World Mission Congress

OUR SPIRIT OF MISSION

by Maria Victoria Fausto

The following is the talk that Maria Victoria gave to 1400 people at the World Mission Congress in Rome, October 19, 2000.

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Good afternoon to everyone.

On behalf of all the members of Madonna House Apostolate throughout the world, I would like to extend heartfelt greetings of peace and joy to each and every missionary who came to gather in this Jubilee Congress.

In the next few minutes, I will speak briefly of Madonna House and what we call our “Little Mandate.” This is what we bring to our mission land-our desire to arise and go, to be with the poor through our presence, our friendship, our prayer, and our faith housed in the poverty of our weakness as human beings.

Madonna House is a spiritual family in the Church. It is composed of laymen, laywomen, and priests living together in a communion of love and unity. Our foundress is Catherine de Hueck Doherty. You may have heard of her as the author of the book Poustinia. She was a refugee from the Russian Revolution who fled to North America.

As one of the pioneers in the lay apostolate, she served the poor in Toronto, Harlem, and Chicago in the 1930’s and 40’s. During thos

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Arise-Go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me. Little-be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike. Preach the Gospel with your life-WITHOUT COMPROMISE! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you. Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me. Love … love … love, never counting the cost. Go into the marketplace and stay with me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast. Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor’s feet. Go without fears into the depths of men’s hearts. I shall be with you. Pray always. I WILL BE YOUR REST.

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How we clothe those words with our life as missionaries can be described by using my own experience as an example.

I was 12 years old when my family moved to Canada in order to begin a new life after martial law was declared in the Philippines. During those difficult and lonely years of adjustment, a high school teacher became my friend. God used her as an instrument for a powerful conversion which lead me to join Madonna House 15 years later.

Early in my apostolic life, I was taught that love is communicated person to person. I was assigned to live and serve in northern Arizona for several years, and later on, for some months, in Africa.

Then I was called back to our formation center in Canada to serve as the librarian for the staff, applicants, and guests who come to share our life with us.

How am I a missionary there? I will give you an example. Recently I met a young woman from a different country, who had the same lost and lonely look that I recognize so well. She was browsing through our books. I approached her, and we began a conversation about poetry.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus when he befriended the Samaritan woman at the well: If you knew the gift of God,…you would have asked him and he would have given you living water (Jn 4:10). Catherine Doherty called this “apostolic chitchat”.

It did not take long for the Holy Spirit to create an atmosphere for the young woman to open her heart, to tell me that she was in anguish over having had an abortion. I prayed with her. Months passed, and the young woman was able to receive the sacrament of reconciliation and a healing of her spirit. As I speak, she is praying for this Mission Congress as a contemplative nun.

We all know that true evangelization takes place in the sanctuary of the human heart. At Madonna House we see the first mission field to be our own hearts. We desperately need the mercy of God to purify us that we may become free and selfless so as to be able to practice true hospitality.

Our missionary fire comes from allowing Christ to live in us, allowing the Holy Spirit to burn out what is not of God, and allowing the love of the Father to shine out in who we are and everything we do.

In the life we have together as laymen, laywomen, and priests, we dare to hope to become like an icon of the Holy Trinity. Ours is a simple life of love, of doing little, ordinary tasks that our Lord himself did in Nazareth. The hiddenness and simplicity of Nazareth is a model for us, for it is a sign of contradiction to a world bombarded by idols prevalent in the media and in the economics of utility where the human person is degraded.

As a delegate from Madonna House, Canada, I offer our humble missionary activity of prayer, presence, and hospitality in uniting with the whole Church committed to a new missionary advent in this celebration of the Jubilee.

With our Lady of Combermere, who embraces the heart of everyone who desires to hear the good news, we proclaim Jesus of Nazareth, true God and perfect Man, source of life for all!

SOUTHWEST IMAGES

by Anne Marie Murphy

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Coming to MH Winslow after a time in Combermere has been, in a way, like putting on my favorite jeans again. Since I have spent much time in our field houses, so much is familiar. But since this is a new place, the American Southwest, so much, too, is interestingly new.

My enduring image of my first week here is of smiles. Having lived in a variety of MH’s in cities and small towns, I don’t take smiles for granted. I know that it can take a year or more to earn the friendship of a smile.

But in Winslow, I was immediately enveloped by smiles, smiles that I didn’t need to earn. They were here waiting for me as part of my being a “madonna”, as people here call the MH staff. And they were real smiles, from deep inside a joyful people who have known suffering.

Being a “birder”, I have to say something about the birds. The varieties are both familiar and new to me. The nearby creek is a wonderful oasis in this desert, for birds as well as for people. And as the staff give me names to put on the people I meet, I give them names to put on the birds.

What a delight to see some of my bird friends that I thought I had left behind in Saskatchewan turning up here for their winter assignment! It was also delightfully confusing to wake up to a yard full of robins and a tree full of bluebirds in November!

Next came an introduction to the art and faith of the Southwest when we went on a pilgrimage to a Hispanic shrine in Chimayo, New Mexico, 45 miles from Sante Fe. The art and faith seem closely related, though some of the faith is not Christian (i.e. that of the native American cultures, both Hopi and Navajo.)

The trip also included visits to the International Folk Art Museum and to a Hispanic market festival.

Each of us found a favorite part of the folk art museum. Theresa and Janet looked at entire villages of little clay figures, and Margarita and Julie took some photos of Spanish religious art including the tin art that frames many religious pictures.

I was captivated by three retablosI call them Spanish iconsof the Trinity. In one, the three figures of the Trinity are seated in a chalice whose front had been cut away so that you can see inside. On the breast of the Father is a round sun; on the breast of the Spirit, a dove; and on the breast of Jesus, a lamb. It seemed to be the Southwest’s version of Russia’s Trinity icon by Rublev.

My image of the Southwest is of “roundness”the roundness of the pottery and fry bread of the Navajo, of the Hopi bread oven in our yard, and of the mission churches and adobe houses and walls we saw in Sante Fe.

So what do smiles, roundness, birds, and the retablo of the Trinity have in common? All express fluidity and a taking off of the edge of things. The walls around our houses or hearts may be too straight, our philosophy too rigid, our attitude critical or judgmental, the architecture of our will harsh against the landscape of the earth or of other human hearts.

The adobe buildings, on the other hand, blend in with the land around them, and the huge rock faces of the desert are smoothed and rounded by thousands of years of wind. So, too, can the Holy Spirit, the Wind of God, act upon us.

To quote our foundress Catherine: “Fire, flame, and mighty wind together shape and re-shape creation, renewing the face of the earth. But oh, the sight of the might that descends on the soul of man! The Wind lifting up, the Fire begetting a flame and then lighting a fire again in the soul of man. Such is creationlove its foundation. Love is fire; love is a flame. Love is a windpossessing, enticing, calling the soul of man.”(from a poem, “The Wind, Pentecost”.)

So as I take in the roundness of smiling faces, as my spirit relaxes in seeing smooth-edged adobe walls and soaring birds, and as my soul delights in new images of the Trinity, I am caught up in a circle of love: the love of Winslow for the “madonnas”, the love of the Trinity for his people here, the love of the many staff who have put their hearts and souls into the very walls of this house, and the love in the Hispanic songs to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the rounded image of the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

WORLD MISSION CONGRESS

by Carol Ann Gieske

“Credo, credo, je crois, I believe, I believe… Jesus is the source of life for humanity. C’est Jésus la source de vie pour l’humanité!”

This theme song, which frequently resounded through the hall, reflected the multi-cultural mix of the World Mission Congressthe Jubilee event for missionariesheld in Rome, October 18-22, 2000. 1400 delegates from 127 nations attended, and Victoria Fausto from MH Combermere and I from MH Toronto were among the 35 delegates from Canada.

When Victoria and I were accepted as part of the Canadian delegation, I wrote to Msgr. Bernard Prince, secretary general for the Propagation of the Faith and head of the Committee for the Mission Congress. He is from the Ottawa Valley, our part of Canada, and is a good friend of MH.

In his warm response, he said, “A five-to-ten minute witness of the mission of prayer and presence as exemplified by Madonna House and others would be a most valuable part of the North American `voice’.”

We weren’t sure what that meant, but our director, Jean Fox, asked Victoria to prepare a talk.

The Mission Congress consisted of prayer, talks, and presentations of various kinds. “Two-thirds of the world’s population has yet to know of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ,” Jozef Cardinal Tomko told us in the opening address of the congress. “Every Christian is called to evangelize. Every diocese is called to nurture and send forth missionaries.”

The following three morning sessions were like a mini-retreat. Then Thursday afternoon was devoted to “Voices from the Continents”, during which groups from different nations gave presentations in answer to the question, “How do you insert mission in the pastoral work of your country?” The presentations included talks, skits, music, and dance.

This was the part that we had thought might include Victoria’s talk, but we weren’t on the program. Canada’s presentation was by a French Canadian priest who is also a clown. He did a fascinating portrayal of the life of a French laywoman, Pauline Jaricot, foundress of the Propagation of the Faith.

Then the next topic was: the spirituality of mission in our contemporary world following the tradition of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Charles de Foucauld, and Catherine Doherty. This was the talk that Madonna House had been invited to give.

Suddenly Victoria was called up and, in the blink of an eye, she was looking at a sea of faces. She proclaimed the Little Mandate, told a little about Catherine Doherty’s life and ours, and then shared a story about how her life of prayer and presence while working in the library in Combermere influenced a young woman’s journey back to God and to the Church.

Spontaneous applause broke out for her Spirit-filled talk and, for the rest of our time at the congress, people approached us for information about Madonna House.

Meals and the time spent bussing between our living quarters and the congress site were wonderful opportunities for personal encounters and exchanges with missionariesbishops, priests, religious and lay peoplefrom all over the world.

There are signs of hope. A priest from New Delhi, for example, told us that many more people in India than it seems are Christians; they just aren’t registered with the Church. He also said that the emphasis has shifted from building up the Church structure to proclaiming Jesus Christ.

Bishop Gilles Lussier, celebrating the Saturday Mass in French, spoke just five words in English: “Our first task is contemplation de Jésus.” These words seemed just for me in my ongoing challenge to “pray always” (as well as to “do little things exceedingly well for love of God”), and I was reminded that Catherine stressed that “the first mission field is our own heart.”

The closing of the congress took place at St. Peter’s Square on Mission Sunday. National dances, flags of the 127 nations, and colored balloons representing the five continents added to the festive atmosphere, but the highlight of the morning was Mass with Pope John Paul II.

While recalling the sacrifices of missionaries and martyrs especially in the twentieth century, he reminded us that “The entire mission of the Church, and in particular, mission ad gentes (to the nations) needs apostles willing to persevere to the end—faithful to the mission received, following the same path travelled by Christ, the path of poverty, obedience, service, and self-sacrifice, even to death….”

After the Mass, soil from the five continents was presented to the Holy Father. In this soil he planted an olive tree representing all the Christians of the world. He then commissioned twelve new missionaries from different countries.

What are my overall impressions from this experience? The European face of Catholicism is receding. Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans are in the forefront of the “New Evangelization.” There is a worldwide thirst for peace, truth, and justice, in other words, for the Gospel. I was especially struck by the ferment of the Spirit in Asia.

Also, there is in me a sorrow at the division and apathy within the Church, a sorrow which is more painful than the sorrow I feel about the martyrdom of so many missionaries (31 in 11 countries in 1999).

My time at the congress was a personal pilgrimage inward as well as a mind-blowing experience of the universal Church. Gratitude fills my heart for this wonderful Jubilee experience.

My Dear Family

RENEW THE EARTH

by Catherine Doherty

There is no denying that I am a modern traveler. One time when I was out visiting our other houses, according to air miles, I traveled around the world twice. Everywhere I went—hotels, restaurants, pubs, humble huts, wealthy mansions, American and European suburban homes—everywhere my impression was that there is one main topic of conversation. And that topic is God.

Be he dead or alive, he preoccupies men’s minds with his strange and eternal fascination. Do people deny him? They cannot do it calmly. Do they accept him? Often they do so with great passion.

But alas, in most instances, those who say they believe in him are somewhat lukewarm and far from passionate in their argumentation, as if they are not quite sure of themselves. There is no dynamism, no pentecostal fire burning in them.

Yes, my deepest impression from my travels is that man’s hunger for God is at its peak, but that Christians do not know how to fill this hunger. Maybe it’s because they do not recognize this hunger for what it is, and thus do not realize how to fill it.

But let’s face it. If the world is atheistic, if much of it has not yet heard the Good News, or if it has heard but not accepted it, then the main fault lies with us Christians who have not lived the Gospel. We have only filled the libraries of the world with books which have more or less watered down the message of the Gospel.

Christianity has become an affair of ethical, moral behavior. An affair of going to church, of learning rules to make sure that one will get to heaven. The gap between the reality of the Gospel and the teaching contained in all those library volumes has reaped its harvest of damage.

My impression from traveling is that the world is crying for the Bread of Life, for the living waters that Christ promised—in fact, for God himself. But Christians who possess the Bread and the Wine do not know how to share it. They forget that whoever eats the Bread of the Lord must be truly “eaten up” by others. Having received Love, Christians should give love.

My impression is that few Christians are in love with God, and fewer yet realize that he is in love with them. So the voice of those who say that “God is dead” is louder than the voice of those who say that he is alive.

We should stop talking about God and start living out the Gospel in our lives, manifesting the image of the Lord so clearly in our hearts that no one can possibly say that he is dead. We should stop worrying about theological theory and begin building among ourselves communities of love.

We live in pentecostal times. Once again the invincible love of the Holy Spirit is among us. We have only to open our hearts to it and we shall change the world. Then our own hearts will contain the fire and flame that Jesus sent to renew the earth.

When the apostles went to preach the Good News and to baptize as the Lord instructed them, they didn’t have any catechetical manuals. They had the Gospel. They had the Holy Spirit. They brought the kingdom of Christ to an immense portion of the then-known world.

Why can’t we modern Christians adopt the “techniques” of the apostles and of the early Christians? True, we may wind up in some prisons, prisons of rejection, ridicule, and maybe even physical prisons.

We may be crucified in a thousand ways, maybe even locked up in psychiatric wards as St. Francis might be if he were alive today. But so what? The Gospel would be preached to the poor, and the kingdom of God would begin at least to have a toehold in our modern world. Yes, Jesus came to cast fire on the earth. Would that this fire were enkindled in our hearts today!

From The Gospel Without Compromise, pp. 15-17, available from MH Publications.

FOR GOD IS WITH US

by Jane Donnelly as told to Cynthia Donnelly

My mother died of cancer in the early morning hours of December 31, 1999. During her last months she had shared with me many treasured moments from her past.

One in particular she asked me to write down; she thought it might bring someone hope. The story focuses on my father, Joseph, but it is also about my mom’s life of faith. Here in her own words is the story she told me.

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The summer of 1991 had been a distressing time in our family, and I thought that the peaceful beauty of the retreat center would be good for your father and me. While I went to the first session of the retreat, Joe retired early with the small TV our daughter Lucy had loaned him for the week-end.

It was the first retreat Joseph had chosen to make with me, and it was to be a week-end of healing. The sister who directed the retreat house asked me to tell the other retreatants about Joe, who was a stroke patient and handicapped. I did so at the first session and told them that he might attend some of the retreat sessions but would definitely be at all the meals.

Joseph’s stroke had occurred in 1975. It struck him down in his prime, devastating his body and altering our family life.

In 1938, the United States was preparing for the turbulence of World War II. Consequently, Joe, like many young men, left the classroom to join the armed services. He chose the navy and was stationed on the Atlantic front.

We met while I was working at the USO Club here in Bay City, Michigan. Joe’s crew came to transport a new destroyer from Defoe’s Shipbuilding Plant to the Atlantic.

After dating all my sisters, Joe finally asked me out. We fell in love and were married in Boston on June 24, 1944. After the war the challenge of raising our seven children consumed all of our time.

One day in 1968, Consumer’s Power Company, the utility company Joe worked for, made an offer to all war veterans. If any war vet wished to finish high school, receive his diploma, and go on to college, the company would cover the expense.

This was a dream come true for Joe. He had a passion for learning, especially history. In the evening after work, his nose was always glued to a book. The qualifying test revealed he was so well read that only a math course was required in order for him to obtain his high school diploma. Then it would be on to college!

I marvelled as his studies opened new vistas and brought him a zest for life. Joe excelled in history. He was a born story-teller and could bring the past alive. So his instructors would often ask him to elaborate on an event in class.

I was so proud the night Joseph walked onto the stage of Delta College to receive his Associates Degree. He was so handsome in his dark blue cap and gown. He had completed Delta’s two year prog

Then, on a sultry night in August, we rushed Joe to the hospital. He had suffered a major stroke. His right side was paralyzed and his speech was severely impaired. The doctor predicted that Joe would live five years at the mostif we were lucky.

His dream of a college degree was shattered, and the whole family entered the mysterious world of suffering and physical limitations.

Instead of pursuing the past in a classroom Joe was plunged into the present. There was a new and exacting curriculum to toil over. He had to learn again how to walk, how to talk, and how to tie his shoes with one hand. And as he learned, all the little necessities of life continued to make gruelling demands on his limited energies and abilities.

But over the next months, his discouragement gradually faded. Now, my mother said, his cheerful spirit has mastered his broken body, and he is very much alive.

The second day at the retreat center dawned fresh and bright. When I invited Joe to our morning healing session, he surprised me by saying he would like to come.

He entered the room in his usual happy-go-lucky way, greeting those he knew and relishing the hugs and kisses of the women.

The warm October sun filled the room with a golden glow as Sr. Joyce led us in an opening prayer. “Everyone who seeks healing will be healed,” she said. “We might not be healed of what we ask for, but we will be healed. Be open. God is with us. In our search for healing, we may gain something new, something better. Let go, and trust God.”

Suddenly breaking in on her, Joseph raised his lame right arm and said, “My arm broken.” Touching his right leg, he said, “My leg broken.” Pointing to himself, he said, “Joe broken.” Then he pointed to me and said, “Jane broken.”

Then, to my astonishment, he got up and started to stride around the room. I reached out to stop him, but a voice inside me said, “No, wait!”

I sat back, stunned, and watched Joseph strut a faltering yet exuberant dance in front of us, smiling all the while. Then, when he was finished, he threw up his good arm, said, “Da, ta, da, da,” and sat down!

In the hush that followed, I noticed that many in the room were crying. Joe sat down in his chair. There was a definite twinkle in his eye, but he seemed unaware of how profoundly he had moved us.

Then Sister Joyce gently broke the silence. “I guess we can leave now,” she said. “What more is there to say?" Tears of gratitude flowed down my cheeks. God had chosen to use my husband to speak a word of healing at this retreat. Here was a man broken by a crippling stroke, a man who suffers frustrating limitations every day and who, through faltering speech, struggles to communicate.

Joseph is a man who has learned from life that we can find peace and joy. For God is with us!

JEANIE AND I

by Colleen Axe (a recent visitor)

Her name was Jeanie. She sat alone in church, or rather no one chose to sit near her because of the smell of her hard homelessness. Her feet were bare and filthy, and her seemingly never-changed brown “habit” was ragged. Her presence at our daily Mass caused me to wonder how anyone could begin to help her.

“Take her home with you and offer her a chance to clean up,” the Lord said in my heart. As I reflected on this and wondered just how he wanted me to do this, I observed a lady approach her with a warm, quiet “How are you today?”

“I’m praying,” Jeanie yelled back at her, and the lady quickly made her retreat.

“Oops,” I thought. “Must’ve heard that message wrong, Lord.”

“No, you didn’t.”I felt him reaffirm his words.

So what was I to do? I let the scenario play itself out, constantly seeking instructions from the Master Director.

A short while later, Jeanie left the church. Jumping into my car, I followed and caught up with her behind a grocery store where she was beginning to go through their discards to find something to eat. Rolling down my car window, I said bluntly, “Would you like to come home with me?”

“What for?” she asked.

“Well, maybe you’d want to wash your clothes or something,” I stammered. “You can take a bath if you want.”

Not only did she surprise me by speaking civilly, but she shocked me by agreeing to bring her wash and come home with me, just as the Lord had directed.

That day changed my life forever. I learned how thrilling it is to hear and carry out God’s wishes. Jeanie and I became good friends, and it would take a book to tell about our shared experiences.

We used to communicate via little yellow stickies which we put on the hidden side of the paper towel dispenser in our parish ladies’ rest room.

“I’ll be at adoration next Friday afternoon and hope you’re in the vicinity then.” “Missed seeing you at the van, but I left bottled water refills for you. Keep well.” Etc., etc.

And, believe me, she was equally generous to me.

And to think I could have let my fear prevent a most precious friendship that God brought to us both!

Mission

A CHITCHAT APOSTLE

An Interview with Mamie Legris by Paulette Curran

Catherine coined the phrase “chitchat apostolate” for what is exactly that: greeting the neighbors and all we come in contact with and chatting about this and that. It’s a way of getting to know people, of loving and serving them, of building relationships and community. It leads to friendship and sharing on a deeper level, and it is often a vehicle for bringing people to God.

In l954 Mamie Legris went to Whitehorse, a small frontier city, which was the main center in the wilderness of the Yukon Territory in Canada’s far north. There she and Louis Stoeckle and Kathleen O’Herin founded our first mission house, Maryhouse, a hostel for native people coming to town from the outlying villages and for single men and families going North to find work.

Besides the Yukon, Mamie also served for ten years in Cleveland, Ohio, and for shorter periods in Virginia, Israel, Peru, and Brazil. She is especially good at the chitchat apostolate. Here is an interview with her.

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Did you do much chitchat when you first arrived in the Yukon? And did it help you to get to know people?

When we first got to the Yukon we didn’t know much of anything about Madonna House or the Yukon. And we didn’t know what we were doing.

We had so much to do fixing up our house and everything else that we didn’t have time to visit with people.

Everybody else was setting up their house, too. It was after World War II, and there were old barracks all over the place. People moved into them and fixed them up.

When the missionaries from the native villages came to town, there wasn’t much room for them in the rectory, so they came to our place. They were new to town, too, and didn’t know people. We’d have a cup of tea with them, and they’d enthrall us with their stories. And if they needed something that we could get them, we did.

I guess that was our chitchat with the missionaries. At first we knew them better than we knew the people in town.

Then gradually we got to know our neighbors and other people in town as well. We were building a house and we needed materials, money, and people to help us. So we got to know people through our begging. Everybody else was scrounging building materials, too, and everybody helped everybody else.

One taxi driver started visiting us often. She got to know us because she sometimes took the native people staying with us to the airport. She’d been away from the Church and was scared to death to go to confession. But she got to know Fr. Gene at our house, and she finally went. She started going to daily Mass after that, and now years later, she’s a lay leader in another part of Canada.

We got to know the people staying with us in the hostel the same way. I’d be cooking on one end of the stove and a native woman would be cooking on the other, and we’d chat over our frying pans.

The stories of the native people and the adventures of the stranded people from all over Canada who stayed a

One transient man, who stayed with us all winter, returned to the Church.

How did you engage in the chitchat apostolate when you returned to the Yukon in 1990 as a poustinik?

I was just there to be available and to pray, and people just dropped in.

Were many of them people you knew from when you were in Maryhouse?

No. Whitehorse is a very transient town, and most of the people I had known were gone. Some people came because they knew Maryhouse, but when I met someone I’d invite them to drop in, and many of them did.

I invited a neighbor, and the first time she happened to come was when one of the missionary priests had come by to say Mass. She attended Mass and had lunch with us. We visited one another often after that.

The lady across the street who was United Church used to come on Saturday to make a poustinia. On Sunday we’d have breakfast together, and she’d talk about her poustinia.

People would come by and bring me things, toooranges or a chunk of meat or something. We’d chat and I’d talk to them about Madonna House and tell them stories about Catherine Doherty.

Some people called me their spiritual director. Some came regularly to get stuff off their chest. We had great visits and lots of fun together.

One neighbor I got to know by offering her a loaf of bread I’d just baked. Every time I baked bread after that, I’d bring her a loaf. She brought me hamburgers from a restaurant, and we became good friends.

One day her husband Joe, who was Catholic, mentioned that they were married out of the Church and would like to get their marriage “fixed up.” I relayed the message to our good pastor and soon the marriage was validated in our chapel. The husband died a year later. The wife and I still correspond.

And now you’re working in the pioneer museum in Combermere in the summerreceiving people when they come in.

That’s an easy place for chitchat. People say “Where do you live?” and “What do you do?” And it goes from there to “What is Madonna House?”

I tell people how everything in the museum we got by begging, and I tell them about “One Man’s Scrap” in RESTORATION and I tell them we live by the Providence of God. I give them literature about MH and a copy of RESTORATION.

And I listen to them talk. When an old person sees the butter churn or the dolls or the washing machine, it starts them talking about their memories of those things. And the men love to talk about the old tools. I’ve learned lots from them.

And I’m from the area, and I remember those old things, too, and sometimes we know the same people.

The museum is a great place for chitchat. And people are so glad to have someone to talk to. (So many people don’t want to listen.) They share in a minute. “I used to be in the Church.” “I had to put my husband in an old people’s home.”

And you write to a lot of people, don’t you, Mamie?

Yes. People like to get letters, especially old people. I send them prayer cards and tell them stories. That’s the chitchat apostolate, too.

Love One Another

COME TO THE BANQUET

by Fr. Emile-Marie Brière

My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active (1 Jn 3:18).

My immediate thought on reading this passage was that, at one time in my life, I would have tried to understand this passage, and then I would have determined to do this or that for someoneserve them in some way or other.

I still think that those words contain this lesson. However if one’s outlook on the situation is “I shall now help here, now there”, one can easily become a sort of professional do-gooder.

Then I read Luke 14:16-24, the story of the man who invited many people to a great dinner. They made excuses; they would not come. So he called in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.

And even after all these came, there was still room for more. So he had his servants force people to come in from every highway and byway.

I got excited. This Gospel gave me the key to 1 Jn 3:18. I saw those who came to the banquet as a symbol of the people called to be witnesses for Christ.

This witnessing doesn’t demand that we own some land that needs to be inspected or five pair of oxen to be tested or have a new wife to delight in. It does not demand that we own anything at all.

Not because we are gifted, not because we are clever, not because we are beautiful people have we been invited, but because no matter how crummy we are, no matter what hopeless, groping dopes we are, no matter how tattered and shattered, no matter how despicable, ridiculous or poor, we have done the one important thing required to witness to Christ: we have come to the banquet.

It is the banquetthe bounty, the festivity, the love and warm welcome of our host, his goodness and graciousness and wholehearted acceptance of the poorest crumbs in townthat we are witnesses to.

That, I think, is what St. John meant in his letter; that we are witnesses to Christ, not only in word and in deed, but also in simply accepting the invitation to the banquet.

If we have not entered the banquet hall and joined in the festivities wholeheartedly and become guests of the most gracious host of all creation, then we are in danger of witnessing only to our own pride or foolishness.

It is only in the shocking abyss of our poverty that the banquet can be received. It is only there that the banquet’s good effects will be seen or known.

Those who are not hungry don’t need a banquet, and even more pitiful are those who hunger and seek satiety elsewhere, not knowing that there is only one banquet and one host to satisfy them.

It is in poverty, in humility, in accepting the truth of who we are that God’s glory can shine forth. Without him, we are about as great as an empty hole in the ground, no matter what accomplishments, talents, or performances we may manifest. But with him added to our poverty, we can be Christian witnesses.

It is only his love, the fantastic force of it working within our fragile framework, that can say to other people and to the world:

“See, look, everybody. You are not alone in your sorrow, not alone in your sin, not alone in your suffering, not alone in your despair. See, I have taken from among you these poorest, most disreputable, most crippled, most blind, most thick-headed, most stubborn people.

“I have taken these most sinful, most suffering, most alone, most fearful, most hopeless people. See, I make them shine among you, filled with hope and faith and love.

“If I can do that with these most helpless of the hopeless, then you too can be filled with all my good things.

“ Come to the banquet!”

Adapted from The Power of Love, pp. 60-62, available from MH Publications.

NOTES FROM NEAR AND FAR

Paris

When we returned from our holidays, an unpleasant little surprise was waiting to greet us. A leaky pipe in the apartment above us had left streaks and stains on the ceiling and wall of our dining room. Apparently it had been leaking for two weeks. Ugh! But the rest of our home looked great.

We had recently painted our two poustinia rooms. The clean whiteness of the walls and ceilings brightens up those little rooms nestled against the apse of the church. But no amount of paint can mask the presence of prayer impregnating those walls.

For each person who makes a poustinia not only profits from but adds to this sense of prayer.

We continue to get requests from people wanting to make poustinias, some of whom are still responding to some articles that were written about us in April. But no matter how they come, we know that it is Our Lady who sends them.

Paris is a crossroad for world travellerstourists, students, artists, adventure-seekers, businessmen etc., and, this past jubilee year, pilgrims in abundance. The latter bring graces, and we were blessed by many such visitors from such places as the United States, Canada, India, England, and Taiwan.

During the Jubilee year, I saw a sign that read, “Five days of pilgrimage. What about the other 360 days?” For us those days include very ordinary, simple things like countless trips up and down the stairs (keeps us fit!), welcoming visitors, and going out on such errands as shopping for food, mailing letters, and bringing Holy Communion to elderly parishioners. Often we are busy answering letters, cleaning, or cooking. Lately, due to generous gifts of apples, quince, plums, and nuts, the kitchen has been filled with the good smells of food processing.

We had the joy of participating in the tenth anniversary celebration of the Points-Coeur Association, an organization which enables young people to participate in apostolates for children in under-privileged areas or in Third World countries.

We surprised the MH Belgium team by visiting them one weekend. What a joy to be such close neighbors!

Joanne Dionne

MH Paris

West Indies

(Though we do not officially have a house on Carriacou, a two-by-seven mile island in the Caribbean, two staff, Genevieve Enoe and Sandy Brewer, are serving there: Genevieve—who is from there—is taking care of her elderly mother, and Sandy is living as a poustinik.)

Besides the occasional funeral and wedding, life these days has been pretty quiet. There is the daily round of little things to attend to: the never-ending weeds, bush, and grass to keep in check (which is well-nigh impossible), the planted vegetables, the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the answering the phone, the being there for my mother, and at times, the attending to a sick uncle.

Like all our neighbors, we have animals. I have two cats, two goats, and nine chickens to take care of.

Sandy and I visit people and are involved in the parishes. Sandy in one parish and both of us in another, helped give one-day retreats to the children preparing for Confirmation. Sandy spoke to them about the sacrament and I about the Holy Spirit.

The parish priest was away for two weeks and in his absence, I conducted a communion service Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. In October, the month of the rosary, we visited people and prayed the rosary with them.

In the fall, a hurricane that was approaching us was downgraded to a tropical depression by the time it reached us. No major damage was reported. God is certainly looking after us.

Genevieve Enoe

Carriacou

Raleigh, NC

It was a dark and stormy morning, and my first impressions of Raleigh were a little vague due to the fact that I was peering out at the world from the inside of a grocery store dumpster in a back alley. Carolyn and I had driven there in search of packing boxes for a friend, originally from the Congo, who was moving from Raleigh to Washington D.C.

Theresa left town the day I got hereshe assured me there was no direct connection between the two eventsand a few days later Carolyn left to attend a family gathering in Virginia.

I waved good-bye, walked back into the empty house, and found myself ankle deep in backed up plumbing water! The plumbing of the whole house was backed up!

Even if I could have found a plunger, which we did have, I wouldn’t have known which way to run with it.

Luckily, Carolyn had told me only the day before that the mop is kept hanging outside on the clothes line pole. I will spare you the rest of the details. You’ve no doubt had similar adrenalin-charged moments.

Echo Lewis

MH Raleigh

The Pope’s Corner

YOU SHALL BE WITNESSES

by Pope John Paul II

The following is an excerpt from Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer), the pope’s encyclical on missions.

————

People today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching, and in life and action than in theories. The witness of a Christian life is the first and irreplaceable form of mission: Christ, whose mission we continue, is the “witness” par excellence (cf. Rv 1:5; 3:14) and the model of all Christian witness. The Holy Spirit accompanies the Church along her way and associates her with the witness he gives to Christ.

The first form of witness is the very life of the missionary and of the ecclesial community, which reveal a new way of living. The missionary who, despite all his or her human limitations and defects, lives a simple life, taking Christ as the model, is a sign of God and of transcendent realities. But everyone in the Church, striving to imitate the Divine Master, can and must bear this kind of witness. In many cases it is the only possible way of being a missionary.

The evangelical witness which the world finds most appealing is that of concern for people, and of charity toward the poor, the weak, and those who suffer. The complete generosity underlying this attitude and these actions stands in marked contrast to human selfishness. It raises precise questions which lead to God and to the Gospel. A commitment to peace, justice, human rights, and human (betterment) is also a witness to the Gospel when it is a sign of concern for persons and is directed toward integral human development.

Christians and Christian communities are very much a part of the life of their respective nations and can be a sign of the Gospel in their fidelity to their native land, people, and national culture, while always preserving the freedom brought by Christ. Christianity is open to universal brotherhood, for all men and women are sons and daughters of the same Father and brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Church is called to bear witness to Christ by taking courageous and prophetic stands in the face of the corruption of political or economic power; by not seeking her own glory and material wealth; by using her resources to serve the poorest of the poor, and by imitating Christ’s own simplicity of life.

The Church and her missionaries must also bear the witness of humility, above all with regard to themselvesa humility which allows them to make a personal and communal examination of conscience in order to correct in their behavior whatever is contrary to the Gospel and disfigures the face of Christ.

ONE MAN’S SCRAP, ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD

What a great blessing to be immersed in the ordinariness of winter work. As we focus on the duty of the moment, we experience the deep peace of our Nazareth life, and we let it carry us ever further into the mystery of God.

Winter is a good time for polishing donated items to be sold in the gift shop, for stacking firewood, and for just generally putting order into each department. Attending to these details now will leave us more time in the summer to give hospitality to the many visitors who come then.

Winter is also time for gratitude. As we handle each donation, we are aware that each thing has been donated by a person, by someone who desires to give love, and we realize how tenderly God is looking after us through our friends.

St. Mary’s typists want to thank those who sent ribbons for IBM Selectric typewriter Model #72. They received enough new ribbons to keep them going for a while. God bless your generous hearts!

Gretchen, at St. Raphael’s handicraft department, is exceedingly grateful for the black fountain pen ink, epoxy, clear contact paper, and oil paints. They have already been put to good use in calligraphy, repair work, and the restoration of broken religious goods. These are the kinds of supplies that we use on a regular basis. Our artists would love to have a small light-table, if anyone has one they can part with.

Marie-Thérèse is “chirping happily” over the new carpet in the center of our front room. Many thanks. She is asking for Trewax clear paste wax (the kind that has no petroleum and thus, no fumes). This will protect the hardwood floor that surrounds the carpet. Also, would you send, if you can, scubbies of any kind for cleaning large pots and pans, and also squeegees and dental floss?

Cheryl Ann has done a tremendous job putting together new song sheets in the 3-ring binders you so kindly sent, and we are now using the new song books in our chapels. But here’s something she overlooked. To protect the holes and to prevent the papers from curling, there is something called “sheet lifters” that can be put in front and back of the sheets. These are stiff black plastic pieces, 2 or 3 inches wide, with three holes to go in the binder. Is there any chance you could get hold of some for her?

The hardworking men who do maintenance are asking for winter work gloves. The nurses need only a few items this month: Band-Aids, 222’s, and hemorrhoid cream or suppositories.

Bonnie at archives needs ZIP disks (either 100MB or 250MB) for computer backup. She could also use PH testing equipment (pens, PH testing strips, etc.)

The folks who have moved into our new residence for the elderly are pleased to have the rocking chair that was donated. If you were thinking of sending one, we still need another.

At St. Mary’s they’ve just learned a new use for old tennis balls. Someone recommended them as excellent floor savers for metal frame chairs! You make a slit in the ball and pop one under each chair leg. They’d love to try this, and so are asking for some tennis balls. They are also still looking for an industrial size rug shampooer.

There is a need for 2-drawer metal filing cabinets and some type of cleaner for CD players.

Making Catherine Doherty’s writing available in recorded and printed form is the main work of our publications department. It would help them if you can send CD jewel cases and Xerox paper, both white and colored.

While our list of material needs is not so lengthy this month, we do want to ask for your most valuable contribution to this apostolate: your prayers, your sacrifices, and your ordinary lives lived in communion with us and the whole Church. We, for our part, continue to pray for you each day before the Blessed Sacrament and in all our community prayers. May God bless you by his mercy.

In Our Lady of Combermere, Jean Fox

Word Made Flesh

GOODNESS WITHOUT GOD?

by Fr. Pat McNulty

A reflection on the Mass readings for February 18th, the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 1 Sam 26:2,7-9,12-13, 22-25, 1 Cor 15:45-50, and Lk 6:27-38.

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A few weeks ago while on my way to the dentist, I was listening to a phone-in talk show. Some of these I like because they challenge me and increase my knowledge of many things. Though this one was no exception, by the end of the program I was more shocked than anything else.

The topic was “being good without God”, and it was based on a book by a man whose name I do not remember, but the title was something like Can We Be Good Without God? The author was available for comment.

It was not the topic that shocked me nor the author’s obvious hostility to the notion of God as a real and living Person who is separate from and outside the individual. (He had, I would say, a rather narrow knowledge or experience of such a God. The experiences he shared about God as a real, living Person outside the individual all seemed to have been dehumanizing.)

I wasn’t even shocked by the number of people who phoned in and expressed their own disbelief in such a God. No, what I think shocked me was how many of the people who phoned in declaring their disbelief in such a God, went on to profess an almost “religious” belief that the human person has within him or herself the “godly” capacity for goodness, a capacity more trustworthy, more pure, more absolute than any other notion or experience of God.

Of course, they could then logically profess the belief in the power to be “good without God”.

Then, within a few weeks of hearing that talk show, I received a long, unsolicited Xeroxed letter calling me to “a radical Christian pacifism”. However genuine the theological opinion of the person who wrote it, the letter was, it seemed to me, a sad manipulation of the great Christ-events of our Christian faith. According to this letter too, it is the individual who is actually the Christ within himself.

When you start with, “how to be good without God” there is no place else to go but “how to be God without God.”

But what does all this have to do with this Sunday’s Gospel message of loving your enemies?

Christ’s revelation about loving our enemies is just that: a revelation. It does indeed incl

Butand here is the essential difference between natural goodness and supernatural or graced goodnesswhen God speaks about goodness (or any other such quality), he is not speaking about what we envision from our human experience or historical expectations.

For what God means by goodness is something that is both revealed and divine, something outside both our human experience and our human capacity.

The essential problem with the belief that God is a kind of goodness within us all, is the on-going historical fact that we are wounded far beyond how good we can or cannot be as mere human beings. Natural goodness has never been enough.

In the first reading today, David is unwilling to take rightful advantage of King Saul, not because his desert travail has finally taught him a secret about human goodness, but because King Saul was the anointed of the Lord. David’s refusal was not about human goodness. It was about goodness as revealed and empowered by God.

And David himself, a very good human being, lived long enough to trade that human goodness for another man’s wife to the tune of adultery and murder. And if his poor sense of life had been based and judged on natural goodness, he would never have been able to don sackcloth and ashes when the child of the sin died, and then go on to believe in God(ness) again.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul continues to hammer away at us the fact that this thing which has happened to us in Christ Jesus, the New Adam, is not something good which was buried in our human condition and which now those who want to can see.

No, we have to be completely re-made, re-modelled on the heavenly man.

And whatever one can say about the love of enemies as found in this section of Luke’s Gospel, generally the seven most unquoted words are the very words which put this call forever beyond the reach of mere human goodness: Be compassionate AS YOUR FATHER IS compassionate (Lk 6:36).

This then is not a revelation of something which has always been in our human soul-psyche and which we just didn’t see and could not find for various personal and historical reasons. This is divine revelation about a “new” God, a triune God who lives and exists outside of all creation and who invites us into a new and divine goodness, outside our self. Love of enemies is not about natural goodness but about supernatural goodness.

We Christians must be very careful when we talk about the love of our enemies as commanded by Jesus Christ, for upon this command of divine love lies the very future of our world.

And if our sense of goodness or love does not put us in the footsteps of him who is Goodness and who is Love, and we do not realize that he must teach us how to be good as our heavenly Father is good and how to love and be compassionate as our heavenly Father loves and is compassionate, then we are not talking about Christ the Son of God, nor are we talking about being Christian.

We are talking about something else which, however genuine and good, is merely human and can not rise above the paltry confines of mere history and human experience.

Often, to our shame as Christians, we too have had to re-learn that, without the One who is Love, natural love soon becomes some form of social, economic, political, personal lust no matter how good we are by nature.

And without the One who is Good, goodness itself soon becomes a similar form of self-satisfaction, no matter how much goodness is within us by nature.

I don’t think we could find a better responsorial psalm than this Sunday’s to help heal us of this seductive thinking about natural goodness vs. the goodness revelated by the God who exists outside of us.

It is (the Lord) who forgives all our guilt, who heals every one of our ills, who redeems our life from the grave, who crowns us with love and compassion. The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy. He does not treat us according to our sins nor repay us according to our faults… (Ps 03:3-4,8,10).

Yes, perhaps for a while we could be good without God. But then one day we would be Godless, and with that would go all goodness. Perhaps for a while we could love without God. But one day even that genuine love would disappear from the face of the earth. Because mere human love will die in our poor, wounded, broken hearts without the God who is Love.

Yes, I found it very scary to hear so many good, loving (Christian?) people profess to believe that the only solution to the human struggle lies hidden in our own human nature if we could only discover its capacity and use it. And that this capacity is God!

While respecting whatever truth there is in that half-truth, it is our Christian vocation to convince the world otherwise, one person at a time, as our Father in heaven has convinced us, one at a time. It’s not a big job. It’s just a relentless one.

And I hope and pray that you are among those Christians who can say with great hope and obvious joy, “I do want to do that job!”