Love One Another

LIVE LIKE A CREATURE

by Fr. Emile-Marie Brière

During Lent, we think about making resolutions and of changing what needs to be changed in us. We think of improvement. I suggest a very simple, all-embracing resolution: live like a creature each day.

This is a simple resolution, but one unusually deep, unusually fruitful, if we live it in the concrete circumstances of each day.

A creature is nothing and has nothing except what has been given to it. Its existence is given moment by moment by the One who is existence. Body and soul come to us from God. Senses, mind, will, emotions, operate only with his cooperation. Without me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5)—nothing in the natural order, nothing in the supernatural order.

Whether I’m aware of it or not, my dependence on God is total and constant. I can’t flick an eyelid or move my little finger without God’s assistance.

We believe in the Creator, but do we act like creatures? Do we trust God or ourselves? Are we grateful for his gifts or do we attribute them to ourselves?

We want so much to express ourselves, to be ourselves, to fulfill ourselves. These desires can be satisfied.

We want success and achievement. Success, true success, can be realized. We dream of doing great things. This dream can be achieved. All comes from God, and all we need to do is depend on him.

For we are not only creatures. We are also beloved sons and daughters of a lavish, loving Father. If we seem to receive little of that love, let us not blame God. He gives, ever gives, to those who wish to receive.

He fills them with his life, his grace, his strength, his unselfishness, his love.

They become merciful as he is merciful. They become gentle as he is merciful.

They choose the road of the cross to be with Christ their beloved. His peace permeates their whole beings, a peace which no one can take from them. And his joy shines forth.

The Bible, the writings of the early Church Fathers, the lives of the saints—all testify to God’s lavish love.

How explain the present immense problems of the world except to say that people refuse to be creatures? We think we are gods, self-sufficient, independent, capable of “running our own show”. And so often that is how we live our lives.

If we believe in the Creator, let us live that belief. Let us act like creatures.

In order to learn to do so, let us go to Mary, the one human being who fully knew herself to be a creature. She spoke to God as a creature. She said, “fiat”, “do with me as you please.” That word made her the Mother of the Savior.

“Fiat” is the greatest word that we can speak. When we say it, we come to rest in our proper place—the hand of God.

Yes, let us begin with Mary. She is our Mother. Her fiat will cleanse our proud hearts. Her example will encourage us to speak the one word that matters—fiat.

Once, through the power of the Holy Spirit, she conceived and brought Christ into the world. Eagerly she waits, anxious to conceive him again and bring him to birth in us and in our world.

Even as God himself waited upon her fiat before he would come to us, so also he waits for ours.

Will we say “fiat” and thus allow the power of God’s love to fill us? Will we allow God to do his will in us? Will we allow him to make us channels through which his love can flow to all the earth?

Adapted from The Power of Love, pp. 91-93. Available from MH Publications.

 

 

SIMPLE PRAYER

by Chris Hanlon

I arrived at the poustinia near dusk, very tired. I just wanted to sleep, but felt I should pray awhile, since family and benefactor needs were so great. Yet how?

In the Bible I found Luke’s account of Jesus feeding the crowds. There Jesus tells his disciples, “Give them something to eat yourselves” (Luke 9:13). I noticed in particular their stunned reaction: “We have only five loaves and two fish!”

I made a simple connection between this passage and my desire to pray while barely awake. What “food” could I offer by my prayer?

Praying five decades of the rosary became my “five loaves.” But the two fish?

What came to me was to say the Jesus Prayer—“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—using the beads of my rosary.

I prayed it before the icon in the poustinia. Once around, one fish; twice around, two fish!

Hooray for simple prayer.

 

 

Prayer

A VACATION WITH GOD

by Doreen Dykers

God invited me to take a holiday with him. It happened last year when the staff at Marian Centre Regina spent a week at a retreat center in Minnesota called Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth).

We stayed at the main house, which was the hub of activity, but just before leaving I got to see one of the hermitages.

The moment I stepped inside, I knew I had to return and spend some time there alone with the Lord. It was a moment of instant clarity.

I tucked that treasure into my heart for safekeeping. But later, when the time came to make vacation plans, a friend invited me to accompany her to Quebec. It sounded terrific and, at first, I didn’t take the time to ask God what he thought.

I went ahead and made plans. At some point, I must have paused long enough for the Lord to get a word in. He was gentle, but firm. “Doreen… wait… talk to me.”

“OK Lord, what is it?” I asked him. Two months later I was heading for my vacation, not to Quebec, but back to Minnesota to spend three weeks alone with the Lord in a hermitage in the woods.

But the Lord had another idea up his sleeve, an idea he didn’t tell me about it until I’d arrived, settled in, and was rested. Then he asked “Doreen, how about a retreat within a retreat?”

The staff of Pacem in Terris were planning to attend a retreat conducted by a world-renowned teacher of centering prayer, Fr. Basil Pennington. A vacancy opened up, and at the eleventh hour, I was invited to fill it.

The retreat was superb. Fr. Basil is a living witness to the power of prayer. His presence radiated humility, wisdom, joy, compassion, strength, peace, and love.

He is committed to a life of prayer, which he described as, “sitting down with an intimate friend.” He said it was simply “being with the Lord.” He then explained some of the reasons we find being with the Lord so difficult.

In order to pray, we need to let go of everything, including our thoughts, emotions, and activities. We need to do nothing except sit still. This is not easy.

We know in faith that God is at the center of our being, and that we can meet him there. At this center where God dwells is our true self.

In this center is the source of all freedom and all power to love, and this center can never be destroyed. It can’t be reached through digging or analysis. Psychiatry can’t get there. The devil can’t get there. God alone is present at the center of our being.

How do we get there? Fr. Basil said, “Just be, and you will be there. God is there, and you are there. There are the two of you, being together.” He then outlined a simple method of being with the Lord through centering prayer.

1. Sit relaxed and quiet. Make sure that your back is well supported. Plant your feet firmly on the floor. Gently close your eyes.

2. Take a prayer word that is meaningful for you (Lord, Father, Jesus, Love) and repeat it inwardly.

3. Turn your attention to the Lord present within you. Remain with him for twenty minutes or so.

4. When you become aware of any thoughts or feelings or sensations, gently return to the Lord, using your prayer word expressed as a “sigh of love.” (This is different from using a mantra.)

5. End the prayer time very gently by slowly praying the Our Father, the Magnificat, or the Creed.

Why do we pray? Because there is in us a deep longing for union with God. We yearn for all the Lord has promised.

He promised to give us his own peace, to refresh us and give us rest, to give us deep and intimate friendship with him, and to send the Holy Spirit to teach us everything.

He promised to abide in us. What a fantastic reality! We are the beloved of God.

What are some common temptations the devil uses to lure us away from prayer? He throws all kinds of `static’ into our center.

Fr. Basil described these as “sticky” or “grabby” thoughts that contain strong emotional content. For example, thoughts involving lust or envy or the other capital sins.

Reject these thoughts as soon as you are aware of them. No thought that enters your mind will last more than a few seconds without reinforcement.

Then there are all the “bright ideas” that seem to be worth pursuing. We have to decide: do we love the Lord and want to be all his, or do we want to follow our own enticing thoughts?

Then there are what Fr. Basil called “monitoring” thoughts. We begin to doubt ourselves and question what we’re doing. What are people going to think of me? Who am I kidding, pretending I can actually meet God this way?

Immediately ignore these; they are an attack against faith. We know the Lord is with us because he said so.

Suppose you find it impossible to sit still for twenty minutes? Fr. Basil’s response to that question was “the fact that you can’t sit still shows that you need centering prayer. You are being pushed around by your own body. This is not freedom. Freedom is the ability to do what you really want to do.”

Obviously, praying this way is a discipline. We do not achieve any worthwhile goals in life without effort and dedication. We have to decide what we value and where our priorities lie, and how we will spend the precious time God has given us.

We can only learn centering prayer through experience. Fr. Basil told us that we need to commit ourselves to this prayer faithfully, twice a day for thirty days, before we can assess its benefits.

He suggested we make a statement about ourselves such as, “I am person who meets the Lord in prayer twice a day.” Taking this kind of stand opens up space in our daily life for this to begin to happen.

Through faithful prayer, we open ourselves so that the Spirit can operate within us. We no longer

Besides entering into deeper personal communion with God through centering prayer, we will also develop an expanding awareness of our oneness with all humanity. We will know a greater love and compassion for all our fellow human beings. We will want everyone to find the fullness of life and joy that we have found.

 

 

My Story

FROM POVERTY TO GRACE

by Bonnie Staib

Over and over God has led me from poverty to grace. On this journey he has especially carried me in the power of his Word.

Though I was born a Catholic and my parents treasured their Catholic faith, I did not grow up with Scripture as part of my home life.

But at college I took a New Testament course, so I bought a Bible. I was familiar with the parables and the Gospels from Mass, so it was easy for me to do little for the course. I made good grades, but I hardly opened my heart to be touched by the Word of God.

When asked to memorize one psalm for this course, I did the minimal. I chose the shortest psalm of allonly four verses long. Little did I know that the Lord would etch these very words into my heart and draw me into the power of his Word: Praise the Lord, all you nations. Acclaim Him all you peoples, for great is his love for us. His mercy endures forever (Ps. 117).

When I came to Madonna House in 1967, Fr. Francis Martin, a Scripture scholar, became my spiritual director. That year, though I never told Fr. Francis, I made a bargain with God. I said, “I will not do any light reading until I have spent 15 minutes a day reading Scripture.”

Still I just could not get into the Word of God. But I kept my bargain: I read nothing for a year!

During that time, Fr. Francis gave us a Scripture course one night a week. Even though I was tired, I would come alive as he taught us. But it still did not bring me to read the Word on my own.

However, that course introduced me to two key words in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The first word is anawim, which in the Old Testament came to have a special religious meaning“those who rely on God, those who know they need to lean on the Lord.”

The prophet Isaiah speaks of the anawim in chapter 11: On that day, the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon him who struck them, but they lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

This spoke to my heart, but because I was living a lie, it jarred me. The lie I was living, and had been living all my life, was that I had to do it allthat I could depend on no one but Bonnie.

How much I needed this word: to be little, poor, to lean on my God! God was leading me into this through Scripture and through the Madonna House Little Mandate: “Be little. Be always little. Be simple, poor, childlike.”

The second word is hesed “God’s loving kindness.” Though I didn’t know it, back in college when I memorized Ps. 117, hesed is used in this psalm: for great is his love for us. His mercy endures forever.

This word has wooed me since first hearing it from Fr. Francis. But it has taken me years to realize that these two words sum up my life. Standing in my poverty, learning to lean on the Lord, I discover his loving kindness, his mercy, his grace.

In August 1968, through my joining MH and through my first charismatic prayer meeting, I received a double grace. As the Holy Spirit poured new gifts upon me, one of them stood out. The thirst for the Word of God, which I had been experiencing, was now coupled with the grace to take up the Scriptures and drink deeply. The Word of God became my daily companion and fed me.

A year later, Catherine sent me to Marian Centre in Edmonton, where we served a hot meal to about 500 men a day. We provided day-time shelter and distributed clothing to the men and to families as well.

The poverty of these people was very visiblein their tattered clothes, their anger and pain, and their addictions. Yet often I found in them a generosity that challenged my own limited one. I saw in them people who had to be dependent on others.

They gave me something very deep, for at that point in my life I was starting to see much junk in my own heart. Though my poverty was perhaps more hidden, I was just as poor. The transient man asking for a sandwich, the poor woman seeking clothes, and Iwe are all one. This realization has helped shape my life-from poverty to grace.

Years later, back in Combermere, I was sent to help in the kitchen. I was not much of a cook, and I was struggling inwardly, so I felt I was a burden to the community.

Every day of those nine months in the kitchen, I felt like a failure. I felt like I wasn’t learning to cook, but what hurt me the most was that I could never change my attitude of not wanting to be there. Every day I walked into the kitchen in this pain. Then, when I left the kitchen to work in the office, I felt like a failure.

Months later, I was assigned to cook at the farm for just a few weeks. I thought I could manage so brief a time and hoped the farmers could endure my poor cooking. But I discovered mercy yet again.

It turned out I was a fine cook. God, through my promise of obedience, had asked me to do his thing in the kitchen for nine months, through tears, through pain, and to leave the kitchen still in that pain. He accepted my surrender and seeming failure and blessed melater!with cooking creativity.

I stayed on at our farm as cook for a couple years. What a joy to live in his mercy!

Another assignment took me to the Canadian North. The Yukon became for me a place of death and a place of life. At first I was very happy. But then something happened in my heart, some of which is still a mystery to me.

I do know that I bore a heavy disappointment, and I felt like I was a failure again. There was pain in my heart and in the hearts of the other staff there. Our house was an emergency hostel, and we were welcoming those who came, but it was very hard for us staff to love each other.

I kept hearing Catherine’s challenge: “If you can’t love one another, close the house down.”

But in my pain, I interpreted this another way: “If you can’t love one another, Bonnie, and this is your vocation, why are you still here?” My temptation was not to leave Madonna House. I knew it was my vocation.

My temptation was to jump in the Yukon River. My temptation was to kill myself. I felt very alone. Though I was in fact surrounded by love, I could not feel it.

In the midst of this time, a friend asked me to go with her to a charismatic conference in Juneau, Alaska. I agreed, mostly to get away. But God had so much more in store for me: there he would teach me a new depth of praying with his Worda way of prayer that would save my life, literally.

-to be continued-

 

 

Repentence

WHO CARRIES MY SINS?

by Sue Perreca

A while back someone told me she prayed and received this word for me: God uses distress to open their eyes (Job 36:15). When I first read it, nothing stuck out, but now it leaps off the page. My eyes have been opened, and it is the distress of others that is before my eyes.

Shortly after I received that word, a number of us in the dorm (MH staff live in dormitories) had the flu, and others were on a three-day retreat. That meant that more of us than usual were drinking tea or coffee and eating there. Though we are supposed to pick up after ourselves, there were lots of dishesdirty, of courseand small, half-filled containers of milk lying around.

One morning the person whose job it was to clean the “cozy corner”, the place where we eat and sit around together, almost cried. There was so much for her to pick up and so very little time to do it all.

I happened to be there when this happened and realized that one container of almost sour milk and several of the dirty dishes were mine. As she began to tell our house mother her frustrations, I suddenly realized: my disorder had fallen on her shoulders. My laziness had directly affected someone I love very much.

Then a few days after that, just before prayers, my house mother told me that if I did not leave quickly, I would be late, and she was quite emphatic about it. When I got back from prayers, at which I prayed that I would not enter into self-condemnation or bitterness toward my house mother, she came over to talk to me.

She apologized that she had been, to use her words, “abrupt and hard”, but shared that she had been carrying the comments of a couple of people who had been finding my recent habit of lateness difficult.

Again I realized the same thing. My disorder had fallen on the shoulders of someone I love.

These two incidents started me thinking. Where does my disorder go? On whose shoulders does it fall? I almost shudder at the thought of those people who carry my really grievous actions.

My faith tells me that it is onto the shoulders of Jesus, onto the body of Christ, that it falls.

But we are all part of the Mystical Body of Christ. So my sins fall on some person’s shoulders as well. That person carries it and maybe suffers because of it. My sins, even my most private sins, affect others.

This realization was certainly an eye-opener.

It is all very simple. What I do affects others, for good or for ill. Which do I want to choose?

 

 

Word Made Flesh

The Prodigal Father

by Fr. Pat McNulty

A reflection on the story of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:1-3, 11-32),

the Gospel for the 4th Sunday in Lent, March 25, 2001

The dictionary defines prodigal as “reckless, wasteful.” If that is our understanding of the word, then I think we all understand why the young man in this popular gospel story was called “the prodigal son.”

But the dictionary also gives the word another definition, namely “extravagant, extraordinary.” When I saw that definition, something struck me.

Have you ever had the feeling that it might be time to talk about the “prodigal” father for a changeprodigal meaning “extraordinary, extravagant”instead of about the son or the brother? I have. And it was confirmed for me when I discovered that other definition of “prodigal.”

So, what happens if we focus, not on the reckless and wasteful son or on his peevish, judgmental brother, but on the prodigal father, the “extraordinarily extravagant” father?

Well, I suspect the first thing which might happen is that we feel left out of the story. We can relate to a prodigal son or daughter and a peevish sibling because we have been both at one time or the other. But who of us have ever been or experienced a parent who was “extraordinarily extravagant” in the measure Jesus is talking about?

Indeed, Jesus is telling us something about his Father, and we will never be as extraordinary or extravagant as that. But we are called to some kind of “prodigal”. Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48). So…

I’m one of those North Americans whose experience of his father was not always a delightful one. My father was born right after his parents came from Ireland. They were very poor and very Catholic. And if I told you the rest of the history of his family, it would make it immediately evident why he was the kind of father he was.

He was a very faithful man, indeed heroic, given the times in which he lived. He was a good provider and would not permit any disrespect to our motherin word or deed. Nor did he ever abuse her or us. He was also honest and upright.

But he was not able to show us any affection, and he was not available to us one-on-one. He was very strict, and I never felt it was safe to be myself around him.

Now I can see all sorts of blessings passed on to me by my father, and I can appreciate them. But his weaknesses were also passed on. Yet if I hear what Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel, I have to admit that my call to be “prodigal”in the sense that the father in this story is prodigalis not determined by or confined to my experience of my earthly father.

Who and what he was is between him and God now. The good things he taught me I can embrace with joy. The bad things he passed on, I must recognize. And then I must stop blaming him so that I can now embrace him like the prodigal father embraced his son.

Some people have had terrible experiences with both father and mother as well as with siblings, experiences for which there are no explanations or excuses. And the scars sometimes remain throughout their whole lives. So we dare not make light of such situations or try to spiritualize them away.

But we are all called to the same degree of earthly “prodigality” toward one anotherparents toward children, children toward parents, siblings toward one another.

And only when we can be prodigal can we learn something extravagant, something extraordinary, something “prodigal” about our heavenly Father. And unless we learn it, we cannot love one another as he loves us.

My father had been dead for almost twenty years when our relationship was healed. If he had been alive, he would have had good reason not to embrace me, as I had not to embrace him. But even though he was not physically present, I feel that we did.

I remember the exact moment; it was during a poustinia. It was almost as if he was present and we had actually embracedmy arms around him and his around meas the father in today’s Gospel embraced his son. I wept, and it seemed as if he did, too.

And I feel that, in some deep, mysterious way, we were both healed. And this was true even though there had still been in me something of the older brother, a feeling of not wanting to do it, a feeling that it was too late.

But I thank both of my fathers, my earthly one and my heavenly One, that extravagance won out, that my father and I could be “prodigal” with one another.

Because my father and I were both dead and needed to come back to life. We were both lost and needed to be found. And neither of us could understand or believe that that was possible unless an extravagant, extraordinary, “prodigal” Father had first shown us how.

Heavenly Father, I love you. (P.S. I love you too, Dad!)

 

 

MH Magadan

THE STATUE OF LENIN

by Alma Coffman

When the former USSR crumbled, newspapers showed pictures of people toppling statues of communist leaders. So in 1993, when we arrived in Magadan to open our house, I was surprised to see that a statue of Lenin still remained in the center of the city. Yes, there it was in center square four stories high!

Often as I walked by it, I would pray that some day it would be removed or that some day it would fall down.

Weeks, months, yes, even years passed, and there Lenin stands as firm as ever. But what has changed is my prayers. They no longer center on the fall of a statue.

What I pray for instead is that my own human pride, my own self-centeredness, and my own self-will fall. For what I now see in Lenin’s statue is a symbol of what happens when the human ego tries to take over the place of God.

So I ask myself: Am I willing to let God be God in my life? Is his will the center of my plans and actions every day?

In every house of Madonna House there hangs a sign with the words of our foundress Catherine Doherty“I Am Third.” What that sign means is that that God is first, other people are second, and I am third. It means that the will of God and the needs of others come before my own desires. It means that I am to be a loving servant, first to Our Lord Jesus Christ and then to my brothers and sisters. “To be third” is to consider myself last.

For this to happen, there has to be a lot of topplingof my desire for success, of my desire for self-fulfillment, and of my desire for the other sources of identity that our present culture holds out to me as important.

The words Jesus spoke come to my heart: If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, take up his cross every day, and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it. But anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What gain then is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self? (Lk 9:23-25)

These wintry days, as I walk to and from Mass and see the snow-draped statue of Lenin, I have much to pray about.

 

 

Victory in Installments/The Price of Freedom

by Irma Zaleski

There was once a holy rabbi whose disciple asked him this question: “Master,” he said, “how can we be sure that the Messiah has not already come, as the Christians believe?”

The rabbi did not answer the young man but instead told him to go walking through the village and to look at the world.

Then when he returned, the rabbi asked him, “Did you see any swords being beaten into plowshares? Did you see any wolves lying down beside lambs? Or any children playing in a vipers’ dens?”

“No, Master,” the disciple replied. “I saw the world full of evil and hate.” “That is why,” said the rabbi, “it is impossible to believe that the Messiah has already come.”

Yet it is precisely this “impossible” truth that Christians are called to proclaim: that the Messiah has already come and the world has been redeemed. And because we, too, see the world full of evil and hate, we are often assailed by doubt. For us, too, Christ’s victory remains a mystery which our minds cannot comprehend or explain. We can only accept it in faith.

When confronted with some dreadful wrong committed in our midst or with our own inner darkness and sin, we can only cling to our trust that whatever happens in the world, however terrible, is still within the operation of God’s love, and that all evil can be, and will be conquered by love.

Although there is no human answer to the mystery of evil, there is one essential Christian belief which may help us to begin to come to terms with it. This is the belief in human freedom, upon which the whole of Christian Tradition is built.

Without the freedom to choose good or to reject it, nothing that our faith teaches would make any sense. Goodness would be only a question of genes or upbringing, sin only a mistake or an illness, love only another word for desire or need.

Freedom belongs to the very definition of what it means to be human: created in the image of God and therefore free as he is.

The story of the Fall makes this absolutely clear: it was through a free choice of our first parents to disobey God that evil entered the world.

How then could this freedom ever be taken away from us? Had Christ’s victory destroyed all evil in the worldmaking it impossible to us to commit sinwould it not have destroyed our freedom as well? Would it not have made us less than what we were created to be?

When we are in the midst of some terrible pain, when our world has been shattered by violence and hatred, we may not be able to consider such freedom to be worth the price. We may feel that life would be much better, much “holier”, if we were not capable of choosing anything other than God, if we could never reject his love or disobey his will.

We may forget, perhaps, that a world in which evil were not possible, where it would not have to be confronted and rejected, would also be a world without love. For love cannot be legislated or wrung from us by fear. Love is a gift from a free heart.

From this perspective, the existence of evilor rather its possibilitycan be seen as a necessary condition of our life on earth. Without it, we could not make a single meaningful choice for God.

Evil is the “battle ground” on which goodness and love can win its victory over everything that is not love. Victory over evil is alwaysfor us as it was for Christa choice for love.

For it was not Christ’s pain and suffering but his love which saved the world. It was when he cried out Father, forgive them for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34) that his victory was won, and all was accomplished.

And so it is with us. When we refuse to hate our enemies, but instead forgive them, pray for them, and wish them well, we make nonsense of the power of evil. We make it instead the cause of love, the greatest good there is.

Likewise, when we cling to our trust in God’s mercy, however dreadful our sins, we integrate them, as it were, into God’s plan for our salvation. We make them a means of our growth in holiness, a stepping stone towards the fullness of life and joy which await us in the end.

Because he is God and his power is infinite and eternal, Christ’s defeat of evil was for once and for all. Therefore the power of his victory remains active, present, and forever available to usin prayer, in the sacraments, and, above all, in every act of love.

But because we are human, because we are finite and limited by time and space, nothing we do in this life can be forever. So we cannot make a choice that lasts forever. We cannot defeat evil forever. (Only angels can do that.) We must choose good and reject evil again and again.

In this life, nothing can ever be “finished”, no temptation or sin defeated forever, no doubt finally laid to rest. We can only defeat evil “in installments”, moment by moment, day by day. This is our most important task in life, our vocation, our daily “job.”

We don’t do our job very well. We often run away from the battle and try to find ourselves a nicer, gentler task. We want others to do the work for us. We want to return to the rear and lick our wounds.

Our weakness, however, must not make us dejected or fill us with guilt. We struggle; we fail. Then when we ceaselessly repent, we claim Christ’s victory for ourselves again and again.

For surely when Christ prayed on the cross for forgiveness for his tormentors, he prayed not only for them but for every human being who has ever lived. His cry for forgiveness and love pierced the heavens and opened the gates of God’s infinite mercy and love. No evil, however dreadful and unspeakable can ever close them against us again.

Through love and repentance, we can walk through these gates every day of our lives until the moment when, with God’s grace, we shall walk through them forever.

 

 

St Benedict’s Acres

A SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE

by Scott Eagan

A number of years ago, I found myself carrying a big questionone of those “life-questions”deep in my heart.

It was a time of intense searching, of grappling with the primary motivations and means of loving that give us direction and a sense of place.

Inwardly, I was aware of the foundations of life: that first I must love God and try to do his will, and then attempt to love all my brothers and sisters. Yet, so many times I felt a lack of happiness or a sense of inadequacy within a life of community relationships.

I began to hear a question forming in my soul: What is the secret of a happy life?

I know that only God himself can answer that question for each one of us, and that often it takes a long time for us to hear him, but I felt drawn to approach some of the elders in MH to tap into their long experience.

I think what I really wanted to ask them was: how have you discovered a way to live as a man or woman of God, a way in which you enter into this mysterious thingthe fullness of life?

One day I walked over to Fr. Gene Cullinane’s table in the MH dining room with this question in my mind. He was sitting at the end of the tablehis place of `presence’ at meals for over 40 yearsa place where he shared wisdom and self with countless guests and staff. I sat down and waited for the right moment.

Have you ever collected sap in a sugar-maple bush in order to boil it down into syrup? There is a season for doing thisa time when all the conditions are right for the harvest. Then, when you drill a hole into the maple tree and place a tap in that hole, the sweet sap begins to drip into your bucket. That day, the time was ripe to `tap’ a small part of Fr. Gene’s life.

Turning his head, Fr. Gene greeted me and said, “Hello Scott, it’s good to see you.”

Returning the greeting, I plunged in. I `drilled’: “Fr. Gene, what, for you, is the secret to a happy life?”

He paused a moment. Never wishing to miss an opportunity to speak of God, he underlined the fact that the basic path to life lies in God alone.

But the secret to lifea happy life among the people of Godwas this: “To always have a good friend.”

Well, I had to sit with this for awhile. How simple! How beautiful! What was he really saying?

He explained very little, yet his answer began to fill my heart. At the same time, it posed new questions.

It is a mystery. A member of an apostolate such as MH is called to a life of total abandonment to God’s will, a life of service in the `marketplaces’ of the world. It is a life filled with constant activity and exposed to every type of personality and to the poverty and richness of every human being, and yet, at the same time, it is a life that is no stranger to loneliness.

As I meditated on Fr. Gene’s answer, this is what I think he was saying:

“Rejoice in any gift of friendship that God provides. When two hearts are mysteriously put together, and they discover a similar or complementary sharing of the treasures of human existence, of a vision of life, of a taste for all that is true, what a great blessing it is!

“Accept it. Test it a little. Cultivate it like a fine field. Till it, feed it, sow the seeds of love in it. And then leave it to God.

“Do not cling to it, abuse it or pollute it. Thank God for it. Allow it to bring you closer to God, so that you and others may be truly fed. The harvest can be rich!”

Fr. Gene himself had a long and deeply God-centered friendship with Fr. John Callahan, our first MH priest. I’ve often heard that this friendship served the two well, helping each to be the servant of God he was called to be.

Where and how do each of us find this place of friendship in our lives? Where can we look for examples, for a safe pattern?

When I think of friendship and its source, I immediately go back to Jesus.

St. John records well the words of life given at the last supper:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends… I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from the Father I have made known to you (John 15:12-16).

Jesus calls each of us `friend’ and commands us to love. He reveals the heart of the Father to all who have open and surrendered hearts, hearts willing to die to self for others.

At his Passover table, he called the twelve to this personal, intimate friendship. Before that, he had walked the earth of Palestine with them and shared his life and words with them.

That evening he shared his Body and Blood with them but, soon after, he knelt in the garden of Gethsemane, as so many times earlier, he had gone to the desertalone.

He walked his bloody Passion alone, hung on the cross alone, and lay in a borrowed tomb alone.

And, alone, he rose on the third day. True, he was always in communion with the Father, but human attachment he had had to forego.

Then he came back to his friends and shared his pierced body with them. He asked them not to cling to him, but to share his joy.

Today, if I were to ask myself “what is a friend?”, I would begin to answer the question like this:

A friend is someone who shares with you a heart hungry for God, someone who tells you the truth with love.

A friend is someone who allows you to grow, to become more than you (or the friend) expected, someone who helps you walk deeper into the will of God.

A friend is someone who will go with you to the edge of your desert and, after you have entered, will support you in prayer.

A friend is someone who will watch and pray for you as you kneel in the garden of agony.

A friend is someone who will help you to carry and embrace the cross, someone who will stay with you as you hang on it.

A friend is someone who will wait in the darkness of your holocaust for the promised, hidden victory.

A friend is someone who will run to your tomb to anoint your spent body.

A friend is someone who will insist that you abandon yourself to Christ’s resurrection, someone who will walk with you all the way to heaven.

 

 

Questions & Answers

by Fr. Paul Burchat

Question: When did celibacy for priests come into effect? Why did it come about? Who brought about the changes?

Answer: An excellent summary of this topic can be found in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, New York, 1967, under the title, “Celibacy, History of.”

Prior to the time of Jesus, the idea of consecrating oneself to a state of perpetual virginity for the sake of God’s kingdom was unknown. Being childless, for whatever reason, was a source of shame, and having many children was a sign of divine blessing.

Only with Jesus do we see the idea that virginity for the sake of the kingdom is a good thing. There are eunuchs born that way from their mother’s womb … eunuchs made so by men … eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom (Mt 19:12).

St. Paul in his writings also praises the unmarried state

(1 Cor 7:38-40) but does not mandate that leaders of particular churches be celibate. They must, however, have been married only once (1 Tim 3:2, 12 and Ti 1:6).

In the first four centuries, there was no law prohibiting clerical marriage. However many studies published in the last ten years prove that the Church considered celibacy after ordination as a true “Apostolic Tradition”, after the example of the Apostles.

A man was only allowed to marry before ordination (with the exception of deacons after the Council Ancyra, 314 A.D.), and should his wife die, he could not remarry. A man who was married twice was ineligible for ordination.

For the next six hundred years in the West, the Church moved closer to a celibate clergy by requiring that, after ordination, they either live together in continence or not live together at all.

It was not until the eleventh century that clerical celibacy became mandatory. Popes Benedict VIII (1012-1024) and Gregory VII (1073-1085) were the most instrumental in making this come about. In seeking clerical reform, they desired the fulfillment of the Apostolic Tradition as well as the protection of the freedom of the Church.

By the sixteenth century, clerical morality had again declined, and in spite of Church law prohibiting it, clerical “marriage” had once again become common. In response to this crisis and to the attacks of the Reformers’ (Luther, Calvin, et al.) on the Church’s teaching on the value of virginity and celibacy, the Council of Trent in Canon 9 reaffirmed the call for a celibate clergy.

The Reformers forced the Council to articulate the doctrinal and spiritual reasons for a celibate clergy. Primarily, it said that celibacy frees the cleric to be more available for service to the people of God.

Also in this way, he more closely imitates the selflessness of Christ who laid down his life for the Church.

The law requiring clerical celibacy has ecclesiastical as well as divine origin. Thus, it is not an unchangeable law. The Church can dispense from it or change the law should it seem appropriate to do so.

Most recently it has done this in order that some married Protestant pastors who convert and desire ordination can be accommodated. The other instance, of course, (since Vatican II) has been the establishment of a married diaconate.

So the main reason for celibacy is that it configures the cleric more closely to Christ (who was celibate) and allows him greater freedom to practice pastoral charity and more time to pray.

However, its value can also be found in relation to what the cleric forgoes, i.e. marriage, a great good in itself.

Then Peter said, “What about us? We left all we had to follow you.” He said to them, “I tell you solemnly, there is no one who has left house, wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life”(Lk 18:28-30).

For reference, see R. Cholij, Clerical Celibacy in East and West, Fowler Wright Books, 1988; C. Cochini, The Apostolic Origins of Celibacy, trans. N. Marans, Ignatius Press, 1990; A Stickler, The Case of Clerical Celibacy, trans. B. Ferme, Ignatius, 1995; S. Jaki, Theology of Priestly Celibacy, Christendom, 1997.

———-

Do you have a questio

Combermere, ON, Canada KOJ 1L0

 

 

Notes From Far and Near

Combermere

As I look over the past several months, it seems that, besides all our regular fare at home, we have been on the road a lot.

When the Vision TV crew was here last summer filming MH, they also interviewed some of the local people who remembered Catherine. When they went from house to house, one of us from St. Joseph’s House (which works among the people of the area) would tag along with them.

This gave each of us the gift of hearing how Catherine’s life and love had influenced so many. There were stories of her practical hands-on gospel livingstories about her nursing, delivering babies, and providing, among other things, clothing and social events.

Other stories concerned the deepening of people’s faith and their keener awareness of the presence of God in their daily lives as a result of having known her. We also got good general history lessons about the area over the past fifty years.

“On the road” has also involved the constant use of our three vehicles to serve people in a variety of ways. We brought people to doctor and lawyer appointments, to work, to buy groceries, and to pay bills. We moved furniture, did an emergency hospital run for someone who had an allergic reaction to bug bites, and picked up a donation of 200 cases of Clementine oranges for a Christmas treat.

And two of the car trips involved middle of the night calls and Gloria going to be with our friends who were on their way to the hospital to give birth.

We have been out to numerous local events including parish suppers, Christmas concerts, and the closing of the jubilee year in Wilno. We have done house sitting and baby sitting and been involved in the CWL (Catholic Women’s League) bazaar and the school bake sale, and joined in some volley ball and baseball games.

And, since several of our friends and neighbors have died, we have also taken part in wakes and funerals.

In and around the house, there has been the normal upkeep, with which some of the local people helped us. James Hanlon and Joe Baklinski worked on our roof and its insulation, and Gerard Brotton put a new cement roof on our root cellar.

And since we are close to our main Madonna House, we’ve gotten help from the men staff there, too. They put in “whirly birds” to ventilate our roof and vents to heat our dorm. They kept our cars in working order and helped us learn the computer.

We are also grateful to our MH priests, who every Saturday nurture us with the gift of Mass and spiritual reading.

It’s also been wonderful to have been recently given one more staff worker, Janine Gobeil, who has thrown herself into the thick of things which has enabled us to get those odd jobs done, the backlog in the office caught us, and do more visiting.

Sherylynn Coupal

St. Joseph’s House

 

Regina SK

We live right in the middle of what is considered a high-risk, dangerous part of town. Many of our volunteers are afraid to even drive in this area at night.

Marian Centre has been here for 34 years. What is our unspoken message to the people we live among? We believe in you. We are with you. We love you.

One day a French-Canadian parish of only 150 families held a dinner for all the men who consider Marian Centre their home. About 80 of these “Brother Christophers” (the street people who bear Christ in them) attended.

We were also invited and were so edified by the great generosity and heartfelt hospitality that were offered. It was a deep experience of being one family with the Brother Christophers and the parishioners of St. Jean Baptiste.

After their liturgy the following Sunday, Maria Cristina, one of the staff, who speaks French, thanking them for opening their hearts and home to the poor, read them the words from the Gospel: When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends, brothers, relations or rich neighbors, for fear they repay your courtesy by inviting you in return. No, when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. That they cannot pay you back means that you are fortunate, because repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again. (Lk 14:12-14).

Cristina wasn’t the only one who gave a thank-you talk. Arthur, who has just completed the Christopher course in public speaking, had his first opportunity to put his new skills into practice when he was asked to give a thank-you speech at a gathering of the Knights of Columbus. He delivered it with confidence and poise.

Cristina, originally from Brazil, has been spending some quiet evenings providing a tremendous service for our house in Brazil. She is translating some of Catherine’s writings into Portuguese. Cristina has also connected with a few Brazilians who are living in Regina.

Recently a 40-year old native man came here and spent some time talking with Charlie. Charlie was very moved by his deep faith and dignity as the man told him that he at one time drank solvents, sniffed glue, and was an alcoholic. But now he was changed. He had been saved, he told Charlie, by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Most of his family, however, continues to be ravaged by addictions, and he has been coming to Marian Centre in search of his brothers.

One brother, who came here regularly, froze to death in December. He was only 33, and his death was a terrible blow to his family and to all of us who knew him. It made us realize more deeply the fragility of our lives and the awesome responsibility we have to honor and respect each irreplaceable person.

As we move into this new millennium, we thank our heavenly Father for everything. We are grateful for each unique person whom we have the privilege to know, love and serve. And we continue to ask for the grace to see the face of Jesus in every human face.

Doreen Dykers

Marian Centre Regina

 

One Man’s SCRAP…Another Man’s GOLD

Dear friends, when we come to you in this column as beggars for Christ, we are keenly aware that you too may be in need. You may be facing family problems, medical expenses, unemployment. We want to assure you that, in our own poverty, we stand beside you. That is why we examine ourselves to make sure we don’t ask for anything unless there is a true need.

And, because of your tremendous generosity, we grow in the spirit of poverty that we have espoused for the sake of the Gospel.

Did you know we have a building to house our archives? It is a building full of treasures, not only for Madonna House, but also for the Church in Canada, the United States, and the whole world. It is vital to safeguard this heritage for future generations.

Bonnie Staib, our archivist, is preparing to move our textile collection to better storage. We have textiles from all stages of Catherine’s life (for instance, a baby dress, hand-made linens and embroideries, and some Russian nobility dresses she made for lecturing). To store these, we need large under-the-bed type polypropylene boxes. The sizes we need are: 4-9 inches deep and 2-4 feet long. These have become very common for household use. Rubbermaid makes some that we know are safe for long-term storage, with the boxes made of see-through polypopylene (PP is sometimes on the label or molded into the plastic) or polyethylene (PE), or the re-cycle diamond may contain the number 2 or 5.

We are moving forward in our publications department, disseminating Catherine’s words through books and recordings. Jewel cases for CDs, Xerox paper, and colored hanging file folders would contribute greatly to this work.

The gift shop thanks the donors of the lovely collector plates we received. They were quickly sold as special gift items and changed into bread for the poor. If anyone else has any that you would be willing to part with, we would be happy to have them.

We could also use some epoxy putty and epoxy glue for repair work, and a tube of Simichrone polish. Did you know this polish can be used to test plastics, to tell whether they are modern or vintage collectible ones?

Our nurses have been on the go this w

Here’s a plea from RESTORATION. Could you send 9x12 envelopes and rubber bands 2” to 4” long by 1/4 wide for mailing out the paper?

Our laundresses manage to keep our clothing and linens clean and ready for use without much more than soap and elbow grease. But a few aids would make their job easier, such as stain sticks, spray starch for altar linens, and indelible laundry marking pens (like Sharpies).

Marie-Therese McLaughlin, who is in charge of cleaning, is asking for scouring pads to scrub pots and pans and for heavy mopheads (20oz.-24oz.).

Also, please, if you can, keep our men in mind for axe handles and wedges for splitting wood.

Cheryl Ann Smith, our music director, just walked by and mentioned that she still needs a few more of those stiff black plastic pieces that protect the songsheets in our 3-ring binders. Her gratitude for all those binders you sent is still singing in her heart.

Thank you for reading this column and for staying in touch with us. Your care and support mean so much. In these Lenten days, let us all stand together with Our Lord, who was a poor man, and beg him for more love so that we can all feed one another and everyone we meet with his love and peace.

In Our Lady of Combermere,

Jean Fox

 

 

Repentance

FOOL AND A SINNER

by Fr. Eddie Doherty

I am a fool, Lord, and I am a sinner. So it is right for me to sing your praises. Only a sinner can praise you on earth. Only a saint can praise you in heaven. One has to be a saint to enter heaven. But a sinner can be a saint if he asks for help. Some sinners do, and some don’t.

I give you thanks especially because I was, and am, so dastardly. Were I not, your almighty strength might never have come to me. Your mercy might never have visited me.

I was like one of your lost sheep. Nay, I was not lost nor strayed. I was a rebel and fled your flock in furious anger, and in a most unholy hatred, and in the firm resolve that never, never, never, would I return to you-never, never, would I bow my head at the mention of your Name.

Had I not been a wicked lamb, your Son, my Lord, my Shepherd, would not have hunted for me. I would never have known the joy of being carried in his arms the long, long way back home.

I would not have held my foolish head against his breast. I would not have heard the heartbeat of his infinite compassion. Nor would I have heard the melody sung him by all your galaxies of worlds and constellations-your choirs of millions of billions of stars-your marching bands of planets, each faithful to the intricate orbit you made for it, all praising you in eternal perfect harmony and order.

Had I not been a sinner, Lord, your Son would never have written before me on the sands. He stooped and wrote with his finger. No man knows what he wrote; no man, but me. He wrote down all my sins and He bent over so that I might not see myself as he saw me.

I did not look up, but I saw his breath blowing the sands away, even as he wrote. And I knew that I had been forgiven and would no longer feel the heaviness of guilt.

My sins were blown away! They have been blown away again and again, always by the compassion of your Son’s sweet-smelling breath.

But sometimes, Lord, some small grains of sand sting and wet my eyes; and it is then, only then, I think, that I realize I love you. And I must cling to you or go blind.

Had I not been so wretched and ragged a sinner, I might never have known the tenderness and the love and the thoughtfulness and the care and the holiness of my Father.

I did not rise from the pigsty of my life and go to seek you, Lord; you came all the way to my filthy place. You washed me clean. You placed fine robes upon my nakedness. You put a ring upon my finger. You killed the fatted calf for me and, lo, I have been feasting at your table all these many years!

You made a great room for me in your heart, and a little niche (for yourself) in my heart. You put your own furniture in that niche, and you sit there constantly playing hymns to me on your golden harp.

Lord, sometimes I ignore you. Sometimes I do not hear the music your divine fingers make as they pluck the strings of your harp. Sometimes I am deaf even to your singing voice.

But you do not forget me-even for a moment!

From Psalms of a Sinner, pp. 4-5, available from MH Publications.

 

MH Arizona

LIVING IN NAZARETH

by Theresa Marsey

It’s been a year since I came to our house in Winslow, where my assignment was to spend time in silence and prayer in the morning and to go visiting in the afternoon. This time has been a gift and a blessing for me, and never has a year passed so quickly.

Many ask me, “What do you do?” I laugh because I understand the question. In our society with its constant noise, activity and busyness, too often we are valued and measured by what we do rather than by who we areour being, our personhood, what we have become. So it is hard for people to understand my spending time in silence.

I have been given this time to look into my heart. What predominates in my heart determines the kind of person I have become. Who or what has dominion over me? This is a soul-searching question.

Yes, it is in order to look into my heart that I have been given time to be alone and silent with God in a humble, simple, ordinary way.

Think of Nazarethof Mary, Joseph, and Jesus living in a tiny house along a dirt road doing what had to be done to make a loving home.

Love is primary. So I try to do everything with love love for God and love for otherswhile seeking a deep oneness with him. I am trying to be before him, to carry an awareness of his presence within me, and to do what needs to be done to make a fitting dwelling for him in my heart and home. I am trying to live Nazareth.

Most of the time, my day goes like this: get up, make my bed, say quick morning prayers, dress, and go off to Mass to receive Our Lord and lift up the world to him. Home again, carry in wood, and make a fire in the stove.

Breakfast and then time for prayerslauds, Scripture and prayer following from Scripture, Catherine’s writings for meditation and inspiration, and then intercessory prayer for those who are sick, suffering, and in need. Before I know it, it is noon, and I have lunch and prepare for visiting.

Visiting is inspiring. So many are very ill and alonesome using oxygen or on dialysis or in pain. Some are grieving the loss of a child or husband, and many are battling cancer. Yet a peaceful acceptance, a surrender in faith, love, and trust in God are so often evident.

An afternoon of visiting reenforces in me the need for prayer, for only God can bring his peace, love, and healing to broken bodies and hearts.

After visiting, I go to the MH chapel for adoration or a rosary. Then supper with the rest of the staff, who are young and joyful and have a playful way of moving. We share a bit of our day with one another, and this connects me with the active apostolate of the house.

After dishes I usually return to “the pink house” where I am staying to be alone once again with the Lord as I complete tasks and receive phone calls.

Having time to reread Catherine’s writings after trying to live them for forty years has given me a deeper understanding and appreciation of her love of God which she lived so totally. How unstintingly she poured herself out to share with us the glorious revelations the Lord had given her to form our MH spirituality and way of life!

We have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams, for we have been shown a way to live in the kingdom of God.

And this incarnation of the Gospel is not just for us who live in Madonna House. It can be lived by anybody!

 

 

The Pope’s Corner

PRAYER IS THE KEY

by Pope John Paul II

The following is a combination of three short excerpts from talkstwo of them to young people and one a homily given in Argentina in 1987.

If you really wish to follow Christ, if you want your love for him to grow and last, you must be diligent in prayer. This is the key to the vitality of your life in Christ.

Without prayer, your faith and your love will die. If you are constant in daily prayer and in attendance at Sunday Mass, your love for Jesus will grow. And your heart will know such joy and deep peace as the world could never give you….

Nourish your day with as much prayer as you can and allowing for moments of particular intimacy with the Lord, whether individually or in a group. Only prolonged contact with him can transform each of us inwardly into a disciple of his.

Only by being nourished by long hours of prayer, meditation, concentration, and silent listening to God, will a believer be able to speak to other people about the Divine Mystery, to hand it on, and to bear witness to it in the presence of others….The Gospel reminds us of the need to pray continually and never lose heart (Lk 18:1). So every day, devote a little while to conversing with God, as proof of the fact that you sincerely love him; for love always seeks to be close to the beloved.

This is why prayer must come before everything else. People who do not take this view, who do not put this into practice, cannot plead the excuse of being short of time. What they are is short of love….