WITH CHRIST IN THE DESERT

by Fr. Bob Pelton

After God had publicly claimed Jesus as his beloved Son, Jesus began his ministry. He began it, not in the excitement of miracles or with the sounds of words, but in the solitude and the silence of the desert.

After John had baptized him and the Father had acknowledged him, the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him (Mk 1:12-13)

Every Lent, the Spirit urges the Church to spend forty days with Christ in the desert. This is a time of recognition and quiet intimacy. It is a time to fast from food so that we can also fast from falsehood.

The Spirit does not call us to project ourselves into the physical world of Jesus, to bewail our sins as if we had no remedy for them, to thrust our minds into the tangled roots of our own lives.

Instead, he calls us to stop running from Jesus, to turn around and look with his eyes at the empty places stretching through us and all around us where we have denied Jesus access, and to let the Lord enter those places. Where he enters, God’s love enters, and where God’s love is, there is Easter.

Easter: How we long to get there, to live there always, but we cannot until the Father speaks, until the Spirit drives us to open our eyes to the wastes of isolation within us, without us, and Christ comes to make those wastes bloom with his love.

There are many kinds of desert—empty quarters of the heart where the failure to receive and to give love has stifled life and growth; wildernesses of the world’s marketplaces where everything is exchanged except love; dark spaces like oceans of stone lying between those whose union God means to show forth his own Triune joy. Into these Christ has come.

If we let ourselves believe and choose his presence in our darknesses, he will enable us to see him, to know him in faith. Then where there has been nothing, and worse than nothing, Easter will happen at last.

Of course, there is something that holds us back from the clear seeing of Lent, something beyond disbelief, even beyond despair. It is fear—fear of pain, fear of abandonment, fear, finally, of the cross itself.

Human words cannot dispel that fear. Only the living Word of God, crucified and risen, can cast it out and lead a man or a woman through the desert into the promised land at Easter, an Easter that lies not only on the far bank of death, but in our hearts, in our cities, in those empty spaces between us.

Yet we can speak to one another the words that the living Word has spoken to us, and sometimes others will hear what we have heard, and he will set them free, too, free to feel at the mercy of pain so that they can discover that they have always been only at the mercy of God.

These are the words the Lord Jesus “spoke” to me after I had spent eleven weeks one spring in the desert of a city and, even more, in the desert of my own helplessness before the immensity of its pain:

“Don’t be afraid. My love is greater than all the pain. I have made death itself a sacrament of life. Come. Walk into the fire.”

And this is what those words meant to me as I listened to them in my heart:

“Don’t be afraid.” It’s hard not to be afraid when you think you’re by yourself. It doesn’t matter if you are one of a metropolitan mass of six million or alone in another sort of wilderness, if you are upheld by the warm love of a spiritual family, or hidden from the eyes of the whole world.

Without the knowledge of Christ’s presence, not only in your room but in your heart, you will be isolated, and you will be afraid, no matter how much you resist fear.

When you are surrounded by six million people who seem isolated and afraid in just this way, the loneliness and the fear will beat at you all day long and wake you at night like the inner noise of a terrible cancer.

You will walk down street after street, and you will see faces—black, beautiful, old, ugly, sad, white, joyful—but behind all but a very few of them, you will see the face of loneliness so vividly that you will want to shut your eyes or stay inside always.

But even there, inside your house, inside your own head, you cannot shut out that face once you’ve seen it, for it is the face of Christ’s image looking for the person whose heart will reveal the prototype of that image—Christ himself. That person is the one whose fear has been cast out by Christ’s love.

“My love is greater than all the pain.” You hear the blessed promise and tears come to your eyes. For a moment your heart becomes as still as the heart of a child on its mother’s breast. Everything in you yearns to embrace the joy of that love.

But then you see the faces again, seared with pain, smeared with every substitute for hope the human brain can devise, gaunt with a hunger no food can fill. “No, Lord!” you say. “No, Lord, it’s not. It can’t be. Because the pain goes on and on. It has always gone on. It will always go on.

“You made the eye: can’t you see? You made the ear: can’t you hear the crying? You made the heart: don’t you know? You must! Of course, you must. You have rescued me, Jesus, and you have rescued so many others, I know. But Jesus, what about the billions of others?

“You are love made flesh, and if your love is greater than all the pain, where is it? Who knows you? Who knows your mother and your saints? Your Church is a shadow. We are a few children trying to drain an ocean dry. O Lord, show us the victory of your love.”

Words like that, and worse words, words that cannot even be said. And tears perhaps; tears certainly. And then silence. For a long time, only silence. Until at last a still voice speaks, speaks with such tenderness that you know it can only be his voice, and it says, “I have made death itself a sacrament of life.”

to be continued

FAMILY LENTEN CUSTOMS

by Posie McPhee

Now that Lent is almost here, I’d like to share with you some of the customs that my family has been following over the years during that season.

Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday got its name from the word, “shrive,” which means “to pronounce absolution.” In Pre-Reformation England it was the custom to go to confession, or “be shriven,” on the day before Ash Wednesday.

It was also the custom on Shrove Tuesday to eat pancakes. In the days when the Lenten fast was more demanding than it is now, making pancakes was a way of using up milk, cream, eggs and meat —foods which were not eaten during Lent.

The word “carnival,” means “good-bye to meat.” In some parts of the world, Carnival, or Mardi Gras, is a huge celebration which includes elaborate costumes and parades. These days, and probably sometimes in the past as well, it is often an excuse for overindulgence and debauchery. But, as with so many celebrations, we can bring Carnival into our homes and restore it to Christ.

At our house, we often celebrate Shrove Tuesday with a pancake supper and our own version of Carnival. We might begin with a savory first course pancake such as crèpes with mushrooms, meat or vegetables. But more favored at our house is a pancake dessert: pancakes with filled with fruit and topped with whipped cream.

We decorate the house with streamers and balloons and wear party hats or masks, which the children enjoy making ahead of time. And to add to the festiviity, we wear our most colorful clothes.

What makes this celebration really meaningful is its stark contrast to the forty days which follow, particularly the next day, Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday

On Ash Wednesday we sit together at table and have bread and water for supper, and then we go to Mass as a family and receive the ashes. This creates a solemn atmosphere and really sets the stage for Lent.

Lenten Calendar

Another thing we do as a way to discipline ourselves to perform penances and do good works is to make Lenten calendars. Each child old enough to do so makes his or her own. (Adults can find this custom helpful, too.) The calendars can be made either in the standard calendar format, with squares for each day of the week, or as a poster with a path of stepping stones to Easter.

On each of these squares or stones, we write the date and one offering or sacrifice. I think it’s important that children choose their own and that they arrange them according to their own preferences, except for those which are obviously suited for certain days. Each square may also be decorated and colored.

I offer some suggestions, but, obviously, there are many more possibilities, and some can be repeated several times:

-Read a story from the Bible about Jesus.

-Eat no sweets.

-Do a secret good deed for someone.

-Visit the Blessed Sacrament.

-Make the Stations of the Cross (especially on Fridays).

-Don’t complain about anything.

-Pray for a specific intention.

-Put away your clothes instead of leaving them lying around.(Adults can put order in some one thing.)

-Don’t say anything unkind about anyone.

-Try to listen to others more.

-Pray for each person in your family. (Perhaps pick one day for each person.)

-Write a letter to someone who may be lonely.

-Do something nice for an elderly neighbor.

-Share something with someone.

-Don’t eat between meals.

-Try to put others first all day.

-Tell someone you love them.

-Say sorry to someone.

-Don’t lose your temper.

-Give something nice away.

-Have a meal of plain rice for supper and pray for the people who have little to eat.

-Write a letter to Jesus thanking him for dying for us.

-Do something nice for someone you aren’t always nice to.

-Read the Sunday Gospel. (This could be for Saturday.)

-Draw a picture of Jesus on the cross and give it to someone.

-Say a rosary for a special intention.

Lenten Pretzels

Making pretzels is a Lenten custom that has become so popular in our family that we do it at other times as well. Pretzels go back to the fifth century, when they had their origin as a Lenten bread. Since the ancient Lenten fast allowed no dairy products, people made small breads out of flour, water, and salt. And, as a reminder to pray during Lent, the breads were shaped in the form of arms crossed in prayer, a prayerful gesture of the early centuries.

Children love to help make the pretzels. When our children were small, I made the dough and they helped shape it. We sometimes sprinkle sesame or poppy seeds on top instead of the usual pickling salt. And sometimes we even add raisins or cinnamon—a far cry from those pretzels of the early centuries!

Here’s our pretzel recipe:

2 packages dry yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water (375 ml)

2 tbsps.sugar (30 ml)

1 tsp. table salt (5 ml)

4 cups flour (1 liter)

coarse pickling salt

1 egg, beaten

———-

1. Set oven to 425 degrees

2. Mix yeast and water in a large bowl.

3. Stir in sugar and table salt.

4. Add flour and mix well.

5. Knead dough on floured surface for one or two minutes.

6. Pull off egg-size pieces. Roll each with floured hands into a snake about 15 inches (40 cm) long and twist into pretzel shapes.

7. Brush pretzels with beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse salt.

8. Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Yield: about 2 dozen 4-inch pretzels.

May each of us become soft dough in God’s hands as he molds us more and more into his image. And may he give each of us a blessed, grace-filled Lent.

Adapted with permission from Nazareth Journal, a magazine no longer published.

COMBERMERE DIARY

OUR NEWS

by Paulette Curran

As world-changing events unfold, we carry them in our hearts and prayers. And, with God’s grace, trying to do the duty of the moment and to carry whichever cross God has given us for this one day, we continue to live our Nazareth way of life.

Here is our news:

A major transformation has occurred at our archives building, the place where we preserve and make available to ourselves and others (for research) the records of Catherine and Eddie Doherty, and Friendship House and Madonna House. The storage space had been stretched to overflowing. But rather than building an addition, we have nearly doubled our space by installing mobile shelving: that is, range upon range of shelves, compacted together, which move to create an aisle when and where needed.

What a project! Everything had to be removed from the room. Many times, we formed human chains and passed box after box to every available spot in the building.

Then began construction: rails laid, cement poured between them to make a new floor, and carriages of shelving units assembled. And now, slowly the archivists are returning numerous boxes of documents to their new home.

This has been one more example of God’s providence. We had not a penny available for the needed shelving. But the project was made possible by donations given specifically for this—by the generosity of the companies involved, and also by financial assistance from the government of Canada through the National Archives of Canada and the Canadian Council of Archives. How grateful we are for all of it!

We mentioned, last month, the “book launching” in Montreal of the biography in French of Fr. Brière, but now we have more details. What began as a simple book-signing, ended up as a gathering of about 75 French-speaking Quebeçois who are very interested in and supportive of Madonna House. Three of our staff—Fr. Louis Labrecque, Gerard Lesage, and Joanne Dionne and also associate priest Fr. Pierre-André Fournier and his brother (an MH associate deacon) and his wife —gave short talks, as did the author, Monique Beaulne. She also played a 12-minute recorded message by Fr. Brière who was unable to attend.

There was a showing of the film, “La Porte Ouverte,” (The Open Door) about Catherine Doherty and Madonna House, a film which was made for Quebec television a number of years ago by Roger LeClerc. The question and answer period which followed evolved into “How can we get Madonna House to open a house in Quebec?”

It seems, to me at least, that Visitation, the residence for our elderly members, has been around for a long time, but actually it is only a year old. We celebrated the first anniversary with a very enjoyable open house.

There are, at present, five residents there, and since Visitation is an addition just down the hall from the main part of St. Mary’s, it is very easy for us to visit those living there. (Plus we take turns staying with them overnight.) And they can participate in as much of the life of St. Mary’s as they are able to and wish to. As one person said, it is a “granny apartment.”

Three of our recent lectures could be given a title similar to one of our RESTORATION columns—“Lectures from Near and Far.” The one “from near,” a part of the St. Mary’s Winter Lecture Series, was by Alan Rayburn and was about the names of places in the area.

The one “from far” was given by our own Fr. Bob Pelton, but its subject, a most relevant one these days, was from far—Islam. Fr. Bob, who studied Islam for two years at the Islamic Institute at McGill University, gave us an overview of the history of this religion in which he talked about its interconnections with the history of Christianity. He also put into context for us some of the traditions, beliefs, and values of Muslims. It was most helpful for our beginning to understand a culture and religion which are so radically different from ours.

We recently had what may well have been our oldest visitor ever—the mother of our associate priest, Fr. Paul McAvoy. He brought her here as part of the celebration of her 98th birthday!

Another of our associate priests, Fr. Ray Roden, gave us a very precious gift—a cross, about seven inches by seven inches, made from the metal beams of the World Trade Center. Fr. Ray, who is from and stationed in New York, has been ministering at the World Trade Center since September 11th— hearing confession, saying Mass, and praying with and listening to people.

As we begin our journey through Lent, I pray that for each of us in MH and each of you, our readers, it be a time of entering more deeply into the heart of God.

My Story

CONFESSIONS OF A NEUROTIC

by Jude Fischer

I suppose I could call this article “Confessions of a Neurotic.” Or I could simply begin with a line from Scripture: I have come that you may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10). But whatever it’s called, it’s the story of my vocation, my psychological wounding, and my ongoing inner healing.

From the time I was a child, I felt drawn to some form of consecrated life, but the only thing I knew was teaching nuns and I knew that this wasn’t what I was looking for. Then when I was 13 or 14, my family came to Cana Colony, Madonna House’s vacation-retreat place for families. “This is just what I’m looking for,” I thought, when I worked with one of the MH staff for a day, and I looked forward to some day being old enough to join Madonna House.

I visited often during the years, and eventually I came to try the vocation. It wasn’t as soon as I would have liked, because one thing after another seemed to happen to delay it, but finally I came to stay, or so I thought. But after I was here a few months, Catherine suggested that I leave and get some counselling first.

So I left with great hope and optimism that my emotional problems would quickly be taken care of and that I would be back shortly.

But things didn’t quite go the way I expected. The weeks turned into months, and the months into years.

I was seeing a psychiatrist, but frankly, not very much was happening. Eventually I got involved with the Charismatic Renewal and through that, I experienced a few minor healings. But by that time, I was working as an occupational therapist, loved my job, and didn’t want to leave it.

One summer, at a charismatic conference at Notre Dame, I received a word, the last word I expected at that point. It was: “Go back to Madonna House.”

I protested: “But Lord, you know I can’t live that life. I can list all the reasons: 1, 2, 3, 4. Besides Lord, I’m not interested. I have other plans— professionally. And travel. I’d like to see the world.” I had gotten a taste for travelling when I went to Mexico shortly before that, and I wanted to do more.

But the answer I got was: “Go back to Madonna House.”

I was relieved that I was committed for the next six weeks or so to some advanced training associated with my work. I thought that maybe this word was a passing fancy and would go away. But at the end of the course, it was still there: “Go back to Madonna House.”

So I went up to Madonna House and when I talked to Catherine about trying the vocation again, she said, “I was praying one night and your face came to mind, and I said to my secretary, `Whatever happened to that girl? She should be back here.”

So I stayed and joined Madonna House. Twenty-nine years later, I’m still here.

But, of course, my joining was not the end of my story. I came with my emotional wounds, and I’d like to tell you about some of the inner healing I’ve received.

I’ll just talk about three areas of wounding—not that there weren’t others, but they were mostly spin-offs from these.

First of all, I had a lot of fear and anxiety. For example, before I would talk to my spiritual director, I’d be so scared, I’d be sick to my stomach. Or if I managed to not get sick, the fear might hit me in the middle of our talk and my mind would go blank and I couldn’t remember what I had to say. Or if I managed to more or less express myself, it might hit me afterwards, and then I would have a sense of impending doom—a fear that I had really “blown it,” and it was all over now.

Catherine used to say, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but fear overcome by prayer.” I really took those words to heart, and I would pray and try to move against that fear. Then, at some point, I realized that the fear was connected to an inner vow I had made as a child.

There were eleven kids in my family, and so my mom more than had her hands full. In fact, one of them was so seriously ill that this one alone could have taken all her time. So she obviously didn’t have a lot of time to give us attention.

One day—I think it was before I started school—I was visiting a neighbor lady and was having a great chat with her. It was so great having somebody with all the time in the world to listen to me.

At the end of it, I blurted out, “I wish you were my mother.” Then the next thing I knew, she was visiting my mother and telling her what I had said! I felt utterly mortified. I felt betrayed, but far worse than that was the sense that I had betrayed my mother. So I felt that it was too great a risk to talk to anyone. It would hurt my mother. And that’s when I made that inner vow: Never, never, never again will I confide in a grown -up.

And I never did. I figured that all the answers to life’s questions were in books somewhere.

When I realized that my fear of talking to my spiritual director stemmed from this inner vow, I made a choice to renounce that vow. I made a choice to act against it and to move in trust. But still it was a long, slow process.

The second thing I had to deal with was a terrible feeling of isolation and abandonment. Things would be going along pretty well, and then suddenly some little thing would happen and it would set off these feelings. It might happen if someone forgot an appointment with me, for example.

One particularly painful example happened when I was a young staff worker in one of our mission houses. I was out one day and when I returned, I realized that I had forgotten my keys. So I had to ring the doorbell to get in. Whoever answered the door must have had a bad day, or maybe I had forgotten my keys one too many times, or whatever. At any rate, she answered the door quite angrily and said, “I should just leave you out in the cold. (It was a bitterly cold day.) And the next time you forget your keys, I will, and that will teach you.”

That plunged me into the pit of utter abandonment. Even though I forgave the person, that experience was so powerful that for years afterwards, whenever I thought of it, it brought tears to my eyes, and I would experience that feeling of abandonment all over again. And I would forgive the person again.

But because my reaction was so strong, so out of proportion to the incident, I knew it had to be triggering something else in me. But I didn’t know what. One day when I was praying, I cried out, “Lord, what’s it all about? Where is that coming from?”

Then suddenly there flashed into my mind the image of myself as a baby in a crib in the hospital, screaming my lungs out because my parents had left me.

I had known that after I was born I was very sickly and had to stay behind in the hospital for six weeks, and I knew this was bound to have its effect in terms of poor maternal bonding and all the rest of it. But I knew this mainly in my head, and this was the first time that I made the gut level connection with my deep feeling of abandonment.

At that point, I had to forgive my parents. Though it wasn’t their fault, that hurt, wounded, infant still experienced the abandonment, and so I needed to forgive my parents for leaving me behind. And I had to ask forgiveness of God for my anger and rage against them. Those acts of forgiveness were very freeing.

A third thing I have had to deal with is the feeling of being “an intrusion.” Not too long ago, a group from Elijah House (an interdenominational prayer counselling center) came to Madonna House to give us a workshop in prayer-counselling. At the very first session, a word came up, “intrusion,” and suddenly I found myself in tears. I realized that that’s what I felt like.

I looked up the word “intrusion” in the dictionary, and it means “entering in without permission, without invitation, without welcome.” I was puzzled as to why I felt that way. Here I was in a community where we try to welcome whoever comes to our doors.

I wasn’t able to connect it with anything in my childhood either. When I was born, there was just my older sister and another girl who had recently been adopted. My mother had had two miscarriages, and my parents had lost two babies as infants, and they really wanted another child. So why did I feel that way?

That prayer-counselling workshop included sessions which gave us an opportunity to share with one another in small groups. At one of those sessions, I happened to be telling the group my mother’s story, and how when she was a little girl, she and her two brothers were abandoned by their mother.

Their grandparents were good people and took them in, but they had already raised their own family and they weren’t exactly thrilled to have another one on their hands. In fact, their grandfather moved out of the house into a shed on the property because he found them “an intrusion.”

As soon as I heard myself saying that word, “intrusion,” I realized that that’s how my mother must have felt about herself. And I must have picked up some of that from her.

That was part of the story, but it wasn’t the whole thing. Later on, when I went for a week of intensive prayer counselling, my counsellor discerned that we should look at my prenatal experience.

Before I was born, my mother had lost four babies, four out of the five she had conceived. That’s an 80% death rate! So I imagine she must have had a lot of unresolved grief and also great anxiety on my behalf.

But what was my experience of this when I was in the womb? As we prayed to the Lord to reveal that to me, what came very forcefully was the feeling, “I don’t have any right to be here. My very existence is causing my mother too much pain.”

Then we asked the Lord to speak the truth to that infant. And I received an image of the Lord bending over and picking up the infant me and holding me tenderly and singing a lullaby.

It was only after this that I was able to receive the words that the Lord had spoken to me over the years on a deep level. Through my many pains and struggles, he had spoken many words to me, but they could only penetrate so far before they had been blocked by that lie that was wedged deep down—that lie that I was an intrusion.

There is a corollary to that lie that I had no right to be here, and it was this: maybe if I make myself as invisible as possible, maybe if I’m not a bother, maybe then I won’t hurt anyone and then maybe I can live and don’t have to die.

It was only when that underlying lie that I was in intrusion was exposed and brought into the Lord’s healing light that I could really choose life and rejoice in proclaiming, “Yes, I have a right to be here. I have permission. I am invited. I am welcome. I am beloved of the Lord.” Alleluia!

So, I am coming to experience the truth of the Lord’s words to us: I have come that you may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10).

And here I am writing this article and breaking the invisibility rule in a big way!

Catherine’s Cause

A SAINT FOR OUR TIME

by Fr. Bob Wild

As we told you we would, we have excerpted this article from the second newsletter about the cause for the canonization of MH foundress, Catherine Doherty

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In publicly soliciting testimonies about Catherine Doherty over the years, one of the questions I have been asking people is: “If Catherine was canonized, what would be the significance of her life for the Church today?”

We have received many responses to this and to other questions from cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, and laity. What follows is a brief summary of some of the main ones.

Catherine was a lay person. Heroic sanctity among lay people is a reality, and the importance of canonizing some of them is obvious. Most members of the Church are lay, and in order to be encouraged and inspired in their lay vocations, they need to see the Church publicly raise lay people to the heights of the altar.

Catherine was married twice, had a child, worked in the world, and tried to take the Gospel into the “marketplaces” of the large cities. She was inspired to develop a spirituality that is precisely about loving God in the ordinary tasks of everyday life. Her constant theme, even before it was emphasized by Vatican II, was that holiness is possible in every walk of life.

Catherine was involved in the lay apostolate: In the early part of the twentieth century, the work of the laity within the Church was not strongly encouraged and was, in fact, often misunderstood. Catherine will go down in history as one of the pioneers of the lay apostolate. As early as the 1920’s and `30’s, she was opening soup kitchens and store fronts for the poor and speaking out about injustices in both Church and society.

It is difficult for us now to imagine how revolutionary and prophetic she was. And since she paid the price for it, she can serve as a model of lay dedication and heroism.

Catherine was married with a family: Her married and family life went through many stages. It’s because she tried to live these stages as a Christian, maintaining her love for God, the Church, and her neighbor throughout, that her married life has tremendous relevance for the people of our day.

Her first marriage was very unhappy. Her husband was unfaithful to her, and she knew all the pain of a broken covenant and of trying to raise a child under such conditions.

She didn’t handle everything perfectly. Her son, especially, suffered wounds from the situation. So many in similar circumstances would find support and consolation in her heroic struggles to remain faithful to God.

After more than a decade of a second marriage, she and her husband, Eddie Doherty, decided to give up their conjugal rights and live a celibate life as members of the new community of MH. Not implying that this choice is to be imitated or that it is the “culminating ideal” of married life, it is one option recognized by the Church. She can serve as a model for those called to this choice.

Catherine had a great love for the poor. During our times, the Church has called for “a preferential option for the poor,” and Pope Paul VI has said that there can be “no real peace without justice.” Often, if the people of our time do not see this concern for justice in people who are canonized, they do not see any particular relevance of these saints to their own lives in the contemporary situation which demands a concern for the poor.

Catherine’s work with the poor began in earnest during the Great Depression of the `30’s, after which she went on to become one of the pioneers of interracial justice in the United States. And when she came to Combermere in 1947, she assisted the poor of this area in countless ways.

She requested that her grave croos bear the words “She loved the poor.”

Catherine was a blend of East and West. Perhaps the greatest tragedy in the 2,000 year history of Christianity is the split between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

Catherine was born in Russia and baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. Her father’s mother was a Polish Catholic, and as a child, she attended a Roman Catholic school in Egypt. When she fled to England during the Russian Revolution, she made her profession of faith in the Catholic Church.

But it was not until she came to Combermere that her Eastern roots began to flower, and she became in her own person, a blend of the two.

Madonna House continues this charism, and so Catherine’s canonization would have a great relevance for this movement of the Spirit towards the reunion of East and West.

Catherine did a great deal of writing. Even during her lifetime, her books were being translated into many languages—a proof of their universal relevance. And what is already published is only a fraction of what she has written and will, hopefully, become available. Suffice it to say that if she were canonized, the people of God would become more aware of the depth and extent of her writings.

Catherine founded a community. By their fruits you will know them. Catherine founded Madonna House, one of the new ecclesial communities in the Church. She would be a witness to the fact that God continues to inspire new communities in every age. The spirituality she has bequeathed to this community is, even now, a source of spiritual food and support for thousands. Her canonization would increase the spread of this spiritual treasure.

Catherine is a woman of the 20th century. Catherine’s life and experience spanned almost the whole century (1896-1985), and she was personally involved in most of its significant events.

She was a nurse in World War I and a refugee both in the United States and in Canada. She experienced times of extreme poverty. She was involved, as we said before, in the struggle for social justice and racial equality. She successfully navigated her young community through the turbulent waters of the post-Vatican II era, when so many people lost the essentials of the Catholic life.

She is truly a “total person.” One of the reasons, among many others, that I myself trust her teaching, is that it has been tried and tested in the crucible of suffering, and in many of the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century.

Her canonization would be a beacon of light for others who must now go through their own historical trials in the third millennium. She would not be a “plaster of Paris” saint. Everyone would find something in her life to inspire and encourage them.

Lent

HELP FOR PILGRIMS

by Kim Curtis

Lent is a time of taking stock. How are we doing? Where have we been? Where are we going?

Where are we going? Most of us are moving in more than one direction at a time and at a rather furious pace, propelled by the tyranny of the urgent or seemingly urgent: music lessons, meetings, deadlines. Not exactly a lifestyle conducive to reflective living.

The Church as loving mother guides us to the Eucharist once a week (at least), where we can get re-oriented, set our bearings, and remember who we are, where we’ve been, where we’re going.

The Church also guides us frazzled pilgrims to frequent confession, to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where we can take a look at how we’re relating to ourselves, our fellow travelers, and God. For serious pilgrims, these are two rock-solid ways of finding the road home and keeping to it.

The difficulty for some of us is that second step—frequent confession. Personally, I would rather have a root canal!

In most families, the woman is the driving force toward piety and devotion. Not so in our family. My husband, prince that he is, has made frequent confession part of his weekly routine. Most Saturdays, as noon approaches, he says to me, “I’m heading out to church for confession. Do you want to come?”

My usual response is: “You go on ahead, honey. I have to take a walk—barefoot—over a bed of hot coals.” Why do I say that?

Why is it that, most days, I’d choose to hang by my ankles over a snake pit rather than enter a confessional? I suspect there’s more than just laziness, stubbornness, and good old American independence here. I suspect it has something to do with lack of context, with absence of relationship.

For years, I did go to confession every week, without fail, in the context of weekly spiritual direction. Each week I would meet with Fr. Francis for about an hour. We’d talk. Actually, mostly I’d talk and he’d listen. We would pray together and, at the end of the hour, he would hear my confession and give me absolution. I came to trust him and he came to know my heart, and through trusting him, I came to trust God more deeply.

In that context, it was possible for me to hear difficult words, or speak them—those words that cut like a surgeon’s knife to lance an infection or remove a cancer. Those life-saving words were made possible by a relationship of trust.

Someone (was it St. Ignatius?) said, “Only a fool directs himself.” For Lent this year, I’ve decided to give up this foolishness and give myself a gift. I am going to find a spiritual director—someone who can help me find the road home—and keep it.

My Dear Family

A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAIN

by Catherine Doherty

The following was written in 1983.

———-

An immense peace surrounded the mountain of the Lord, and it seemed as if countless choirs were singing. Yet as I looked down from this very high mountain, I saw the world in turmoil. There was much terrorism and war. I saw heads of governments unable to cope with the people. Where there was a modicum of democracy, it seemed the people did not trust their government.

Standing with my back against a rock, I called to all the nations of the world, especially the Christian ones, to stop killing each other, to stop terrorizing people and being terrorists themselves. For a terrorist is someone who hates. God never hates.

As powerfully as I could, I cried out to everyone, “Look! Christ loved us so much. He loved us enough to become man. He loved us enough to die on the Cross. He loved us. Awake! Love him back. The moment you will love him back, that very moment, peace will come. Peace will come into your hearts, and wars will cease.

“Open your hearts and your souls to his words. Don’t let him stand there in front of your doors, without letting him in. Peace will not come to this earth if you continue to be deaf to his words.”

When my voice gave in, I fell down and wept. I wept for him who loved us so much, and for all of us who did not love him.

Around me thousands of angry people were screaming and yelling and shaking their fists at God. I wanted to run, to close my eyes and ears so as not to hear. But, surrounded as I was by crowds of angry people from all over the world, I got up again, stood on a promontory, and spoke to them.

“Yes. I know. I spent fifty years in the Harlems of America, in the slums of Toronto and in rural poverty, serving the poor. I know why you scream and yell and raise your fists to God. But stop and understand.

“It isn’t God who created the conditions under which you are living and working. It is the rich, the powerful, who have reduced you to the poverty that you are in. In spite of that, you don’t have to hate them. Love them. Get organized and confront them, but not with revolvers or grenades. No. Confront them with love and forgiveness.”

Then I lost track of where I was again. Before my mind’s eye passed, as in a movie, a series of pictures. There were all the great kingdoms of antiquity. I saw Babylon and Egypt and Rome, with Attila the Hun and the barbarians overrunning it. I saw Alexander the Great plundering the world. I saw Genghis Khan. I kept seeing ruins of kingdoms and empires, ruin upon ruin upon ruin.

Then came a strong British Empire. Strange, wasn’t it, that from my stone on the mountain of the Lord, I saw water all over, and a small island? Suddenly, out of that island came war, just like the wars that had been before.

After that the island somehow vanished. Did it vanish in the water or did it just vanish? I couldn’t tell. So many countries have vanished in various places. I knew my own country, Russia, had been conquered for four hundred years by the Tartars. They also had created an empire. But the English, they had a civilized empire.

Next came America, after World War I and World War II. They were a bountiful people who gave things to everybody, but also took something from everybody.

Abruptly the scene changed, and I seemed to be among warring Muslims. I thought that Muslims were merciful to their enemies, but then I get mixed up. Next the scene became Afghanistan. The mountains were very rough, and I was trudging with my arthritic knees behind covered wagons like those I trudged behind when I was young.

Then almost instantly I found myself between the P.L.O. and the Jews. Everywhere I looked, there was war going on, now hidden, now open, now diplomatic, now direct—people killing each other.

These scenes were very mixed up, yet the strangest thing about them was that they were all practically the same. Clothing was different, the colors of people’s skin were different. But the mobs killing one another all seemed alike.

Have you ever been in a mob and experienced what it does to you? Once when I was in Russia, a mob was in charge, and when mobs are in charge, nobody is in charge. I have heard both Lenin and Hitler speak. Yes, I did. In one ear I can still hear the mellifluous, powerful voice of Lenin, and in the other, the thin, hysterical, but fascinating and hypnotic voice of Hitler.

Mobs—their shouts penetrate your head like nails or thorns. You lose all sense of where you are and what is happening. Whole centuries can pass before your eyes, and all that they bring to your feet is war. War and mobs.

I am trying to climb the mountain of the Lord, but I am not getting very far, because I have been bowed down by a weight bigger than myself. There is no use trying to fool myself or anybody else. If I am supposed to preach the Gospel—and for this I was born—then I have only tears to give to people. Because, you see, tears, as Russians say, wash away your own sins and the sin of mankind.

Are you ready to weep? Well, if you are, then the Lord be praised! But so many of you are not ready to weep. So many make a mockery of Jesus Christ. So many don’t believe in him. And yet, notwithstanding all the mockery and unbelief, you are eternally seeking him. You are searchers of God who don’t want to find him.

How shall I call you forth from the den of misery in which you have pushed yourself? You are afraid, arrogant, greedy, feeling rejected and lonely notwithstanding all the gadgets. What more can I say to you? You have the key to the door of Christ’s heart. All you have to do is put the key into the lock and open it, and you will be at peace. And peace will come to the world.

But nobody wants to listen, or very few do. Nations hate nations, and people hate people. It may seem as if there is no way out, but there is always a way out. The way out is the love of God, the mercy of God, the kindness of God, and above all, the faith that he has put into our hearts.

Is there compassion in us? Are we ready to help the other fellows, even at our expense? Or don’t we care the least bit about the poor, the forgotten, the humiliati?

Moses told Pharaoh what would happen to him if he balked at the will of God. And it came to pass. Well, this is very much the time of our balking. We use our brains and science and all kinds of things to avert inflations and recessions. But one thing we don’t do is go on our knees and implore God to have mercy on us. That is what we should do! Why don’t we?

The wind keeps saying to me, “Go on preaching. I know your voice is rusty. I know you are tired. But, Catherine, I was tired and my voice was very rusty when I spoke to John and to my Mother from the cross. Have no fear. I am with you unto the end of time.”

From Urodivoi, pp. 69-73, available from MH Publications.

Ash Wednesday

FROM DUST TO GLORY

by Fr. Pat McNulty

Of all the options for the blessing used during the distribution of ashes, I still prefer, “Remember, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.” As the years go by, that prayer is less and less a negative one to me, a put-down to the self, a belittling of my value as a person. On the contrary these ten simple words put everything into proper perspective with a single stroke of ashes as long as I remember that this “dust” is infinitely precious to God and will be raised up and glorified on the last day.

The Ordo (the official book used by priests and sacristans to know the feasts, readings and so forth for each day) for my home diocese in the U.S.A. prints the names of all the deceased priests of the diocese from its beginnings way back in 1834, when the diocese included most of the Midwest, to the present. The names appear on the pages at the left side of the booklet.

Over the years as I gave retreats to diocesan priests around the country, I would sometimes title them, “The Left-hand Side of the Ordo.” The opening talk was about how quickly we and all our works are forgotten.

“If you don’t believe me,” I would say, “just take a look at the left-hand side of the Ordo. How many of those marvelous, holy, gifted, significant, heroic priests do you remember now? Why, you hardly remember those who have been dead for more than ten years!

“Well, guess what? One day your name will be there on the left-hand side of the Ordo and people will be saying of you, `who the heck was Fr. Macerackle?’ And with their short memory of you will go their memory of all your fabulous homilies, programs, buildings, degrees, honors and other blah, blah, blah. `For you are dust my friend, and unto dust you shall return!’ And don’t you ever forget it!”

Well, I was never asked to give a retreat twice in the same diocese. (Smile.) Yet the rest of the retreat was an attempt to put our lives and our gifts and our personal history into proper perspective: We are honored servants of Jesus Christ. Nothing we have or do belongs to us. And our life is not about pastoral or personal success. If we are remembered on earth, that is God’s business. All that matters is that God will never forget us and that he will raise us up.

I could say the same thing to every person who comes forth for ashes on Ash Wednesday. How long do you think it will take after you are dead for you to be utterly forgotten? How long before all your gifts and ideas and accomplishments are no longer remembered or even visible?

Oh, your friends will remember you for a while. And your family a little longer. To your grandkids you will be a loving memory. And to their kids a fading photo on a mantle somewhere.

How many years? 15? 25? Not very long is it? Lo and behold, one day you too will return to dust, and nobody is even going to remember you —except God.

My brothers and sisters, that is where we must begin in our Lenten focus if we are ever to understand and enjoy the holy resurrection in our life here on earth and in its fullness in eternity.

To know that we were made from dust and shall return to dust is not a negative thing. It is not a put-down. It is not a denial of our personal dignity or value. It is one of the most holy proclamations of our faith there is: we were personally created by God out of the stuff of his creation. God has guided our every step along the way. He will turn us back into dust, and then he will raise us up.

My successes will not raise me up. My gifts and accomplishments will not raise me up. My power and prestige will not raise me up. God will.

And no matter who I am, no matter how important, powerful, smart, necessary, and gifted, all of that will one day be nothing but a pile of dust which no one on earth will remember or care about.

And it behooves me not to forget that along the way. For none of those things are what God raises up. God raises up what only God could create. Me! He doesn’t raise up what I did. He doesn’t raise up my intelligence. He doesn’t raise up what I built. He raises me up.

The rest is dust and ashes. And if I don’t know that, I don’t know me, and ultimately I don’t know God. If I don’t know that, I cannot rend my arrogant heart and be given new Easter garments by God.

We live during a terribly arrogant age, and we are an arrogant people. We really believe that the world cannot get along without us, without our accomplishments, our gifts, our insights, our plans and our politics. We really believe that the world cannot live without me!

But that’s a lie and that’s why many of us cannot acknowledge our offense and realize that it is against God alone that we have sinned. And that is why so many of us cannot be reconciled to God. How can I be reconciled to God if I think I am God?

This is not to say that my life and gifts are useless and unnecessary. But it is to say that they are not mine by some right of birth or nationality or religion or family. My life and gifts belong to God, and they are loaned to me according to my capacity and God’s purpose.

The minute I take them to myself, lord them over others, think they belong to me, that is the minute I have forgotten that it is all dust and unto dust it will return.

What this means is that at some moment in my life, especially in my life as a Christian, I must realize that all of us stand before God in the same way—rich or poor, smart or not so smart, powerful or not, First World or Third World—and that everything we are and have comes from God. Nothing is ours.

And to keep us ever mindful of that fact, God not only allows everything to fall back into dust century after century but sometimes he allows it to turn to dust before our very eyes.

And so when we hear and really take into our hearts the words, “Remember thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return,” we are actually glorifying God’s wisdom and love and generosity and accepting our beautiful common humanity.

Isn’t that great? Isn’t it amazing how ten little words at the beginning of Lent can put everything into perspective and bring new life and hope out of our mess, out of our dust? Isn’t it even greater that God is God and we are not?

Because actually, that is what we mean when we say, “Remember, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.” And I don’t know about you but, for me, knowing that God is God and that I am not makes my life and my future a lot more secure and wonderful even if the memory of me will eventually only be a name on the left-hand side of the Ordo! For when the dust settles, we will all be raised up and, after all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

The Pope’s Corner

DESTINED TO LIVE

by Pope John Paul II

The following is from a general audience on Ash Wednesday, February 28, 2001.

———-

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.” The traditional rite of distributing ashes… is always very eloquent, and the words accompanying it are expressive. In its simplicity, it suggests the transitory nature of earthly life.

Everything passes and is destined to die. We are wayfarers in the world, wayfarers who must never forget their true and final destination: heaven…. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, is destined for eternal life….

The entire Ash Wednesday liturgy helps us to focus on this fundamental truth of faith and spurs us to undertake a resolute journey of personal renewal.

We must change our way of thinking and acting, set our gaze firmly on the face of Christ crucified, and make his Gospel our daily rule of life. “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel:” Let this be our Lenten program as we enter an atmosphere of prayerful listening to the Spirit.

And may Mary, the example of docile listening to the voice of the Spirit, guide us on the penitential journey we are beginning today. May she help us to treasure all the opportunities the Church offers us in order to prepare ourselves worthily for the celebration of the Easter mystery.

Lent

MY TAILOR-MADE CROSS

by Fr. Eddie Doherty

Blessed be the desert, the trysting place of man and God, the wasteland that gives and does not take away the strange poustinia on the edge of heaven, the barren soil in which the choicest vineyards grow. And blessed be the Winslow, Arizona hospital, the oasis that sheltered me for the forty days and nights of Lent.

The beautiful adventure began just before Lent. A few words I said during the Divine Liturgy put it into action.

“If you intend to carry a cross during Lent,” I said, “don’t make it yourself. Nobody can be trusted to fashion a cross for himself. It will be much too light or much too heavy. Get a tailor-made cross. Let God by our tailor. He’ll fit you perfectly. He gives his beloved crosses every day, for his purposes and for your good. Little crosses or big ones. Annoyances. Trials. Disappointments. Rebuffs. Aches and pains.

“He has many such gifts for you, and they are all good, whether you like them or not. If you dislike them, accept them anyway—just because they come from God—just because they are proof of his love—although you may not think so. Accept them. And try to enjoy them!

“God will give you the grace to be happy even with a toothache—if you accept it as his will and if you realize that, in actually suffering for him, you are a highly privileged soul.

“Don’t just cut out cigarettes or candy. Cut out your own desires and listen to the Lord.”

A few days later the desert claimed me. My throat was sore and I could neither kneel nor stand. And I could hear the voice of the doctor: “Six weeks here and you’ll be going home.”

Six weeks! Here on this particular bed! I thought of the words St. Teresa of Avila is reported to have said, “Lord, if you treat your friends this way, it’s no wonder you have so few of them!” Then I was given the grace to repeat the words of Our Lady, “Be it done unto me according to your word.”

God does give his friends royal gifts!

My bed was prim, snug, and tight. It didn’t look like a cross. It didn’t feel like one, but there was something ominous in those beautiful clean sheets. They looked and felt like a shroud. They made me understand that I had been pitched, hand and foot, into a linen cell. I was as trapped as a caterpillar in a silk cocoon. Would I escape only as a butterfly? So be it! God gave me a curious happiness, and I went to sleep.

This was Sunday, February 21, while all the Christian world outside the hospital was getting ready for carnival celebrations.

That strange feeling was within me when I woke. God must love me a lot to give me six weeks of pain and weakness! I who loved him so little! Why didn’t I love him madly?

“Well,” I argued, “it must be love to accept his will, no matter how it hurts. If it isn’t, I am just a poor misguided country boy. This is not only a privilege; it’s also a job. I get paid a penny like everybody else in his vineyard. And I can help the alcoholics, the women of the streets, the priests and nuns who have run away from home, through weakness rather than through malice. Better still, I can give all those pennies to Our Lady and let her have a glorious shopping spree.

“Lady, the money’s all yours. Spend it for what you want.”

I was so pleased with myself and my nobility that at first I paid no attention to the noise that came from the other half of the room. I had seen my fellow patient, but not clearly, for he was encased in an oxygen tent. I didn’t know what was wrong with him. I hadn’t particularly cared. He lay in a bed like mine. There was only a sliding curtain between us; but he might as well have been in another desert for all he meant to me.

As the noise continued and grew in pitch and volume, I lost my feeling of holiness and joy. I was annoyed. I was irritated. I was angry. And, of course, I was indignant.

I was sick enough! Did I have to put up with this racket, too? Would it go on all night? Should I ask the nurses to put me in another room? Or should I ask them to take that man away?

The frightful racket after a long, long time ended with noises that suggested that every housewife in Winslow had pulled the bathroom plug and the water was going sulkily, reluctantly, rebelliously down the drain, sobbing and strangling on its way.

“You don’t like your neighbor?” a silent voice asked me. I answered with my usual flippancy: “He does not warm the cockles of my heart.”

Stupidly I began to wonder about the word “cockles.” I knew it meant the most inner parts of the heart. But how come? I thought of the girl who rolled her wheelbarrow through streets wide and narrow, crying “cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o.” Likewise, I remembered the rhyme about silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.

Now that the noise had stopped, I could, I thought, amuse myself with the vagaries of the English words. I was so full of myself that I actually forgot that the voice had spoken to me.

It spoke again. This time I recognized it. The voice of an angel? Of Our Lady? Of the Lord himself? I do not know. I do know it is the voice of heaven.

“Someone,” it said gently, “has sown cockles in the wheat field of your heart.”

The wheat field of my heart! That certainly was the voice of heaven, always hitting where it hurts, always gift-wrapped in poetic phrases.

Cockles: weeds, not shells. I had forgotten they were weeds. “An enemy hath done this,” I answered automatically.

“Aye, your worst enemy. Yourself. Forgive yourself. Love your enemy. Then forgive your neighbor for disturbing your previous silence. He is merely trying to stay alive.

“What you heard is h

“O.K.,” I said. “I’m tough. I can take the noise if I have to. Of course I’ll pray for him. I’m a priest. I’m supposed to pray for people, though I often forget it. Thanks for reminding me.”

Three or four times I prayed for my neighbor and went back to sleep. Three or four times that night I heard that horrible humidifier harass the silence and the darkness of the room.

Then, along about morning, I woke with a start. I was filled with dread, for the room was quiet. Sinister quiet.

I wanted to get out of bed and see what had happened. But I was too weak. My heart, usually as steady as a cock, was suddenly as steady as a loose tooth.

I wanted to ring for a nurse. I couldn’t. All I could do was to say to myself, “No, God, no. He isn’t dead! He isn’t dead!”

Then abruptly, without any warning whatsoever, every bathtub in Winslow began to overflow. And that giant tank began to roll again. But this time I thoughtin my crazy joythis time it was filled with broken china. I said a thousand or more thank-you-Lords and drifted back to sleep.

While I slept, the doctor took away the humidifier and gave my friend a simple mask, which made no noise at all.

The doctor sent me home after forty days. I spent the rest of Lent there in bed. I rose at Easter and, for the first time in fifty days, put on my clothes and walked outside to look at the sun. And I discovered a tremendous truth.

The rarest Lenten flowers and the loveliest Easter lilies bloom only in the scalding sands of the desert.

From A Hermit Without a Permit, pp. 58-63, available from MH Publications.

St. John Vianney

“IT’S A DEAL,” SAID GOD

by Fr. Bob Wild

My ways are not your ways, … and my thoughts are not your thoughts. As high as the heavens are from the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, and my ways above your ways (Deut 55:8-9).

———-

There are a lot of evils in the world. We often look to God and say, “God, don’t you know what’s going on? Why don’t you do something?” Often there’s a great silence. Then we wonder if God really does know what’s going on.

When St. John Vianney was assigned to be pastor of the little village of Ars, France, around 1830 or 1840, that village was a spiritual disaster area. Nobody was going to the sacraments. People were drinking like crazy.

John Vianney made a pact with God. He promised: “God, I will give my life. I will fast and pray if you will save my people.” And God replied, “O.K., it’s a deal.”

John Vianney fasted and prayed like few priests in history have ever fasted and prayed. He slept about an hour a night, hardly ate anything, and spent many hours in the confessional serving his people.

Little by little, over the years, people’s hearts were changed. By the time he died, thousands of people were coming to Ars. Even today that area of France is known for its deep and profound faith.

In our trials we say, “God do something!” And God says, “O.K., you give me your life. Let me invade your life. Let me come to the people through you, and things will happen.” We ask, “Can’t you do it some other way? Isn’t there some other way besides me giving my life?” God answers, “No, there isn’t.”

John Vianney had no technique. He didn’t develop a new school of mysticism. He just read the Desert Fathers. The key to his life was that he had compassion on God’s people.

He wasn’t just trying to work out his own perfection. He wasn’t just trying to become holy for some reason. That’s good, but it’s not really enough. It’s not deep enough, and it won’t last. “My life for theirs.” And God saved his people.

Very simply, that’s the message of his life. His pact with God really worked. The question that his life puts to us is, “How much compassion do we have? What will we give? How far will we go? How much will we pray? How long will we fast? How much will we love?” Isn’t there another way? No, there isn’t.

We have to let God invade our lives and allow him to come to others through us. There really is no other way, no lasting way.

“God, give us a realistic desire to change the world. Not a `pie in the sky,’ not a theory that we can work out, but give us such a compassion for the world that we will allow you to change our lives so that you can come to the world through us.”

That’s a real desire. And if we all did that, then the world would change. We would know in our heart how God heard our prayers and hears our thoughts. Let us pray for that true compassion so that God might work through us and transform his world.

From Word from Poustinia pp. 132-134, available from MH Publiations.