Russia

A PILGRIM’S TALE

by Catherine Doherty

Many, many years ago, when I was a child in Russia, pilgrims often stopped at our house. This particular one was an elderly lady. Since it was fall, she was dressed in a coarse hand-woven black skirt and a woolen blouse. She also had a Russian parka lined with sheep’s wool and covered with dark, heavy woolen material.

On her breast, she wore a small icon, the sign of the pilgrim. It wasn’t very large. She had come from a holy shrine of Our Lady and was on her way to her home village some 75 miles from our farm.

The room we were sitting in was lighted with kerosene lamps, and a bright fire crackled in the fireplace. Our family and servants were all sitting around the pilgrim, listening to her tale. I was absorbing every word with a heart that hammered against my ribs.

She told us about her travels and about the wonderful reception she had had at the holy place, the joy that her soul experienced in it, the peace that came to her there. Then she went on to say that on the return journey she had to go through a large forest. And this is what she told us.

“Forests are wonderful places, for many saints in olden days hid there to avoid persecutions. As you all know, when your soul is at peace and the silence of God reigns in your heart, your whole being changes under his holy touch. You can hear the trees praising God, and the flowers and grass worshipping him.

“And if you have wept much over your sins and the sins of your brethren, and if you have prayed for the whole world to come to know and love him, then God grants you at times the grace to hear the wild things speak of him to one another. Thus the forests are truly blessed places.

“But as all Christians know, forests are also dangerous places. For the prince of evil and his angels like the forests also. A Christian would be a fool if he did not bless himself thrice before entering a forest.

“And it is well to hold onto a holy icon and to invoke the names of Jesus and his holy Mother when you walk through a forest at twilight or during the night.

“This I did before entering the forest I am talking about. I was not afraid. The peace of God and his silence were with me, for I had wept in the holy places over my sins and the sins of the whole world. But nevertheless I became uneasy as I went on into the depths of the forest.

“For I sensed with my whole being that at that moment the Lord was allowing the forces of evil to live in that forest. So I repeated the names of Jesus and Mary constantly.

“But the ways of God are not the ways of men, as you all know from the Book of Job. God permitted him to be tempted, and the same happened to me.

“For before I knew it, I heard the trees whisper among themselves. Though the night was quiet, there was something like a wind going through them. They were trembling and whispering in fear about the Evil One’s coming closer.

“I noticed that the wild creatures of the forest started to run away and hide. I began to bless myself, for the sign of the cross is powerful against the Evil One.

“The road bent a little. Right behind the bend, who stood before me but a man! I didn’t like the looks of him. But then, what could he possibly want from a poor pilgrim?

“Money? I hadn’t any, as you will know; we never take any along. Food? I had eaten all my bread and salt, and there was little enough water left in my gourd. So he wouldn’t be able to rob me. Nor did he.

“He was going my way, he said, so he fell in step with me. He did not greet me with the name of Jesus, but simply called me `Granny’.

“He asked me where I came from. I told him about the holy place I had visited. He started to laugh and began to talk with a strange wisdom about religion being a superstition fed to us by the priests just to keep us poor and subject to the rich.

“On and on he went, using big words that I only half understood. But what he said began to sound pretty good. It was true that our people were poor and exploited in many places.

“Before I knew it—would you believe it?—I was listening to him very intently. Suddenly it seemed to me that what he was saying was true.

“Then he began to talk about Our Blessed Mother. He mocked her. But maybe he was not so much mocking her as us who believed that she gave birth to the Lord and remained a virgin. He called it idolatry. Then I knew!

“As you know, every pilgrim carries holy water. We would not travel without it. Quietly, I took out my little bottle. It was getting dark, so he couldn’t see what I was doing. I sprinkled him with it in the name of Jesus and in the name of the Holy Trinity.

“Now you might not believe me, but this is the gospel truth: he screamed. Then he twisted and fell on the ground. Then he vanished, as if he had never been there at all.

“But before he vanished, he cried out, `You old fool! All Russia will be covered with rivers of blood over the things I’ve said. Millions will think like I do.

“ `There will be moaning and groaning and tears all over this land. I am out to win it, and win it I will. And neither your God nor your Blessed Virgin will be able to save it.’

“So terrible were his words and his voice that I am not ashamed to say that I fell senseless to the ground. When I awoke, everything was dark, and I was scared out of my wits. I picked myself up and started walking slowly.

“Suddenly there was a very great light on the road, and a young woman, dressed just like me in a pilgrim’s garb with an icon on her breast, came up gently to my side.

“ `Fear not, Grandma,’ she said. `It is true what the man said, but he was not a man. These things will come to pass so that Holy Russia may hang on the cross with my Son to redeem the world.

“ `The only way the world can be redeemed is through suffering with my Son. Fear not. There will come a day when, under the sign of my Son, I will lead Russia to show my Son’s face to the world.’ Then she vanished too, and I saw the lights of the village.”

This story was told to us by the pilgrim woman. I heard it before the Russian Revolution when I was nine years old. You can believe it or not, of course, but this is the way it was told to us on our farm, by the fireplace, those many years ago.

From Not Without Parables, pp. 21-24, available from MH Publications.

Book Review

A TWICE-TOLD TALE

He Leadeth Me, by Walter J. Ciszek. Ignatius Press. 202 pgs, sewn soft cover, $12.95

Phone: 1-800-360-1714

Fax: 1-800-278-3566

E-mail: www.ignatius.com

———-

Whether you classify this book under experiences of Soviet prison camps or under spiritual reading, it is outstanding. And it belongs squarely in both categories.

The story itself—of Fr. Ciszek’s 23 years first in Soviet prison, then in a prison camp, and finally in exile in Siberia—was first told in the book, With God in Russia. But the author, a Polish-American Jesuit, was never satisfied with that book.

He said in the prologue of He Leadeth Me that, though he was consoled by the many letters and personal requests for spiritual guidance he received, which indicated that somehow the readers of that story had read far more between the lines than he had been able to say, he knew then that someday he would write a second book that would convey more explicitly the deeper truth of his experiences.

So he wrote He Leadeth Me, and explained in its prologue:

“ `How did you manage to survive?’ is the question most often asked me by newsmen and others ever since my return home. My answer has always been the same: `God’s providence’. Yet I knew that simple statement could never satisfy the questioner or ever begin to convey all I meant by it.

“Through the long years of isolation and suffering, God had led me to an understanding of life and his love than only those who have experienced it can fathom.

“He had stripped away from me many of the external consolations, physical and religious, that people rely on and had left me with a core of seemingly simple truths to guide me. And yet what a profound difference they had made in my life, what strength they gave me, what courage to go on!

“I wanted to tell others about them. Indeed, I felt one reason that God in his providence had brought me safely home was so that I might help others understand these truths a little better.”*

In this second book, Fr. Ciszek re-counted the events only briefly and, with each event, told about his interior struggles and what God did in him through it. The result was one of the most open accounts of a person’s spiritual life that I have ever read.

I read He Leadeth Me for the first time over twenty years ago during one of the most difficult and painful times of my life. I found it profoundly moving and it entered deeply into my heart and gave me a few simple truths to cling to. It was a vehicle God used to give me the hope and courage and consolation I so desperately needed. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

Quote is from the 1973 edition, Doubleday.

Paulette Curran

Russia

SOARING OUT OF THE RUBBLE

By Sushi Horwitz

“This is my third time in Siberia, said the 87-year-old Casimir Cardinal Swiatek, the archbishop of Minsk, Byelorussia. “The first was in 1919 when my whole family was exiled here. I was five years old. Three years later we were allowed to return to Poland.

“The second time was in 1944 when I was a priest and sentenced to Siberia. During that time, I was put on death row, but God had other plans, it seems.

“This is the first time I have come here freely.”

Though my Russian translation is very poor, these in essence are the words the cardinal spoke to us in early September 2000 on the occasion was the consecration of the new cathedral in Irkutsk, in the heart of Siberia.

The cathedral soars, white and beautiful, above the rubble and broken stones that lie at the end of a street car line. It rises, not only above physical rubble and brokenness, but also out of bloodshed and broken lives.

This new and living church is built upon the faithfulness of believers who suffered greatly in Russia during the past century. Millions of Catholics—and many more Orthodox—were torn from their homes. Some were taken forcibly, put into boxcars, and dumped out in some snowy wasteland in Kazakhstan or Siberia.

All this became painfully clear to me during my time in Irkutsk. As a member of the staff of MH Magadan, I was privileged to be there to represent MH at the consecration of the cathedral of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and at the first all-Russia Marian Congress.

The weekend was a blessed and joyful time, a time filled with faith and family, ceremony and simplicity, and a banquet of both earthly and heavenly food. It reminded me of the Holy Father’s visit to Canada in 1984, when the whole Canadian Church came together to worship, to pray, to witness, to celebrate, and to be strengthened and inspired. Both events were, in my opinion, examples of the Church at its human finest.

The bishop had invited folks from all over the world, and, according to the local secular press, over 2,000 attended.

The one hundred plus clergy present included two cardinals, two archbishops, and twelve bishops, hailing from Europe, Brazil, and the United States.

The ceremony was beautiful and very long—over four hours. At the end, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz prayed the Act of Entrustment of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The next two days of the Marian Congress continued the feast. Saturday morning was given to talks from different Christian traditions about Our Lady. Among those giving them were a Lutheran pastor, a Polish priest-professor, and an Orthodox priest.

The latter, Fr. Grigory Czestiakow, a spiritual son of the martyred Fr. Alexander Men, was an absolute hit. He told us that today was the tenth anniversary of the death of Fr. Men, and that, as a faithful son of Fr. Men, he should have been there. But he felt that Fr. Men would have been happy that he was here instead.

Though the consecration of the cathedral was the reason for gathering, it seemed to me that the prison camps (the Gulag) and their victims became the heart of the three-day celebration.

Saturday afternoon was given to the rosary, which was interspersed with witnessing by different people about how Our Lady had helped them during their times of suffering.

Among those speaking were two elderly women from our parish in Magadan—Branislava and Olga—who talked about how Our Lady had helped them survive their many years in the Gulag. One could feel the pain in the air. It was a powerful time.

Daily the spiritual power and intensity seemed to increase, and Sunday was the most moving day of all. Mass was offered by Casimir Cardinal Swiatek, the 87-year-old archbishop of Minsk, who had spent fifteen years in the camps during which time he had been put on death row.

The homilist, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, is aflame when he preaches. He cried during the homily and set our hearts on fire with his passion and `givenness’.

He spoke about the destruction of the Catholic Church in Russia during the last century, sharing some of his own experiences of this, including the bombing and obliteration of the cathedral in his city while he was a student. He called on all of us to be restorers of the faith and of the Church.

At the end of the homily, he went to Cardinal Swiatek and embraced him warmly saying, “He too shared in the suffering.” This brought the cardinal to tears, and they embraced each other for a long time.

After the homily we all wanted to rush out and serve God in any way he asked.

Immediately after Mass, we processed out to bless the new memorial to those who had suffered and died in the camps. Called the Chapel of Peace and Reconciliation, it is an outdoor memorial at the side of the cathedral.

Fourteen Stations of the Cross are at fourteen stone markers. Each marker has the name of a prison camp, and underneath it is an urn. Into these urns we placed fourteen bowls of earth that had been brought from different camps. (One of the markers is `Magadan-Kolyma’, the camp near which our house is located.)

I found this ceremony incredibly painful. With his bare hands, the 87-year-old cardinal carefully scooped the earth from each bowl into the urn. Then the stone was put over the urn. The cardinal then put a lighted lamp by each marker.

When he came to the stone marked `Irkutsk’, the camp where he had been, he placed the lamp and then stood there and covered his face. All we could see was his body shaking with silent sobs.

Bishop Jerzy helped him back to the microphone where he continued to pray the prescribed prayers. When he finished, he leaned his head against his staff (which is topped by a statue of Mary), and stood bowed with grief, tears filling his eyes.

This dedication honored the earthly end of so many lives. It also basically ended our three-day gathering.

I felt, though, that this dedication also marked a beginning. A beginning of what? A beginning of the renewal of the Church in Siberia.

This ceremony, honoring the martyrs of the 20th century, seemed to fan a flame of faith in the hearts of the young people gathered there.

When I think of the rebuilding of faith in Christian Siberia, the Jubilee Year motto comes to my mind: “Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and forever.”

Russia

THE SEED OF THE FAITH

by Bishop Joseph Werth,

Apostolic Administrator

for Western Siberia

The following is an excerpt from a talk given at the Marian Congress in Irkutsk, September 9, 2000.

———-

When I first visited the Catholic community of Magadan in 1992, I was also able to visit one of the Kolyma labor camps. The ruins of the administration buildings were still there.

In one place there were heaps of old shoes from the prisoners, but what hit me most forcefully was the punishment cell. I stood at the tiny window of that prison cell and imagined for a moment that, fifty years before me, someone also stood before these same bars and saw the same patch of sky thar I was now seeing. I tried to imagine his hopelessness and despair and the instinct to cling to life—to prolong it, however horrible that life might be.

When we are sick or in pain, this instinct sometimes takes hold of us to the point that we can think of nothing else. And, here in this cell, there was nothing but pure pain!

In such a situation, the human mind is concerned with only one thing: how to get a piece of bread so as not to die of starvation; how to keep warm enough so an not to freeze into a ball of ice; how to sleep a little so as to escape, even for a few hours, from the terrible nightmare.

We often refer to the tens of millions of victims of the Stalinist repression, but we rarely try to enter into the suffering of the individual victim. But at that time, for each person, the desire to survive was stronger than anything else.

And if we try to put together the pain, the suffering, the fear of all these people, we are plunged into an unimaginable sea of suffering. But now at the end of this terrible century, we have an obligation to remember. We must bow before these people in reverence and thanksgiving.

I imagined to myself that the man in the punishment cell could have been a priest or a lay believer. And I imagined that, as he looked at the sky through the bars, he called on God’s help in prayer, he offered his sufferings to God, and he prayed for his persecutors….

A priest cannot help but think about the future of the Church, and so, of course, he knew and believed that `the blood of martyrs in the seed of Christianity’. Because of this, he could pray with hope for the future.

He could pray for us, pray that the time would come when faith would be reborn. The religious freedom which had come to us in Russia at the end of the 20th century is the fruit of that prayer, the fruit of the prayer of millions of martyrs, the fruit of their suffering, and the fruit of their death.

The martyrs of the 20th century are the seeds that have fallen into the earth, and today those seeds are giving life.

The martyrs of the 20th century are the foundation on which we can build further in this new millennium. This is our support and the source of our hope in the midst of the darkness and hopelessness of today’s world.

Today these martyrs are with the Lord in glory. Theirs is the victor’s crown. From heaven they reach down to help us who are still on earth, and we call out to them in joy and hope: “O holy martyrs of the 20th century, pray for us!”

Translated from Russian by Miriam Stulberg.

Russia

Introduction by Marie Javora

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Every Saturday morning at our house in Magadan, Russia, a liturgy is celebrated by one of our parish priests, Fr. Michael Shields and Fr. David Means, for all who died in the prison camps of Kolyma, the region surrounding Magadan. No one knows how many people died in these camps—hundreds of thousands for sure, possibly millions.

Some miraculously survived the inhuman treatment and conditions of these infamous camps. Two such people are Branislava from Lithuania, and Olga from the Ukraine, both of whom were arrested in their early twenties. Their only crime was believing in God, but that made them `enemies of the people’.

One Saturday morning Olga, who comes regularly to our liturgy, wanted to read to me the testimony she had prepared, upon request, for the upcoming Marian Congress in Irkutsk. After Mass, Fr. Michael and I stayed behind in the chapel to listen as she read.

The words were so simple and direct, hiding in their simplicity a depth of pain that is beyond imagining.

As she began, her voice quivered. Then pausing and holding back her tears, she quietly said, “It is so painful to remember.”

I felt as if a sword went into my own heart, and for one split second, I seemed to be sharing in her pain. Her tears and mine mingled. It is a moment I will never forget.

Olga and Branislava are only two of the many camp survivors living in our region. Fr. Michael is organizing a special outreach to help and encourage these courageous brothers and sisters of ours who have suffered so much.

Their shining faith is an example, and all of us in MH Magadan feel privileged to be part of their lives.

The following are two testimonies given by Olga and Branislava, our faith-filled babushki (grandmothers), at the Marian Congress in Irkutsk, September 9-10, 2000.

BY OLGA

Praised be Jesus Christ!

I was born in western Ukraine, and I am an Eastern Rite Catholic. Until 1939 we had ties with Poland, but after that, the Soviet government started to look upon us as `enemies of the people.’

Then in August 1944 the Red Army invaded our land, and almost immediately the mass arrests and exile to Siberia began.

I was arrested in December 1944. The prison was filled with young people. Nocturnal interrogations, torture, suffering. And all that strengthened our faith in the Lord and his Mother.

At night as soon as the door to our cell opened and someone was led out to be interrogated, the rest of us started praying. We prayed passionately with confidence in the power of love, the power of God, to save us.

I was sentenced to twenty years at hard labor. In the course of those years, I endured so much. I was in different camps: in Irkutsk, Kemerovo, and Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, and finally Kolyma just outside of Magadan.

Only those who lived through it can know what it was like. The hunger, the freezing cold, exhausting labor, a regime beyond our strength, the taking away of privileges….

It was only God who saved us. Never once did I doubt him. I never cried or blamed him for what had happened to me. Faith never left me. It was prayer alone that strengthened my soul and body.

Even in misfortune God can send happiness. We are sinners. and God sends us trials so that we will repent. We all had sinned and not repented.

So let us pray for our Church, our parish, our beloved Fathers Michael and David. We thank Mary for all the blessings we have received from God, for she is praying with us.

BY BRANISLAVA

I have loved Mary for as long as I can remember. The most beloved prayers in our family were the rosary and the litany to the Blessed Mother, and ever since those days, I have prayed them unceasingly.

When my freedom was taken away in 1947, when I lost my home and my family, I didn’t take my rosary with me. If I had, it would have been taken from me. I prayed the rosary on my fingers.

In the prison there were 30 girls and older women in each little cell. We made rosaries for ourselves from the bread they gave us to eat. We also prayed together, and Mary was with us. She protected us from sickness and gave us strength to overcome our fear.

Later, in the camps, there were many, many Catholics from different countries, and whenever we could, we gathered together to pray the rosary and sing to Mary. The Blessed Mother consoled us and protected us from all dangers.

After I was released in 1954, there was, of course, no church in Magadan. But I never stopped honoring Mary, asking for her help in all the difficult times. After work, I would walk home, four kilometers, so that I could pray the rosary on the way.

In 1991 the Catholic community in Magadan was organized. A priest, Fr. Austin, came from America. I heard on the radio an announcement that on Sunday there would be a Catholic Mass at the cultural center.

I wasn’t sure it was true, but I went out of curiosity, and when I actually saw a Catholic priest, I cried tears of joy! The possibility of serving God, of going to confession and communion, of belonging to a family of faith—what a great blessing and gift from our Heavenly Father.

Since then I have never been separated from the church. We pray together with the women of Madonna House, who are truly sisters of mercy. We receive many blessings from Our Lord and his Blessed Mother through their prayers.

We pray for our church, for our parish, for our beloved Fathers Michael and David, who were brought to us by the Blessed Mother of God. We thank Mary for all the blessings from our Heavenly Father, because she is praying here with us.

Russia

OUR WORK IS LOVE

by Miriam Stulberg

We had been five staff in MH Magadan. Then suddenly, due to a couple of unexpected circumstances, one of them a serious medical problem, we were just two. Thus it was that when Sushi and I celebrated the seventh anniversary of our house, there were more of our team in Combermere than in Magadan!

Even so, we both had a sense of peace about it. No one but God could have arranged such a scenario, and we could at least be secure in his will.

We received an e-mail from Jean Fox, our director general: “No one is in charge. This is a time to bow before one another, love one another, and communicate as peers for the good of the house and all who come. Live in harmony and simply give way to each other, and many graces will come…

“Trust in God’s mercy as never before and stay very, very faithful to the cross. Surrender everything into the heart of Our Lady. She is at work.”

We took this as our mandate for our time together, and we indeed received many graces. But you can imagine that, with just two of us, life was pretty much stripped down to the bare essentials.

It helped that the house is quieter than it was in our early years here. Caritas, an international Catholic organization, and the parish priests are taking care of most of the material requests now. The parish itself is flourishing, and some of the needs we initially filled have been taken over by parishioners. So our role now is one of support rather than of direct involvement.

We were certainly busy though, with Sushi carrying the entire load of physical work, while I with my limitations due to MS, filled in as I could in other ways.

So what’s it all about?

Theresa Marsey, returning to our house in Arizona after 25 years, looked around and asked the same question.

As she wrote in her newsletter, “The Gospel has been lived: Love one another as I have loved you. We have not come here to change people. We have come here to love them! I say we have done the Father’s will.” And as another staff worker once said, “Love is our apostolic work.”

I think this is our answer. Perhaps our life is pretty `bare bones’ these days. I am seeing it with a new clarity and a new peace. It doesn’t matter whether or not we speak the language well. It doesn’t matter whether we are five or two in the house. We are in Magadan to love.

Yes, our apostolic work is to love each other and each person we meet, to receive God’s love in every way it comes, and to pass it on through our very being, our self-giving, our MH way of life, and our prayers.

This is what people seem to see, and it is this, not anything we do, that matters to them. They tell us so.

Russia

JESUS CHRIST FOREVER

by Sushi Horowitz

When I think about the rebuilding of the faith in Siberia, the Jubilee Year motto comes to mind: “Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and forever.”

Jesus Christ Yesterday: All over the world, Catholic dioceses publish little books called `ordos’. These books, essential to priests and sacristans, tell what is needed every day for the liturgy. Is this a feast or a day in Ordinary Time? What week of the Church year are we in? What color vestments does the priest wear?

Our ordo in eastern Siberia has a feature I have never seen before—a martyrology of those priests who died in Russia in the 20th century. The final entry of almost every day is the story of a priest who died on that date.

I’ll just open the book. Here we are on the 16th of January. The last paragraph of the day, entitled, `the sufferings of the servant of Christ’, reads as follows: Felix Zabusski, 1893-1938, priest, served in Ukraine. Arrested in 1930. Executed by shooting, 16th of January, 1938, in Archangel.”

The next day, January 17th, ends with “John Rott (1881-1938), archbishop apostolic administrator in the Caucasus. Arrested in August of 1931, in the gulag in Murmansk, then exiled to Kazahkstan. Arrested again in 1937. Executed by shooting, January 17, 1938.”

And on and on the martyrology goes—horrific in its repetitiveness and in its facts. Its victims are the men who, because they represented Christ, gave their lives. And in their lives they relived his aloneness and agony in Gethsemane and his death on Calvary.

Jesus Christ Today: On my last day in Irkutsk, I had supper at the Curia. Sitting across from me was a lovely Franciscan priest. This peaceful, humble man, probably in his early 70’s, told me he spent half his life in Novosibirsk and half in Chicago.

When I mentioned how moved I had been by Cardinal Swiatek during the weekend, Father casually began to share some of his own life. During World War II, when he was 12 years old, he and his mother and his brothers and sisters were fleeing Russia.

They were crossing the Caspian Sea on a refugee ship. Though it was summer and beastly hot, no one had put drinking water on the boat. So people became very sick.

Those who could no longer stand, including Father and his mother, were taken off the boat and brought to refugee camps. Somehow he recovered, but his mother died. Thus six children were left orphaned because no one had thought to put drinking water on the boat!

By this point, my tears were falling on the smoked salmon on my plate—hot, angry tears. I was shocked and outraged. But Father, remarkably peaceful, continued on.

I think most of his brothers and sisters ended up in England. He ended up in Chicago in an orphanage run by Franciscans, and he eventually became a priest in their community. He exudes peace, acceptance, and love.

After supper, still in tears, but feeling very comfortable with this priest, I asked him the question I have every time I hear a story like his: “Father, why are you not bitter? Why don’t you hate the people who caused you to have a life of pain?”

“It’s true,” he answered. “I am not bitter. And I believe that this peace is only a gift of God.”

Jesus Christ Forever: I don’t know anything about `forever’. I don’t know anything about `tomorrow’ either, but I do have a few opinions!

A while ago, I was attending one of semi-annual gatherings of the clergy of our diocese. (Though we of MH are lay people, in this context, we are lumped with the clergy.)

I looked around at the priests and nuns gathered there. The largest group was from Poland; second were the Slovaks. These priests and nuns were young but mature. They looked healthy—spiritually, emotionally, and physically. They seemed to have no illusions that the rebuilding of the Church in Russia will be quick or easy. And they look like they are here for the long haul—to love, serve, and give with no visible return for a long time.

As I looked at our group, young and old, my thought was that `these are the hands and feet and heart of Christ’. And through such as these, the face of Christ will once more be visible in Russia.

My Dear Family

MARY WAS MY LIFE

by Catherine Doherty

Before I could speak any language properly, when I was just a little child, I knew Mary.

Her icon hung in my parents’ bedroom. It was ancient and dark with time but sparkling with family gems— offerings of petitions and gratitude. Except on Good Friday, a lampada—a kind of vigil light—always burned before it.

Svitáya Bogoróditza—Maria—Blagodátnaya. These were the names given to her by my parents. “Holy, She Who Gave Birth to God, Maria filled with the fullness of grace.” These are the literal translation of these strange words.

Yet in my early days she was just `Maria, our Mother’—my mother, my mother’s mother, my father’s mother, my brother’s mother, everybody’s mother. How could it be otherwise? For when my parents went out in the evening, they brought me, all warm and cozy and half asleep after my evening bath, to her icon and prayed that she might take care of the house and me while they were gone.

If I was naughty, it was not enough to apologize to Mother or Father or whomever else I had to apologize to. Off I was sent to apologize to Maria. She would present my apologies to her divine Son, who would accept them so much more readily from her hands. This was, of course, beyond me at the time, and I just said, “Sorry, Mama Maria.” But as time went on, I understood more how right and proper that was.

Thus, slowly, naturally, imperceptibly, “Mama Maria” entered my life and permeated it. She was there when I awoke, as I gave my day to her for her Son. She was there when I went to school. She was the best teacher ever, so just saying “Maria” would help. She was there in our children’s games. She brought her Son to play with us, or so it seemed. It was good to know that she was close.

And later it was clear that she watched us. There were moments in early and late youth when my brothers or I would like to hide from her motherly eye and grasp this or that forbidden fruit, but there she was!

How could you get rid of her? And if you tried, as children will, there always was the comforting security of deep, deep faith. Maria, mother of sinners, was close and would help me to pick myself up!

Years passed and tragedy came into my life. Because I knew her, because my life had been lived from babyhood on within her radiant shadow, because my feet had followed her through every joyful mystery of the Rosary, it was only natural that, when the sorrowful mysteries of our faith came into my life, I turned to her.

Gethsemane became a reality for me. I saw my loved ones led one by one to slaughter—arrested, imprisoned unjustly, executed summarily.

And I lived under the exhausting mental suffering of waiting, waiting for the same fate to overtake me. Finally the blow fell, and I was imprisoned and clearly saw the face of death.

I was condemned to die by starvation, which reduced my body to weakness and blanketed my mind with terror. God receded until it seemed he was not there, and I was lying in the dust of the thousand endless converging roads of near despair.

Is it any wonder that our Mother came then, and taking me by the hand, walked once more the Way of the Cross—this time with me and with thousands of my compatriots as she had done with her own Son?

Half delirious with hunger, weakness, and mental pain, I still remember repeating, like a refrain, one word: “Maria. Maria. Maria.” In that name was the only light in my stygian darkness. In it was the only strength that kept me from going over the thin, icy cold edge of despair. In it was benediction and oil to my wounds.

In it was more, for in her, the gate to the Way that is Christ, the daughter of the Father, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Crimson Dove of Love, lies the secret of Uncreated Light, the secret of our hope in hopelessness.

She, the shelter of the shelterless, the House of God, opened the door to me and allowed me to enter and, once I had entered, to understand that no one is tried beyond her capacity.

She, the mediatrix of all graces, the one through whom Christ gives all graces, will bring graces enough and more to every Christian. Thus we will be enabled to say that fiat which each of us must say before the mystery of the Cross when it is our turn to lie down and be nailed upon it.

The mother of joy brought joy into my desert of pain and death. Through her fragrant love, she showed my the way to Love Incarnate, her Son, and made my Calvary acceptable, even infinitely desirable, through his. She brought the radiance of peace to shine on me in the midst of Satan’s unpeace.

She took my spirit into her blessed hands and, just as my own mother used to lift me up for my nightly blessing when I was a child, so now Mary lifted me up for the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Or so it seemed to my exhausted mind and body into which flowed a new and strong life of faith, hope, and love.

Years later, when all these dark days of earthly hell were but a memory, I understood that she who had walked with me to all my schools had finally taken me into her own school of holy silence and love.

Mary is my life. I hope I never have any other, for my life is passed under the finely wrought posts of her gate. Some day the gate will open, and she will lead me to her Son.

In the meantime I shall wait at the posts of her gate, seeking to mold my life ever more unto hers and dwelling in her holy silence and motherly love.

From Bogoroditza, pp. 12-16, available from MH Publications.

ONE MAN’S SCRAP /

ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD

Dear friends, we greet you warmly as we set out together into the third millennium. Our hope can be stronger than ever before. The Holy Father has caused the words of Jesus to reverberate in our hearts: “Do not be afraid.”

We have every confidence that with your support and prayers we can live out God’s will for this little community. Certainly, your response to our needs gives much encouragement. We are awed, simply awed, by your generosity.

The librarians would like to thank the couple who drove from North Bay with a slide projector for us. They didn’t get a chance to write your name and address-thank you so much! They are also grateful for the bookends and book covers that arrived just in time for a special project. You surely do know the way to a librarian’s heart.

The craftspeople at St. Raphael’s want to extend their thanks for the ink cartridges, titanium white oil paint, clear contact paper, and epoxy. They can still use more of the last two items.

They also have a couple of highly specific requests: 1”x42” aluminum oxide sanding belts (grit 220x and 320x) and 1”x42” 15-micron silicon carbide belt for sharpening carving tools. I’m not sure I know what they are, but perhaps they are right down your line.

We are so grateful for the supply of toothpaste and bar soap we received recently. If we could also have some dental floss, our basic dental needs would be covered.

You can imagine what a hazard a carpet can be when it tends to roll up at the corners. We have several that need to be `tamed’ with double-sided carpet tape. Do you have any to spare? Other household needs are non-toxic wax for hardwood floors and heavy-duty rubber gloves (M/L).

The nurses want to thank all of you who sent vitamin C and calcium, our two most used supplements. Their list this month includes bandaids, Gravol, Tylenol, 222’s, antibiotic ointment, hemorrhoidal suppositories, and for our colds and flu, chapstick and throat lozenges.

Now that the gardens and grounds are resting under a mantle of snow, Mary Davis has turned to her winter work with the wool from our sheep. Mary and her crew are asking for detergent of any kind to help in this work.

Once the wool is cleaned, it will be carded and spun and used in many ways-weaving, knitting, crocheting, etc.-to produce articles for sale in our gift shop.

Speaking of the shop, please keep it in mind. Anything that you know could be sold to help the missions is gratefully received: jewelry, china, glassware, handicrafts, cutlery. Please send any medals, rosaries, statues, and other religious goods you no longer want. Besides earning money for the poor, these articles help restore the faith in many ways.

The men in our community spend much time in winter chopping wood for heating and cooking. Can you help them out with axe handles and axe handle wedges? They are also asking for black shoe polish paste, winter work gloves and mitts, and heavy-duty (14-gauge) extension cords.

The staff in our offices are thankful for the supplies you sent. There is a standing request for Xerox paper—both white and colored. Archives need the larger size Xerox paper (17x11), especially acid-free and CD jewel cases.

Thanks for the plastic mattress covers and pillow cases used in our new residence for elderly staff. The nurse in charge, Mary Lynn, is still trying to find a 2-drawer filing cabinet with lock to keep medical files.

Morning by morning, as we plunge into each days’s hidden life, we are mindful that our lives have meaning because Eternity has entered history as a newborn Child. May the peace He came to bring uphold you and console you.

In Our Lady of Combermere,

Jean Fox

Poland

HOW COULD I FORGET HER

by Irma Zaleski

I grew up in Czestochowa. But although we lived in the shadow of the most important Marian shrine in the Catholic Poland, I was hardly aware of it. My parents were not practicing Catholics at the time, and we were not brought up to be religious.

I attended a private school where religion was taught. (It was a obligatory in all Polish schools.) But very little of it penetrated my basic lack of interest and the conviction that I, my family, and most of our relatives and friends, were somehow superior to it all.

I don’t remember ever saying prayers at home, and I did not know any except, I think, the Hail Mary, which my nanny taught me one day. I used to say it sometimes to a little picture of a young woman in a veil, holding a bunch of roses in her arms, which hung over my bed. I thought it was an image of Mary, but later I realized that it was a picture of St. Therese of Lisieux.

I don’t think we ever visited the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna, except on a few occasions when relatives or friends came to town and had to be shown the sights. I remember little about those visits.

Yet my upbringing, however pagan it might have been, could not insulate me totally from the world I lived in. And that world was overwhelmingly and unashamedly Catholic.

There was a church on every street, bells were rung at regular times every day, and men lifted their hats and women crossed themselves whenever they passed a church.

On the great feasts of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, every home, however indifferent to religion, kept the ancient traditions. Special foods were prepared and blessed, rooms decorated, gifts exchanged, and hymns sung.

On Corpus Christi, altars were built in every part of town, in every village, and the Blessed Sacrament was carried in solemn procession.

There were feasts of Mary and May Devotions, when the world was flooded with light, vases full of flowers stood everywhere, and old familiar hymns drifted out of churches in clouds of incense.

It was impossible not to be profoundly affected by all of this. Poland was Christ’s country and Mary was its Queen.

One of the prayers to Our Lady—which, sooner or later, everyone learned—was the one called `Under Your Protection’, a prayer that had been prayed by every generation for a thousand years. I don’t remember how and when I learned it, but I did.

“Under Your Protection we fly, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in the time of our need, but graciously defend us from all evil.”

There were a few more words to the prayer, but these were the ones that somehow pierced through my childish self-absorption and became rooted in my memory.

My childhood ended in 1939 when the war broke out. I was only eight, but old enough to be aware of what was going on around me and to experience its horrors.

The brutality—the terrible violence and cruelty of the Nazi occupation—made any child-like trust in the fundamental rightness of things and any bright hope of happiness very difficult. Life became dangerous and bleak.

There were no more processions in the streets, and the bells were not rung. Big men with dogs patrolled the streets, and people hurried from door to door.

My father managed to escape soon after the collapse of the Polish front, and rejoined the Polish forces still fighting in France. My mother joined the Resistance. My brother and I attended secret classes (Polish children were forbidden to learn) and stood in lines for food.

We heard of arrests and executions and rumors of death camps. Some of mother’s friends disappeared.

There was little to eat, clothes were made from drapes and bedspreads, and shoes from my mother’s leather handbags. We were evicted from our home and lived in one room with a cooking stove hidden behind a wardrobe and a common bathroom out in the hall.

It was grim, but it was life and, as children do, we soon got used to it.

Mother tried very hard to keep from us her comings and goings in the Resistance, but this was very difficult to do. It did not take us long to find out what was going on.

As we grew older (the war lasted six years, after all) mother thought it was best to satisfy our desire for great deeds and teach us some responsibility.

She allowed us to help in her work in small, relatively safe ways. We carried messages and delivered copies of underground newspapers. We stood on guard outside during meetings. We were taught contingency plans for emergencies. There was always the possibility of a disaster—a mistake, a betrayal, an arrest. We had to know what to do.

By the beginning of 1944 the Germans were clearly losing the war, and the Resistance became more and more daring. There was too much drinking, too much unnecessary risk-taking, too much careless talk. Danger and the violence of life in the underground exacted a heavy toll, and even the strongest nerves snapped in the end.

Finally, in October of that year, disaster struck. At that time, our home served as a `mailbox’—a place where guns and ammunition were picked up and dropped off by members of the `special forces’ of the local Resistance. The guns could not be kept at home for more than a few hours, never overnight—an iron rule never to be broken.

One night, however, the men did not come for the guns. By the time mother realized that something had gone wrong (the men had all been arrested that afternoon), the curfew was beginning and nothing could be done that night.

We pushed the guns—there were seven of them—between the sheets in the linen closet, as far as they would go, and anxiously went to bed.

This was the night—it always happened at night—when all the leaders of the resistance in our town were arrested at the same time. A young woman, the daughter of my parents’ friends, had betrayed them to the Gestapo.

They came for my mother with guns and police dogs; the house was surrounded; flood-lights were switched on. There was a loud banging on the door and harsh voices demanded to be let in.

Quickly telling us to keep quiet, stay in bed, and say nothing at all, mother went to the door. As always in emergencies, she was very calm.

I sat up in bed with my knees pulled up to my chin, shaking with fear. I saw everything as if in slow motion: mother going to the door, the room full of German uniforms, soldiers opening drawers and closets and throwing everything on the floor.

Somebody shouted at my mother to get dressed and get ready to come. She calmly walk over to the linen closet where she also kept her hats. She took one down and did not close the door.

I can still see it hanging open, swinging slightly. One of the soldiers moved over to the closet and, with his bayonet, began to lift one sheet after another, checking to see if anything was hidden between them.

Mother gave no sign of fear. She walked over to the mirror and put on her hat.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the end. We all knew the rules. Whenever firearms were discovered during an arrest, all the members of the family were immediately taken outside and shot.

I knew that it was vital for me to keep quiet and not to give the soldier any reason to suspect that something was wrong with the closet. I knew that was really why my mother had opened it, for where she was going she did not need a hat.

And then, when I felt that I could no longer bear it, when my throat could no longer hold back the scream, the words of the ancient prayer rose unexpected, unbidden, in my mind:

“Under your protection we fly, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in the time of our need, but graciously defend us from all evil!”

Silently, desperately, I repeated the words over and over and over again. And the miracle happened. After what seemed an endless time, the soldier shrugged, closed the door of the closet, and walked away.

How was it possible? There were seven heavy guns hidden between the sheets! How could he not have seen?

But he did not see them. Or perhaps he did and did not want to see. I don’t remember anything about him. I don’t think I really even saw his face, but I am alive because he did not see, and I pray for him.

When the soldiers finally left, taking mother with them, my brother and I jumped out of bed, hugged each other, and cried with shock and fear but also with relief. They did not find the guns, we were not dead, and mother too had a chance to survive.

And she did. At the end of the war, after three months of interrogation, she returned to us from prison, sick but alive.

We owe our lives to Our Lady. How could I ever doubt it or forget? There were times in my later life when I forgot the commandments, rejected the Faith, doubted even God. But I never forgot Our Lady, never doubted that in the hour of our need she had saved us from death.

Every day I ask for her protection. I pray the ancient prayer. I call her Mother and Queen. Whenever I am in Poland I go to Czestochowa and visit her shrine. I kneel before the Holy Icon and I bow to the ground.

Reprinted with permission from Nazareth Journal.

Grace Through Sickness

ENTERING AN OCEAN

by Tom Egan

With this article, we conclude the series, “Grace Through Sickness”.

———-

Last December 3rd I suffered a minor stroke, and I want to share with you some of my inner experiences of that night and the days that followed.

I had not been feeling well all that day and, after supper, as I walked towards my room to go to bed, suddenly I fell and was unable to get up. No one was in sight, but I yelled for help and people came running. It felt like it was a long time before they came, but it was probably moments.

Patrick and Nancy took me to emergency. When we arrived at the hospital, they both jumped out of the car and ran across the street. Though they weren’t gone long, I felt alone, deserted. Neither

When they returned with a wheel chair, we went to the waiting room of emergency where we waited from about 7 p.m. until midnight. It was very, very crowded.

I had entered into a sea of pain, but at first I did not know it. I was far too tied up with my own pain to be aware of the pain around me.

But, as I sat there, a young couple, their faces filled with anxiety, arrived carrying a small baby who was crying. I knew that it would be some time before the child’s pain would be relieved. The crying of that baby touched my heart and I found myself praying for him and for the parents.

As I continued to wait, many people were brought into emergency. I saw a man on a gurney being rushed down the hall as he received CPR. Others were rushed by as well, some with tubes coming out of their bodies. Many of the people I saw were obviously in serious condition. There was so much pain all around me, and I was drawn into that sea of pain.

When it finally was my turn to see the doctor, I became one of those being wheeled down the hall. Then when I learned that I’d had a stroke, I was reabsorbed into my own pain.

After my examination, I was wheeled out into the hall where, along with other patients, I lay in a gurney for a few more hours waiting for a bed. Patrick and Nancy waited with me until 2 a.m. when I urged them to go home. Patrick gave me his rosary.

After they left, a feeling of self-pity entered into me, but it lasted only a short while. Into my heart came a prayer I had made up and often used over the years: “All my days are in your hands. Fiat! (Let it be done to me.) Alleluia!” My heart mellowed and I felt a strong sense that I was entering a new phase of my poustinia life.

(For the past four years I have been a poustinik, which is a vocation within the vocation of MH. This means that I spend three days a week in poustinia, a place of prayer, fasting and solitude.)

As I lay there, I prayed the rosary and the Jesus Prayer for the sick people around me and all through the hospital.

Was this the new phase of my poustinik life? Was the hospital now to be my poustinia, a `poustinia in the marketplace’? Was this just my idea, or was it God’s?

This idea was soon confirmed. When Linda (the local director of our house) came early in the morning to spend the day with me, one of the first things she said was, “You are really in the poustinia in the marketplace now.”

Later I talked with Albert, the director general of men of MH, on the phone. He told me that I really was in the poustinia and that my prayer and suffering were very much needed.

So this was my `duty of the moment’, what God was asking of me now: to be in a sea of pain and embrace the pain of others, the pain of the bedridden man across the room, the pain of the woman whose father had his third stroke during the night, the pain of so many others all around me.

After Linda left, I just lay there. The only thing I could eat was fruit and I could just barely walk the few feet to the commode. “You may be spending Christmas here,” I told myself.

The following morning, I heard the nurses say they were short two people and had not done the `vitals’ yet. Someone else, probably the head nurse said, “We are just going to do what we can do.” I could feel the place relax. I began praying my rosary for them. The head nurse saw this and said, “Say one for me”. So I did.

On the third day, I began physiotherapy, and a few days after that, I was able to practice with the walker on my own. I practiced as much as possible because my duty of the moment was also to get as well as I could.

On December 14th, the anniversary of the death of Catherine Doherty, the social worker told me that I needed more intensive physio-therapy and that I was to be transferred to a sub-acute hospital where I would receive it. However, I would have to wait for a bed.

“Maybe there’ll be one tomorrow,”

Right away I turned to Catherine Doherty in prayer. “I want a miracle,” I told her. The next day, there was an empty bed.

I spent eight days there and went home just two days before Christmas.

As time went on, I continued to recover and now can walk with just a cane. But the sea of pain that I entered into has not left me.

I would compare it to being in the sea. The pain of others comes at me continuously the way the currents of the sea used to move against my body. As I was aware of those currents, I am aware of the pain.

Sometimes the pain of others is before my eyes. Other times, it comes to mind. Either way, my heart is moved to compassion and prayer.

The sick and those in the medical profession now have a deep part in my intercessory prayer.

The sea of pain is a part of me now and I think it will continue to be. I can leave it if I wish, but my heart tells me not to.

Our Lady of Combermere

GATEWAY TO GOD

by Fr. Emile-Marie Brière

Fr. Briére reflects on three of the titles of Mary in The Litany of Our Lady of Combermere

———-

Guide to the Great Silence of God: There is so much noise outside of us, and inside as well. But in the middle of the busiest day, surrounded by hundreds of people, Catherine Doherty lived in the presence of God and in a great interior silence. You could tell something was going on inside of her.

It was Our Lady who brought her to that silence, and she can bring us there, too. We just have to ask her.

———-

Golden door to the secret chambers of the King: We are all called to intimacy with God. Mary is the door to that intimacy and so we go to her. She opens the door and then we enter this worldthis immense worldof relationship of God. Then with her we move, one step at a time, into greater and greater intimacy with God.

———-

Gate to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: This is the whole secret of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Marycoming to the Trinity through Mary. God chose to come to us through her, and he chooses that we come to him through her.

How did he come to us? When she said, “Fiat.” “Yes.” “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”

How do we go to him? When we say, “Fiat.” “Yes.” “Behold the handmaid. Behold the servant of the Lord. Behold me, O Lord. I want to do your will today, not my will.”

Mary then opens wide her portals, and we can rush into the heart of the most Blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Pope’s Corner

OUR FINAL VICTORY

by Pope John Paul II

The following is an excerpt from an address to clergy and religious in Santiago, Chile, in April 1987.

———-

In Christ, evil is already conquered, and death has been defeated in its very root, which is sin. Christ has descended into the depths of the human heart with that most potent of weapons: love, which is stronger than death (cf. Song of Songs 8:6).

And so we Christiansand even more so we God’s ministersdo not advance into history with uncertain stride. We cannot do so, for we have been ransomed from the power of darkness. We advance along the right road in the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:12).

And so, whatever uncertainty may lie in wait for us, whatever the temptations affecting ourselves or our mission and ministry, these can be overcome in this wonderful perspective of union with Christ, in whom everything is possible for us, since he is our final victory.

In him are the beginning and root of our personal victory. In him we find the strength we need for overcoming any difficulty that may arise, since for us the Lord is wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30).