do our will in­stead of God’s will. Very dan­ger­ous. Very. Doing our will goes straight against the virtue of hope. In fact, it is the door to hopeless­ness.

  So cheer up! Truly cheer up, dear friends. God is love—and with him, every moment is the moment of beginning again, and that means that ev­ery moment is the moment of joy and of hope.

From Donkey Bells, pp. 43-46,

available from MH Publications.

  

Love One Another

Price of Unity

by Fr. Emile-Marie Briére

  The Lord Jesus Christ, just before he suffered and died, prayed with a loud cry which sprang from the depths of his soul. He prayed that we re­ceive his most God-like gift: unity.

  I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you; I pray that they may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me (Jn 17:20-21).

  God is three persons, but the three are so united that there is only one God. So we too, we who have been created accord­ing to his image and who have been reconciled to the Father and to one another, we too are called to be one.

  We who are many—millions in fact—are called to be­come one in Christ, united by bonds of love and forgive­ness.

  Therefore nothing is more disastrous, nothing is more con­trary to God’s pur­pose than division, opposi­tion, or alien­ation of one man from anoth­er, and hatred.

  But even before the lines of battle are drawn between my­self and others, they are drawn within my own heart. On the one hand, deep within me is a yearning for communi­ca­tion with other people and with God, for love and for oneness. On the other hand, there often rises in me annoy­ance with my brother and sister, anger, arro­gance, the desire to be superi­or, and the fear of being for­ever alone. Will my alle­giance be to love or to hatred, to union or to division? This is my daily struggle and my daily deci­sion.

  I asked myself, “What must I do to be an agent of union among people?” After much thought and prayer, the answer came to me: pray for the hu­mil­i­ty to see clearly and to ac­knowledge the disunity in my own heart. Then ask God to cor­rect it.

  Each day I am given many small opportunities to lay down my life for others—by prayer, by service, by the duty of the moment. And also by the way I relate to them. When someone annoys or hurts me, for example, instead of retaliating, I can turn the other cheek and forgive. In so doing, I will suffer a little; indeed I will die a little.

  That is the price of unity, the price of peace, the price of reconciliation. Christ told us this when he said, There is no greater love that this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (Jn 15:143).

  Adapted from The Power of Love,

available from MH Publications.

  

Advent

A Return to Silence

  by Fr. Bob Sharkey

  A newly conceived baby is si­­lent, perfectly silent. In the first moments of our existence, we were silent.

  The saints teach us that to find God, to return to God, is to return to that point in time when we came forth from God in silence.

  That’s why God found Mary ready for his plan. He found her, unlike the rest of us, still in that silence. The silence of one who had no concern for self, of one who didn’t care whether or not she was no­ticed, whether or not she was ap­pre­ciated, whether or not she was loved. The silence of one who was con­cerned only about others. The silence of one who lived without fear, be­cause she had sur­ren­dered herself com­pletely to the will and plans of God.

  Mary lived in a silence of eager expectation, a silence of purity of heart. All her de­sires, all her longings were focused on the coming of the salvation of God. And because her inner be­ing was always bowed down in total submis­sion, she lived in the silence of adoration before the holi­ness and glory of God.

  It was not because she had an empty womb, but because she had an empty heart, a si­lent heart, that God found her available and ready to receive the incarnation of his Word.

  So in these days before Christ­­mas, let us ask the Moth­­er of God to take each of us in­to her silence, the silence of humility and surren­der, the silence of poverty and of long­ing and adoration.

  Let us ask her to take us in­to that silence in which we had our beginning and in which we will have our end.

  Then the Holy Spirit will come upon us and overshadow us like he did Mary. Then the Fa­th­er will beget in the depths of our silence, his eternal Son. And at the same time that he does this, he will bring forth the true child of God that is our secret being.

  

Questions & Answers

Question: As Catholics we are called to keep Sunday as a day of rest and praising God. Do we violate the fundamental mean­ing of this day when we go shopping? Is shopping wrong because it brings about a demand for stores to ‘force’ their employ­ees to work on Sunday?

  And what about people whose work is essential even on Sundays? What are Catho­lic policemen, for example, sup­posed to do?

Answer: Probably no other part of the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) allows us more freedom and creativity than does the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. At the same time it calls us to reflect honestly and thoughtful­ly on whe­ther or not we really are try­ing to live the spirit of the day by how we conduct our­­selves.

  The essence of the Church’s teaching is found in #1247 of the Code of Canon Law. It says that the faithful are “to abstain from such work or busi­­ness that would inhibit the worship to be given to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the due relax­ation of mind and body.”

  A fuller development of this can be found in the Catechism (#2184-2188) and in the Holy Father’s Apostolic Letter of 1998, entitled “Dies Domini” (The Lord’s Day #64-68).

  As for questions regarding Sunday shopping, the Cate­chism in #2187 says, “Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on oth­ers that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day.” Very few people are so busy throughout the rest of the week that they cannot find time to go shopping then.

  Sunday shopping creates a demand for stores to stay open. So routine shopping on Sunday does violate the mean­ing of the day by making these “unnecessary demands on oth­ers” and by placing materi­al and economic con­cerns ahead of God.

  “Sunday rest then becomes `prophetic’, affirming not only the absolute primacy of God, but also the primacy and dig­nity of the person with respect to the demands of social and ec­o­­no­mic life” (DD #68). “Through Sunday rest, daily concerns and tasks can find their proper perspective: the material things about which we worry give way to spiritual val­ues; in a moment of en­coun­ter and less pres­sured exchange, we see the true face of the people with whom we live” (DD #67).

  As for essential services such as those of policemen, fire­men, doctors and nurses, etc., the Catechism states that, “Family needs or impor­tant so­cial service can legiti­mately excuse from the obliga­tion of Sunday rest” (#2185). Howev­er it does go on to say that while “social necessities (pub­lic services etc.), require some people to work on Sunday, they should still take care to set aside sufficient time for leisure” (#2187).

  Therefore, a Catholic police­man whose normal shift is on Sunday is excused from the obligation. He would also be excused from it if he were taking the shift for some­one else who had a serious need to be away that day. But he would still be bound by the obligation if he was doing extra duty simply to make more money which really wasn’t needed for his personal or family budget.

  Finally, there is some `work’ that the Church highly recommends we do on Sunday. “Sun­day is traditionally consecrated by Christian piety to good works and humble ser­vice of the sick, the infirm and the elderly” (CCC #2186).

  Jesus performed many heal­ings and cast out many demons on the Sabbath. By his resur­rection from the dead, he trans­formed the day after the Sabbath (our Sunday) into a day of libera­tion. Sunday then is especially a time for the sorts of works of charity men­tioned in the above quote.