Edie Scott

‘YOU’RE AN INDIAN!’

by Edie Scott

Edie wrote the following article, which originally appeared in RESTORATION in November 1965, while she was stationed at Marian Centre, Edmonton.

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Pitane kisewatisit kisimanito kotawinow nisokamas kipa kichi kiskeyitaman tanihiyaweyan.

A few months ago, Jesus, when I opened my notebook to study one night, I read these words written in the Cree language by my wonderful new friend and teacher. I looked quickly at the English translation: “May the kind Father help you so that you may learn your Cree language quickly.”

The Indian words seemed like a jumble of unfamiliar letters. Sometimes, Jesus, I wondered if I would ever be able to keep on the trail that leads from one word to another.

One night my mind wandered from my studies and into the past. I saw a small lonely Indian woman and her two very small children. You took the young mother to her heavenly home. And then the two children, whose father was unable to care for them, were placed in an orphanage.

The institutional life in the city was so different and so unfamiliar. So different from the friendly, quiet mountains and the streams banked with wild flowers, berries, and birds.

There the playground of the children had been miles and miles of soft mother earth. Now the cement and stones in a confined yard didn’t yield under their feet. Here there were no streams in which to catch little fish, and no mother to go running to with little fish to be fried.

You fashioned those little children to be outgoing and friendly. Soon they had friends and secrets to keep. The little girl confided to a friend that her mother was Indian and so she was Indian, too.

The strange look from the other girl struck a note of fear into her heart. But the girl promised not to tell. They now shared a secret. But why must it be a secret? Why in the days that followed did the other children yell, “You’re an Indian!” How did they find out? And what was wrong with being Indian?

In foster homes, in new schools, among new playmates, this question went unanswered. It hurt to be different from the others, to never be quite equal to the others. And the girl was lonely now that she had been separated from her brother.

If only she could see the grandmother her mother had told her about! Her foster father had a daughter living near where her grandmother was supposed to live. He promised to take the little girl and her brother to their grandmother.

What would she be like? Why, she’d be like other grandmothers. White hair. White skin. A kind woman. What fun it would be to come back and tell all the other kids about the trip and about her very own grandmother!

As the days went on, the girl almost burst wide open with excitement. The trip wasn’t really long; it just seemed that way. Why did she have to eat? Why not just get there? Didn’t everybody realize that it meant more to see grandma than to stop to eat and sleep?

When they neared the town they asked directions which led to a white sandy beach. The car stopped. Out of the window the girl saw a large tent. Two very dark-skinned tall men stood near it. The girl’s heart began to sink. Why was her foster father stopping here? Her grandmother couldn’t be here.

But she was. And she came running with arms outstretched toward the grandchildren whom she had never seen.

The old woman was never to hold her grandchildren in her arms; for they shrank away from her and scurried back into the car out of reach.

“Don’t touch me; you’re not my grandmother,” was all the little girl could say.

“Those two men are your uncles,” said the foster father. “Don’t you want to speak to them?” The girl wanted no part of any of them. She just wanted to hurry away.

She kept swallowing the hot scalding tears of disappointment. She tried to hide the shame she felt, but it could not be denied, not even to herself. She was Indian!

It was a silent trip home —brother and sister composing the story they would tell at school, the story they thought would hide the truth even from themselves.

Jesus, please help me to learn the Cree language fast so I can welcome every Indian grandmother I meet.

Make me an instrument in helping the young to see how wonderful it is to be created by you with Indian blood. And to realize that the only real shame is to deny the wonderful qualities you have given the Indian people. Use me as an instrument to break the false images the Indians and non-Indians have formed of each other. Amen.

Edie Scott

SHE CHOSE TO BELIEVE

by Fr. David May

Edie had been a member of Madonna House for a number of years before I came along in 1974. At that time she was living the life of a poustinik on an Indian reservation in Northern Alberta, east of a place called High Level, in a little village called Eleske. She was keeping a daily diary of her life on that isolated reservation of the Beaver Indian Tribe and she was sending that diary to Combermere where it was available for us to read.

I was so impressed by that chronicle! I thought to myself: here’s an example of living the Gospel radically in poverty, simplicity, fasting, and prayer, and in complete identification with the people with whom you are living. It was so much like what Catherine described as her original vision of this vocation.

So I took it upon myself to write this person and to introduce myself as “X,” the applicant who was living at the farm: “how do you do, and I really love your diary.” That was the beginning of our relationship.

I soon discovered that Edie loved puns. She admitted to me in a letter that she and Eddie, later Fr. Eddie, used to drive Catherine crazy with their word play. Since I liked to do that, too, she was soon receiving letters with all kinds of puns about life at the farm.

By 1979, I was a seminarian for the community. Fr. Callahan, the director of priests, sent me for the summer to Marian Centre, Edmonton. At one point Edie came down from northern Alberta for a conference of some kind on native peoples. She wondered if I might be able to come up and spend a week with her at Eleske. The director of the house at that time was very open to that possibility, and I was soon on my way with Edie and a priest from that area to spend a week at Eleske.

Edie lived on a piece of church property adjacent to a grotto dedicated to St. Ann. There was an annual pilgrimage there every summer, and Edie was responsible for helping to oversee this pilgrimage.

I sat with Edie for hours and hours while she told me about the life that she was living and about her people. I met some of the parishioners she was close to, and she also had me go around with the parish priest to the various missions that he serviced on Sundays.

It was at that time that I really began to appreciate the depth of what Edie Scott was living. In typical Madonna House style, she wasn’t “doing” much, but she was deeply present to the people and to what they were living.

This was Alberta of the late seventies—very prosperous and confident about the future—but there wasn’t much sign of all that in Eleske. It seemed a poor forgotten little place—a perfect place for a Madonna House person to be.

As Edie opened her heart to me, I saw a person who bore within her being a kind of agony. I want to say right off that the word “agony” in Christian terminology does not exclude joy at all. It does not exclude a sense of humor either or a love of puns! But there was a tangible agony, a suffering in Edie, and I learned very quickly that it was very easy with her to say the wrong thing. (I don’t think I was alone in that experience!)

It was very easy, especially if one chose to make a comment about the native people. I realized fairly quickly that almost anything one would say —sympathetic, unsympathetic, it didn’t really matter—was not coming from that same depth of agony. So it would always hit her in a painful place.

But if one listened in silence, there was a meeting, because you weren’t pushing the suffering away with words. I tried to let her words wash over me. It was in that silent listening, in that sharing of the heart that I was privileged to see a little bit of the mystery of Edie’s life in our apostolate, which for many, especially in these later years, was very hidden because of her illness.

That mystery is what St. Paul speaks about in the Letter to the Romans (8:18-23) and Our Lord in the Gospel of John (12:23-24). It’s the mystery of being a child of God who has the privilege of sharing in Christ’s agony in a particular way. In this case, Edie’s agony was a personal one with roots in her personal history, but it was never separated from that of the native peoples of Canada.

This struggle never got “organized,” it never got neat, it never got “healed.” It just was! All I could do was bow before a mystery, a holy mystery, which each of us shares in, in one way or the other.

St. Paul says we all share in the sufferings of Christ so as to share in his glory. This is the vocation of a child of God who calls God the Father, “Abba.” There is in that suffering an intimacy with God that makes the agony bearable, even in darkness. I think Edie knew that.

Like so many of her people, Edie had a love for creation and a love of being outdoors. St. Paul says creation is groaning. Have you ever heard it groan? Have you ever listened to the cry of creation? Why does it cry? Because it longs to be set free. St. Paul says that all of creation bears this cry to be set free with the sons and daughters of God. Creation is aching for the resurrection, but it doesn’t push away the agony; it is in that agony.

Perhaps that is why, after she returned to Combermere to stay, Edie found such comfort in living, from time to time, in a little tent on the island, something she did as long as she was able to. Living there in the bush was letting what was in her flow forth into nature as something mutually shared.

This is a great mystery. It’s not pantheism. It’s the presence of Christ, and Edie knew that presence, however she chose to articulate it or not articulate it. He was just in her.

I can hardly imagine what a suffering it was for her for these last 15 or 16 years, to more or less be confined to quarters because of her various illnesses.

When I was with her back in ‘79, there was the interior suffering, but physically she was doing all right. But shortly afterward, she fell and broke her arm. Then began her rheumatoid arthritis, which was very severe, and a whole sequence of ailments came after that.

What a sacrifice it was for her not to be able to breathe the air outside! This was part of the dying with Christ that was asked of her. I don’t think anyone can explain why that was asked of her, but it was. Her great gift for all of us was that she persevered in it. She persevered to the end. I’m confident that Edie’s life was an offering for her people, whom she identified with and loved so much, even as Christ loved them. Her life became an offering that will bring abundant life for many.

So I thank God that Edie Scott has been so deeply a part of our family life albeit in a very mysterious way. Sometimes people are present in the midst of everything, because God wants that presence to be visible. But other times the sharing in our Gospel life that we live together is absolutely hidden, and becomes more so with the years, not less. Such hiddenness can so easily be misunderstood. It can be incomprehensible, a scandal. It’s the sort of offering God alone knows the true value of.

And so Edie, we ask for your prayers. We ask that your sense of humor and your love of playing with words might live on in this community. And we pray also that we have the courage to share in the sufferings of Christ so that we, too, and those we carry in prayer, might be raised with him in glory.

Edie Scott

HER LIFE FOR HER PEOPLE

by Fr. Pat McNulty

When I looked for and finally chose a passage from the Psalms to put on Edie’s memorial card, I must have momentarily forgotten where else that same passage appears in a most special way in the New Testament. From Ps. 31:5 I chose, into your hands I commend my spirit.

And I think I chose it because Edie, too, came to that blessed and terrible moment when she was conscious of nothing but the act of believing. It had taken Edie a long time to reach that point, and perhaps she reached it fully only in her final breath.

But when she came to that decisive moment, there were no extraordinary feelings, no sense of an eternal reward, no sense of the meaning of her life, her faith, and her many years in the Madonna House family.There was nothing— nothing at all but faith—and at that moment she chose to simply believe.

It’s as if she woke up one morning and said to God, into your hands I commend my spirit and then went on living until the end.

Those were the exact and final words which came from the mouth of her Beloved as he died for her on the cross —into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46).

Those of us who knew Edie were aware of some of the circumstances through which she had to pilgrim before she reached that moment of grace. We were aware of her faults and failures as well as of her gifts and talents.

She had had a very difficult life before she ever thought about becoming Christian or coming to Madonna House. Her mother was Cree, and her aboriginal roots were to pull at her until she died. Her passion for “her people” was evident to anyone who knew her, and yet no matter how hard she tried she was never given by God the freedom to “be” who she was.

Her strange journey into the Christian faith and her coming into the Madonna House family would make a mini-series for TV which any producer would fight for. (I get a percentage, Edie!)

She struggled painfully with this vocation and, like Catherine Doherty who founded it, often thought of packing her bags and taking the next bus out of here. But it was Catherine who “loved her out of that temptation.” It was Catherine who constantly turned her to the tender, motherly care of Our Lady of Combermere, and Fr. Callahan who guided her along that way.

We have a wonderful custom here at Madonna House which takes place on the evening of the funeral of one of our loved ones: we all gather in our main dining room and tell stories about that person. We just share what we remember about the deceased—the good times and the bad, the gifts and the weaknesses.

Yes, it is a biased night: we tend to talk only about the good things. But over the years as I witness more and more of these “blessed nights” I am beginning to realize that perhaps what we are doing is deeper in the Spirit than I had once thought.

It is not that we don’t remember the faults and failures and the burdens we can be to one another, but I think that when someone dies we are given a glimpse of the soul now freed from the pain and struggle of its flesh—a glimpse of the soul as God has always seen it.

Fr. Paul Bechard had been Edie’s spiritual director for many years. When his age and health called for a change in that relationship, Edie asked me to guide her the rest of the way. That was in the early 1990’s.

Ours wasn’t the usual director-directee relationship. Most of the primary spiritual groundwork had been laid, which is to say that not much more was going to change in Edie at this final stage of her journey into the mysteries of Christ. My role was really just being a brother and priest to a sister in Christ.

So for spiritual direction we just talked and prayed. And though there was little formal “direction,” there was lots of inner connection. There wasn’t much visible change in her. The primary change was that in these final years she came to the healthy but painful realization that this life was not about success, not about perfection, not about becoming who or what she had always wanted to be—aboriginal or otherwise. It was about faith.

Edie struggled in a heroic manner with this call into the depths of faith. And her faith-life was very much like her illness, her emphysema: every single breath had to be fought for as if it were the last.

She did indeed remember all the good things she had done over the years, not only in this apostolate, but also with “her people” and most recently with the local chronic pain group she established, a group which resulted in hours and hours on the phone as she guided and corrected (as only Edie Scott could) those caught in the ravages of their physical and emotional pain and addictions.

But as she came closer and closer to her own death, none of this made much difference to her anymore. She recognized it, thanked God for it, and faced the fact that now she was very much alone in this new call to faith.

She was very aware of her faults and failures and, in her own way, grieved about them. But even that was no longer her focus. As the end came— and we didn’t expect it would be so painless and so soon— she could not pray, she could not think about holy things, she could hardly even think about God. She just believed.

She kept her “holy things” there on her walker—her favorite pictures of Christ, his Mother, and the saints (especially Blessed Kateri) and her rosary. She was able to attend Mass from her room on those days when it was celebrated in the little chapel down the hall from it. And almost every day, no matter what mood she was in or how much physical pain she was suffering, she received the Body of Christ.

As her final years passed I saw that she was being stripped of everything, breath by breath, until there was nothing left but faith. And I came to see what Catherine saw in Edie when Edie came here as a broken young woman, and what Catherine always nurtured in her, despite her (Edie’s) weaknesses and failures—that Edie was a special woman of faith.

Edie was called by God to take a mysterious journey into the depths so that she could eventually bring to the Father countless souls like herself.

And now Edie’s joy is to look upon all those brothers and sisters, living or dead, with the same eyes that Christ had been looking upon her from the beginning.

Nothing in her life was wasted. Nothing was a mistake. Nothing was forgotten by God—whether it was the tears of a little child who could not fathom what was happening to her, or the heartbreak of broken relationships, or her agony as an aboriginal woman without the means to live it out, or her isolation upon becoming a Christian, or her mysterious years in this Madonna House Apostolate.

God had always been intimately with her. And now Edie knows and understands it all.

Edie Sweetheart, don’t forget us poor folk who still labor in love here on earth. Remind us that we are all brothers and sisters in faith. Remind us that nothing in our lives is wasted, nothing is a mistake, nothing forgotten. Remind us that everything is as essential to our journey and to our final victory as it was for you.

And, dear sister and friend, help me especially to commend my spirit more and more into the hands of my Beloved.

Remember that I did what you asked me so often to do: make sure that your funeral was as Cree as possible. And now I’m expecting miracles from you! And I don’t want any sass! (Smile.)

P.S. I love you.

Edie Scott

THE RAINBOW

by Fr. Bob Papi, Associate Priest of MH

“Life with all of its tears plus Christ the Sun shining on them make the most beautiful rainbow.” Edie Scott once wrote these words to me in a note.

As I stood at the foot of her grave after her funeral, what came to my heart was the rainbow—the explosion of beauty after a storm. And I thought about how in death we encounter him who is the source of all light and beauty. This encounter, no doubt, accounted for Edie’s gentle smile as she lay in her coffin.

In the note that Edie had written to me she referred to herself as my sister, and my sister she was and is—both through baptism and through the common bond of our MH family. However, I also related to her as an elder, both in the meaning of her own Cree-Saulteaux people and in the growing meaning of “elder” within our MH family.

As an elder, Edie taught me much about priesthood, about the mystery of the cross, and about intercessory prayer; and her teaching was permeated with the wisdom which came from her own life experience— her struggles, her tears, and her constantly opening ever wider the door of her being to the action of the Holy Spirit.

From time to time I would go into Edie’s room where the walls were covered with small photos of the people she was praying for. I would bless them, and we would pray for them together.

And Edie carried within her heart and prayer in a special way the beautiful and painful history of her aboriginal people and the challenges we all face because of that history. We would often speak of such things and pray through the intercession of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha At this latter stage in her life, our conversations about the aboriginal peoples were never about blame but always about love.

One day near dusk after a storm, Edie and I looked at a double rainbow over the Madawaska River together. The air was very still, the water like glass, the birds and trees silent. It was as if all of creation was suddenly stilled by the radiant beauty.

We spoke not a word. When the rainbows were gone and the sun had set, we walked slowly back to St. Luke’s where she lived. When we got to the door, she asked for my blessing. As she looked at me, I was struck as never before by the depth and light in her eyes and the power of her tender silence in the face of God’s beauty.

As I walked away, I recalled the times in the Gospel when Jesus went off somewhere to be still in prayer and contemplation, and those times when he took the apostles aside so that they, too, might experience the stillness.

Thank you, Edie, my sister, my elder, for leading me to the silent beauty of rainbows —and of tears.

Christmas

CHRISTMAS IN THE MH HOUSES

News about Christmas in our houses, of course, always comes far too late to include in our December paper. So this year, we thought we’d give you a taste of Christmas in our field houses by telling you about their last year’s Christmas.

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YUKON

by Charmaine Treige

This was my first Christmas in a field house, and I was awed by the overwhelming generosity of people who wanted, in whatever way they could, to make Christmas better for someone else.

The week before Christmas especially we were kept busy receiving donations, visits, and phone calls from generous friends and benefactors, both known and unknown. We were so busy that we somehow “lost” a day, and found ourselves beginning three days worth of decorating on the afternoon of Saturday, December 23rd.

The next day, Sunday, was, among other things, a liturgical double-header. We attended the Mass of the Fourth Sunday of Advent, decorated, had our usual Sunday supper, relaxed a little, and then proceeded to Midnight Mass at our little Sacred Heart Cathedral.

The church was simply yet beautifully decorated, and Kate sang with the choir.

Throughout the season we were treated to warm evenings of dinner and friendship at the home of old and new friends. Then on Saturday, December 30th, our friends Rudy and Janet Couture celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary at the Vigil Mass for the Holy Family which was followed by a dinner and reception. It was a beautiful witness to the blessings and struggles of marriage and family life.

At New Year’s Eve, we attended the vigil Mass of the Mother of God and then came home to prepare for our own prayer vigil and reception.

Then just as it was beginning to look as if no one was coming, the doorbells rang at both ends of the house at the same time. The visitors—an MH associate priest and a Jewish friend—were soon followed by others. The holy hour, which was from 11 PM until midnight, consisted of a half hour of silent adoration before the Blessed Sacrament followed by the readings from the Office of Readings for the feast. The reception was a time of visiting and just being with our friends. It turned out to be a blessed evening.

On New Years’ Day we had supper at the home of Sister Margie, chancellor of our diocese, and then it was back to our regular schedule.

GHANA

by Fr. David Linder

Both Christmas and New Year’s Day were festive days filled with people—both guests and those we visited. It was quite wonderful! In contrast, two very small and quiet facets of those days of celebration come to mind.

On Christmas evening a few of us jumped into the van and drove around the city in search of displays of Christmas lights. To our delight we discovered fourteen locations. These lights were simple but colorful, and it was fun to see them.

Then later Darrin and I went out for a late night walk. As we passed by a small grocery kiosk, we saw six people dancing in front of it to a tape of Christmas music.

To their obvious delight, I danced with them. An older lady asked us if we knew “Sisters” Angela and Philo (formerly at MH Ghana). So it was a re-connection. We stayed on to share the joy of the evening with them.

Both of the above events were a reminder to us to take time for little joys.

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WINSLOW, ARIZONA

This is the story of Christmas as told by a child in a Montessori catechism class taught by a member of Madonna House:

When the baby borned, Joseph said to Mary, “What am I going to do about this little born Jesus Baby Christ? I never knew it was going to be like this. And shepherds and stars and things. It’s got me worried, I can tell you, on Christmas Day in the morning.”

Mary said to Joseph, “Not to worry, my darling Joseph, dear old darling Joseph. Everything’s going to be all right. Because the angel told me not to fear. So just hold up the lamp so I can see the dear, funny, sweet little face of my darling little born Jesus Christ.”

Joseph said to Mary, “Behold the handyman of the Lord.”

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MAGADAN, RUSSIA

by Alma Coffman

It was the week before Christmas, and here in Madonna House Magadan we were preparing in a somewhat hidden way for the birth of Christ.

In the stores I had seen a few Christmas lights, a few small Santa Clauses, and some very small artificial Christmas trees. But nowhere had I found what I was seeking.

I was seeking for the little Child and his Mother. I was seeking for St. Joseph, the shepherds, and the sheep. But in the many stores I had walked into those days, nowhere had I found the little Baby Jesus.

But I was not disheartened. In the main city museum there was going to be a display of creche sets from different parts of the world. And there, the little Baby, Jesus Christ Our Lord, would be seen by every school child and every adult who walked through the museum from December 24th until the end of January. This was the plan of the woman responsible for displays in the museum.

How this came about is truly the work of the Holy Spirit. Last year, as the new year began, Fr. Michael Shield, our pastor, felt moved to obtain creche sets—many creche sets. He wanted to have many different kinds of creche sets from many different countries.

So he sent out letters to his family and friends. By August there were quite a few creche sets in Anchorage, Alaska (where Father is from) waiting to find their way to Magadan.

And the question in the minds of many people was: “Why does Fr. Michael want so many creche sets?” Maybe Fr. Michael was wondering, too.

Then one day he received a phone call from a woman who works in the main city museum. For next Christmas she wanted to put up a display of creche sets—as many of them as she could get—so that the children of Magadan would be able to see them. Did Father know where she could get some?

Yes, he did, and now he knew why he had gotten the creche sets.

Echoing in my heart are the words of the angels 2000 years ago: I bring you news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. he is Christ the lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger (Lk 2:10-12).

This Christmas season, we are praying that these “Babies” lying in mangers in the city museum will be a means of bringing the news of great joy to many.

Christmas

THE SCANDAL OF THE INFANT

by Fr. Bob Pelton

On the wall of our island chapel there hangs an image of the Infant Christ. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, his body completely hidden except for his face. His eyes are shut, and his lips curve in a smile of utter peace.

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:3). The smile of the Infant holds the secret of everlasting life.

I love that image, and I never leave the chapel without kissing it and asking Christ to share his secret with me. But sometimes when I look at this Infant, I remember a story I read long ago.

A certain captured Crusader and his Muslim jailer had each learned enough of the other’s language to speak together of their lives and of those deep differences that had so ironically brought them together. One day as they talked, the Muslim said, “But who is your God that you speak of the place where he was born and the place where he died?”

Shyly the Crusader said, “I’ll show you.” He reached under his tunic and brought out a small wooden image of Christ held in the arms of his Mother. The Crusader pointed to the Infant and said, “There! That is God!”

The Muslim looked at his captive in horror. “A baby? Your God is a baby?”

There it is: the scandal of the Gospel. Nothing ever removes it completely. The theologian can qualify, the iconographer depict, the historian fill in the context, the mystic call to mystery. Still the outrageous meeting of babyhood and Godhead presents itself— beyond all qualification, portrayal, historical context, and even intimate experience—for simple acceptance or rejection.

As secret and as elusive as the Infant’s smile, the Incarnation is at once too big and too tiny to grasp. Only the saints, who let that meeting truly happen in their own flesh, reveal how such scandalous news is good.

The saints, like the finely-polished mirrors of gigantic telescopes, catch and focus a light that the naked eye cannot see. But the light that the saints catch is not like starlight, too distant to see. It is as if, in enfleshing the Light of lights, they mirror the sun itself, its light too fiery for our direct gaze and too ordinary when seen indirectly to praise sensibly.

That is Christmas—to see the invisible light made visible and to know that the Eternal One has made his home in human hearts.

The Church gives us Christmas—not as a substitute for sanctity, others’ or our own —to enable us to see and taste and feel and hear and smell, even if only for a few days, the new world that began to be born when God himself was born in Bethlehem.

At Christmas we discover that childhood is not so far from us as we supposed. We touch our own deepest humanity and, consciously or not, find there what the saints find: a splendid reflection that brings us wholeness, a bowing down that lifts us into heaven, a reconciliation beyond all our many alienations, a home that we have often thought we can never come to.

We are no longer strangers, peering in at the windows of others, wondering where might be the tenderness that would welcome us out of the dark and cold into the warm, bright feast. We are beloved children at home around the table, and we know the secret of the Infant’s smile of peace.

Is the scandal, then, left behind, a remnant of extraordinary ignorance that crumbles away in the dawnings of the truly ordinary light of Christmas? Not yet; not yet. The Infant’s smile scandalizes for the same reason that the cry of anguish torn from the full-grown and crucified Jesus, swaddled this time in pain and blood and loneliness, scandalizes.

Each images the other, and each proclaims the foolishness of a God who is, incredibly, at the mercy of those whose agony is that they do no know mercy.

Of what use are this baby’s smile and this man’s cry? Can they feed the hungry or clothe the naked? Can they break the yoke of oppression and set the poor free? Can they answer the questions of the learned or calm the fears of the terrified, create just economic systems, heal neurosis, bring back from the dead the victims of violence from Abel to the people of Sudan or in the World Trade Center? And if the smile and the cry are of no tangible use, then is not our sense of being brought safely home by them simply a dangerous illusion?

We begin to see, to grasp both Christmas and Easter, when we reverse each image and discover that still they reflect each other. For the man who had been naked spoke again, after he had carried the omnipotent power of merciful love into the heart of death itself: Mary… Simon, son of John… I will be with you all days: peace.

And the baby who smiled rested, not in the lap of luxury, but on the lap of love. We step back and look, and we see that he is lying in a stable, a cave, and that from the very beginning he had nowhere to lay his head—except on the breast of that woman whose love imaged Love itself.

We step back again and see that the stable is in an out-of-the-way village in a conquered land, the child himself a stranger, soon to be an exile, rumored among his own people to be illegitimate.

When Jesus was circumcised, God himself was marked in the flesh by the intimacy of his covenant with Israel. As the All-powerful became visibly vulnerable, he marked our inmost hearts with the truth that the “Most High” is most near.

In becoming powerless, he embraced the powerlessness that lies at the heart of all pain. It seemed to hold no promise, to be absolutely nothing at all. Then he touched it with infant hands, with pierced hands, with dead hands, with risen hands, and that very nothing became a seed of unconquerable life.

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“Nothing is more superficial than the charge made against (the Church) of losing sight of immediate realities, of neglecting man’s urgent needs, by speaking to him always of the hereafter. For in truth the hereafter is far nearer than the future, far nearer than what we call the present.

“It is the Eternal found at the heart of all temporal development which gives it life and direction. It is the authentic Present without which the present itself is like the dust which slips through our hands. If modern men are so absent from each other, it is primarily because they are absent from themselves, since they have abandoned the Eternal which alone establishes them in being and enables them to communicate with one another.”*

———-

And so we come home at Christmas, home to a childhood lovelier than our sweetest memory, home to an adulthood more splendid than our best hope, home to our own hearts, home to the hearts of others, brothers and sisters now, and friends, home to our own world, home to the Eternal who loves us so much that he has made his home with us.

We need no longer absent ourselves from home out of fear, out of pride, out of misguided concern for those who seem even further away than we. Even they are waiting for us at the place where we finally become humble enough to admit that we have been made for joy.

“Come,” they say, “and share your joy with us.” “`Come home to us,” our brothers and sisters say. The saints too in their radiance say to us, “Come!” And the lovely one, the Mother of us all, the new Eden where the Father recreated man, she too says, “Come home.”

The Infant smiles and welcomes us and promises to teach us that secret of love by which we too can give our lives so that the whole world can one day celebrate Christmas.

The scandal is transformed at last—beyond paradox,even beyond gentle irony—into something as simple and as mysterious as marriage. And if you listen to the songs we sing as we gather round the table, you will know that they will be sung some day on the farthest planet of the farthest star of the farthest galaxy in the universe, as everything that breathes rejoices in the embrace of God.

*Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind, trans. Lancelot Sheppard, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1958), p. 199.

———-

From Circling the Sun, pp. 25-28, available from MH Publications.

Copyrighted ISSN 0708-2177

VISITORS FROM THE ARCTIC

by Joanne Dionne

Joanne, prior to joining MH in 1996, was a pastoral worker mostly with youth in Arviat and Chesterfield Inlet in Nunavut (formerly called the Northwest Territories), the Canadian Arctic.

———-

“They’re here!” A big yellow school bus, a van, and two cars drove into the main parking lot of Madonna House. It was September 29th, a colorful fall morning, and the sun was filling the trees with light.

My hearted lifted as “they” —a delegation of 72 which included Inuit young people, a few missionaries, and their bishop—left their vehicles and mingled with us, the seven staff assigned to host them.

The group had been in Ottawa for leadership formation and for preparation for World Youth Day 2002. They had flown 4,000 km. from their homes in the Arctic to Ottawa, and after the formation sessions, had driven 21/2 hours from Ottawa. They were visiting MH to see and experience a Christian community.

As is the custom of northern hospitality, I went around to each person and gave him or her a gentle handshake. Many of the faces were familiar; others I knew well. But it was eight years since I had seen them.

One woman, Joanna, called to me, “Abvakuluk,” an Inuktitut term of endearment used to someone with the same name as you. (This word is an example of the words in the Inuktitut language for specific relationships. The existence of such words is an indication of the importance of relationships in the Inuit culture.)

The friendship between MH and the people of the diocese of Churchill-Hudson Bay began more than ten years ago by a series of exchanges. The bishop of the diocese, Bishop Reynald Rouleau, had made a few short visits here, and our own Fr. David May helped give a week-long summer retreat on the tundra to the youth.

Now and again an Inuk came for a short-term visit to Combermere. Also when I was a pastoral worker in the North, I corresponded with Edie Scott and others at MH and came to Combermere on yearly visits. As time went on, the friendship between the two communities continued to solidify.

My joining MH did not sever my relationships with my friends in the North—not then, not now. It has only grown. Proof: 72 people came to visit us!

This is how the day, September 29th, unfolded: We first made our way to the island chapel, Our Lady of the Woods, and upon entering it, our guests broke out into song, setting a tone of joy for the day.

We then explained briefly what Madonna House is, and they asked questions—about the design of the chapel, the icons, the Eastern influence, and they asked us to sing a Byzantine hymn.

This was followed by a picnic lunch by the river. We sat under the trees, an unfamiliar experience for these tundra-dwellers, and some “bomb-diving” bugs caused some excitement.

Then, divided into three groups, our visitors were given a tour. At the statue of Our Lady of Combermere, after Fr. David May had told them about her, he invited them to gather around her and place their worries and cares and all their intentions in her motherly hands. Then they sang a hymn to her, and Fr. David blessed each person with holy oil.

The next stop was Catherine Doherty’s cabin where they sat around, absorbed the atmosphere, and listened to Kathy McVady tell them about our foundress’ life. The framed pictures on the wall, the bed, the knick-knacks, and the spinning wheel all served to give them a sense of an ordinary person who had lived an extraordinary life.

At the “green garage” where we store our donations, as Peter Anzlin was telling them how we live by donations, a car loaded with goods pulled up thus giving a concrete example of his words.

They also visited the gift shop and St. Raphael’s, our handicraft center where they saw Raandi King and Maureen Ray, potting; Deirdre Burche, tole painting; Peter Gravelle, wood carving; and JoAnne DeGidio and Gretchen Schafer, weaving.

The time and patience required for these crafts are not foreign to the Inuit who are skilled in soapstone carving, beadwork, and making jewelry out of ivory. Our crafts held so much fascination for our guests that they didn’t want to leave St. Raphael’s.

Then it was on to the farm where the sights, sounds, and smells were definitely unfamiliar to a people who, though close to the land, are hunters and gatherers. (You don’t need barns to house wildlife!)

Finally they and all the MH staff gathered at St. Mary’s chapel for vespers, our evening prayer. (Amazingly with all there was to see, we had managed to stay on schedule.) Our visitors, who had changed into their traditional costumes, found seats here and there among us, and, accompanied by guitar and hand clapping, sang the opening and closing hymns in Inuktitut.

After prayers, Bishop Rouleau “said a few words.” He told us of the importance of presence and relationships in the Inuit culture, expressed gratitude for the relationship between MH and the diocese, and invited the delegation to sing a song of thanks—“Qujannamik.”

As a parting gesture, the group performed for us a traditional drum dance. This was the same dance as some of them had performed for the Holy Father on Palm Sunday 2001. This was the day when several Inuit, along with other Canadian young people, went to Rome and were given the World Youth Day Pilgrim Cross to bring to Canada in preparation for World Youth Day Toronto 2002.

The beat of the large, hand-held drum was accompanied by an “aiyaya” song, and the dance and song carried a sense of peace and harmony.

Then two young women performed a traditional throat-singing. The unusual guttural sounds are meant to imitate sounds heard in nature, such as flying geese and running herds of caribou.

The last thing that happened was that a number of staff stayed around visiting with our guests as they got ready to board their vehicles.

When I left the North to join MH, I thought that my experiences there, like other experiences, would fade into the past. But no, the friendships have continued to develop.

This visit of the Inuit young people brought together North and South, and native and non-native, and bridged the gap of great distances and our limited knowledge of one another. The day brought great joy to my heart.

The Pope’s Corner

CONSECRATING THE WORLD

by Pope John Paul II

This “Offering and Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary” was made on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1984.

———-

Within the shelter of your mercy, we seek refuge, O Holy Mother of God.

In pronouncing the words of this antiphon with which the Church of Christ has been praying for centuries, we come before you today, O Mother.

We are united with all the pastors of the Church by a special bond, forming a college in the same way as, according to the will of Christ, the Apostles formed a body and college with Peter.

On the basis of this bond of unity, we pronounce the words of this present offering in which we wish to gather once more the hopes and anguish of the Church in the world today.

Forty years ago—and then ten years later—your servant Pope Pius XII, confronted with the painful experiences of the human family, entrusted and consecrated to your Immaculate Heart the whole world and especially the nations who, because of their individual situation, are in a special manner the object of love and concern.

Today, we too, have this world of people and nations before our eyes: (the world of the Third Millennium), the contemporary world, our world!

O Mother of people and of nations, you who know all their sufferings and hopes, you who in a motherly way are sensitive to all their battles between good and evil, between light and darkness, which shake the contemporary world, hear the cry we address directly to your heart under the motion of the Spirit and as Mother and Servant of the Lord, embrace with your love our human world which we offer and consecrate to you, full of anxiety for the earthly and eternal fate of people and nations.

We offer and consecrate to you in a special way the people and nations in most need of this offering and consecration.

“Within the shelter of your mercy, we seek refuge, O Holy Mother of God!” Do not reject our prayer.

Before you, Mother of Christ, before your Immaculate Heart, with the whole Church, today we want to unite ourselves to the Consecration your Son made of himself to his Father out of love for us in the following words: For their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth (Jn 17:19).

We want to be united with our Redeemer in this consecration for the world and for people, for in his divine Heart, it has the power to obtain forgiveness and atonement.

The power of this consecration lasts for all ages and embraces all people and nations. It dominates all the evil that the spirit of darkness is capable of awakening in the heart of man and in his history and which he has, in fact, awakened in our day.

Hail to you, you who were entirely united to the redemptive consecration of your Son.

Mother of the Church! Teach God’s people the ways of faith, hope, and charity! Help us to live in the truth of Christ’s consecration for the whole human family of our contemporary world!

In entrusting to you, O Mother, the world and all peoples, we also entrust to you the consecration of the world itself which we place in your motherly heart.

O Immaculate Heart! Help us to overcome the threat of evil which takes root so easily in the heart of the people of our day and which in its immeasurable effects, weighs even now on present life and seems to close the paths to the future.

From hunger and war, deliver us!

From nuclear war, capable of an incalculable auto-destruction, from wars of any kind, deliver us!

From the sins against human life from its very first moments, deliver us!

From hatred and from the degradation of the dignity of the people of God, deliver us!

From all kinds of injustice in social, national, and international life, deliver us!

From the ease with which God’s commandments are trampled upon, deliver us!

From the attempt to extinguish in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us!

From the loss of consciousness of good and evil, deliver us!

From the sins against the Spirit, deliver us!

Listen, O Mother of Christ, to this cry of ours laden with the sufferings of all people! Laden with the suffering of whole societies!

Help us, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to overcome every sin of people and every “sin of the world,” sin in all its forms. May the saving power of the Redemption rise up once more in the history of the world—the power of Merciful Love! May it stop all evil! May it transform consciences! May the light of Hope manifest itself to all in your Immaculate Heart! Amen.

(((((((

And from an exhortation on September 30, 2001:

In the present international situation, I appeal to all—individuals, families, and communities—to pray the rosary for peace, even daily, so that the world will be preserved from the dreadful scourge of terrorism.

The terrible tragedy of last September 11th will be remembered as a dark day in the history of humanity. In the face of this event the Church intends to be faithful to her prophetic charism and reminds all people of their duty to build a future of peace for the human family.

Of course, peace is not separate from justice, but the latter must always be carried out with mercy and love.

We cannot forget that Jews, Christians, and Muslims adore the One God. Therefore the three religions have the vocation to unity and peace.

May God grant to the faithful of the Church to be in the front line in the search for justice, in the rejection of violence, and in the commitment to be agents of peace.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede for the whole world, so that hatred and death may never have the last word!

C ONE MAN’S SCRAP// ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD

Advent is a time of quiet expectation as well as a time of joy. As Christmas approaches, something begins to stir in us as if we were expecting something wonderful to happen. And it will happen: if we are open and ready, Christ will come to be born anew in our hearts.

A wonderful group of young people is with us for the season, sharing in our life and celebrating the many feasts of December: St. Nicholas, the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Lucy, and, of course, Christmas.

It is your generous support throughout the past 54 years that has sustained the “training center for the lay apostolate” here in Combermere.

Before I begin to mention some of our needs, I want to pass on to you a big thank you from our nurses for the Merck Manual and the drug reference books that have come in donation. They are a big help. The nurses continue to look after the small and not-so-small ailments of the family and would be happy to receive cold medicines and vitamins.

Those who work in the office are very grateful for the paper shredder. Thank you. They are asking for #10 envelopes, new or used, and xerox paper.

The restoration of donated items is an ongoing job in our handicraft center. You would be amazed to see the broken statues getting their features rebuilt and repainted. And wooden and tin pieces are sanded, painted, and redecorated to be sold in the gift shop. If you can help with supplies, they would be happy to have foam brushes, one to four inches, and epoxy glue.

Considering the drought conditions this past summer, we are feeling really blessed to have received sizeable donations of tomatoes and pears. These and the vegetables that we grew in our gardens (with the help of irrigation with the water from the river) have been canned by our food processing team. I must say that our pantry shelves have a healthy look.

By next year the food processors will be needing new metal canning jar rings that fit standard Mason jars. Many of the ones we are using are quite rusty. We can approximately 3,000 jars per season. So that gives you an idea of how many Mason jar rings we need.

Please keep our farmers in mind. They can use garden tools, large-size rubber boots, and duct tape.

Now that the gift shop is on its winter schedule of three days per week, the crew there are distributing the proceeds of the summer season to the far corners of the earth. As you know, all the proceeds go to the poor of the world, and people are certainly in need right now.

Can you help re-stock our shelves so that the hungry of the world can eat? We can sell small lamps and lamp shades and silver and brassware of any kind—such as candle sticks, wine goblets, and flatware. We will polish these up until they shine. We can also use any jewelry chains (we fix them) or pendants without chains, or jewelry of any kind. Also, small items sell well for gifts: items such as fountain pens, jack knives, thimbles, compacts and other small cases.

Another year is coming to an end. As we contemplate our world, we cannot help but grieve over our suffering brothers and sisters. Let us journey together to Bethlehem and lay our burdens and theirs before our Infant Savior, knowing that he is waiting to share his peace and love with all. A blessed Christmas to each of you!

In Our Lady of Combermere,

Jean Fox

Combermere Diary

IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

by Helen Porthouse

By the time you receive this paper, it will be winter in Combermere, but as I write this, fall is just beginning to change into winter. The leaves, which have recently put on their fall display, are mostly gone. The gift shop is on winter hours and the book shop is closed. The maintenance crew got the storm windows up just in time for the first snow flurries. Though these wet flakes melted before they hit the ground, they were a herald of things to come.

The meetings of our associate priests had as their theme this year: “The Springtime of Evangelization.” At the opening Mass, Fr. Pat McNulty quoted Catherine: “All missionary activity stems from a love affair with God. Before we can win the world for Christ, we must be won for him.”

During the course of the meetings, the associates listened to a CD of a talk by Catherine at Marquette University in the 1960s and had input from her letters to the staff and from Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the third millennium. There were also opportunities to share in small groups, a penance service, a holy hour, some quiet time, and a meeting with our directors general.

On Tuesday evening, we had our annual picnic supper at St. Mary’s with the associates. Though the weather was cold causing most of us to eat indoors, it was a good time to visit and chat. At one Mass, one priest (Fr.Tom Morley) made first promises and received his MH cross, several renewed their promises, and Deacon Gerry McMurray made finals.

During the meetings, the recent events in the United States were kept in prayer. A few of our associates were directly involved with the events of September 11th. One was a former chaplain in the fire precinct in which all eleven of the fire-fighters were killed. He went to New York to spend the next while with their families. Another was one of a number of priests who spent the days following the attacks hearing confessions at the site. (Neither of these priests was at the meetings.) A few other associates knew people who had died either in the towers or on the planes.

On October 11th, one month after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Holy Father called for a day of prayer and fasting for world peace. For supper here on that day, we fasted on bread and cheese and then had an hour of adoration.

As part of this hour, Fr. Jim Maderak prayed part of the pope’s 1984 “Offering and Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” (See The Pope’s Corner of this paper.)

One beautiful fall day the applicants went on a tour of the local area with Mamie Legris (who is originally from this area) and Mary Davis. The group ended up at Mt. St. Patrick, one of the oldest settlements in this area, where they were able to join the parish for their annual supper and musical entertainment. A good time was had by all.

The food processors have been busy canning food that will feed us over the winter. We have already been enjoying the stewed rhubarb. We didn’t get our usual peach donation this year, but the tomato donation was a record high, and we canned 1800 jars of them.

On the first Saturday of September, 72 people from the Arctic spent the day with us. It was a wonderful experience of sharing and praying together. (See Joanne Dionne’s article.)

The Christian Culture Series, our monthly winter lectures for the local people, has begun. Jeanne Langan, the director of Christian Culture Studies at St. Michael’s College, Toronto, gave the first lecture, “The Eucharist and Christian Art.”

She concentrated on three different eras of church art: the catacombs in Rome, a more sophisticated period under the Emperor Justinian in Ravenna, Italy, and finally the 15th century. It was especially striking to see how much the Eucharist has been linked in art to past, present, and future. Depicted were meals from the Old and New Testament, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the heavenly banquet.

As we continue to prepare for winter, we are keeping world events in our hearts. Prayer and doing the task of the every moment in love continue to be the best way of living during these uncertain times. We join our love and prayers to yours.