My Story

HOW CAN I KNOW - REALLY KNOW?

by Cheryl Ann Smith

Almost thirty years ago, a young woman went to the Madonna House in Ottawa to pour out her heart. “I’m engaged to be married and I love my fiancé,” she said, “but I also love God, and I feel he’s calling me to a life of poverty with him. My fiancé doesn’t feel the same way. How can I know—really know—what God wants?”

Raandi, the Madonna House staff worker who opened the door, still remembers that piercing question. And I, the young woman, will never forget the agony behind it.

Thirty years ago, when I was asking that question, I was engaged to be married. But in my heart of hearts, I was beginning to sense a different call—a call to a life of poverty in union with Jesus. Both vocations are God-given, but which vocation was God giving me?

God has a plan

Scripture is clear that God does have a particular plan for us: What we ask God is that through perfect wisdom and spiritual understanding, you should reach the fullest knowledge of his will (Col 1:9). Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God (Rom 12:2). I have come to do not my own will, but the will of the Father (Jn 12:30).

I have learned this truth in my bones. This is how it happened:

After two summer visits to Madonna House in Combermere, I realized that God had a different plan for me than marriage to my fiancé.

But since he hadn’t revealed what that plan was, I decided that I would spend several months in Combermere after my graduation from university. Then during that stay I began to wonder if Madonna House was my vocation.

I was still young, though, and was sent away to test this sense. Again, my heart cried out. “How can I know—really know—what God wants?” I had to know! This burning question drove me into a hermitage in the middle of Kansas.

After a couple of months there, I decided that the moment of discernment had arrived. For a few days, I wrestled, agonized, prayed, cried out for clarity. And heard nothing.

Finally, I lost patience. After all, I was 23 years of age and fully ready to plunge into my place in life. If God wasn’t answering, perhaps that meant I was to make up my own mind, and then he would, of course, bless my decision.

So I took out a legal-sized piece of yellow paper, and divided it into four columns lengthwise. I wrote down the pros and cons of marriage and of a consecrated life in the Church. Whichever side had the greater number of pros, I said to myself, would be my choice.

But by the end of the evening, the two sides were fairly evenly divided. And I realized that this approach would not work. My mind could not give me my vocation. The root meaning of the word “vocation” is “calling.” Can one call oneself? No, it is God who calls us to himself through a particular pathway.

The evening didn’t end with a sense of futility, however. Just as I wrote my last point, it was as if God took the paper out of my hand, and palpably filled the room with his presence. This presence was so powerful that the tiny hermitage could not contain him. So I went outside.

And the vast panorama of the night sky, filled with myriad stars, could not contain him either.

And God said in my heart, “Cheryl Ann, I do have a plan for your life, but it is not time to reveal it. You must trust and wait. When you are ready, I will tell you, but you cannot force my hand.”

So I know, now, from the depths of my being, that discernment means listening to God’s voice.

Listening to God

Pay attention to me. Come to Me. Listen, and your soul will live (Is 55). Our souls thirst for the living God and will not be satisfied with anything less. Yet what a journey it is to the deepest recesses of our hearts, where God awaits us! Superficial listening will not hear him. The intellect alone will not hear him. Only with the “ears of the Holy Spirit” can we hear God.

That night in the hermitage, I had started by listening to myself and to my human thoughts and desires. But when I came to the end of my resources (which were clearly inadequate), the Holy Spirit took hold of me and began to teach me.

That evening he showed me that I was bound by my human way of thinking. Without being aware of it, I had been operating under the false notion that if I wanted to find God in the deepest possible way and to live a life of holiness, I would have to live the most radical lifestyle possible. To my eyes, this meant living in a hermitage.

First, God needed to break through that inner lie. Only then could I stand before him in freedom and be able to hear his voice. In order to live my own vocation in truth and love, I had to come to know that all vocations are beautiful and holy, and that the best one for me was whichever one he was calling me to.

Obstacles to Listening in Freedom

Many are the obstacles, the “hearing impediments” to listening to God. Do I truly want to do God’s will, or do I want to do what pleases me or makes sense? Are my defenses so strong and immediate that I will rationalize away what my heart hears?

Are my fears and wounds so strong that they cloud the vision that God is trying to impart? Is my faith in God’s power so weak that I immediately discount a particular call because I am aware of the truth that I am weak and unworthy?

In this process of coming to the depths of our hearts where God waits to speak to us, we need the Holy Spirit to purify and strengthen and teach us. We have to confront our fears of rejection, mistakes, and failure, and of pain and suffering. We must confront our fear of the cross.

And, most importantly, we must be willing to obey.

God is faithful. When I was ready, or when the time was right, he gave me a clear answer: I belonged in Madonna House.

The need for discernment never ends. Throughout these past thirty years and throughout my life as a member of Madonna House, I’ve needed to make many decisions requiring discernment. Some were major, like a previous discernment to become Roman Catholic, and the discernment of Madonna House as my true vocation.

Others were not as life-changing. Should I go on retreat for my holidays or visit my family? What hymns should I select for this Sunday? (I am the choir director of MH.) Should I challenge one of the applicants (novices of MH) on a particular issue or remain silent and just pray? (I am the director of training for the applicants.)

For all of these decisions, I could just use my intellect and experience and make a choice. But I have learned that God does have a particular will for us—a way that will most perfectly bring us to the deepest life.

And I have come to know that nothing is more important than living in God’s will, for it is in God’s will that I find truth, peace, freedom, and love.

These are not just nice words. If I’m not moving in God’s will, if I haven’t asked Him, or—worse—if I’m rebelling, my being, on the deepest level, is restless and unpeaceful. Spiritually, it truly is a matter of life and death. So in all the major decisions I need to make, I enter a process of discernment.

Let me give you an example from a recent experience. In the spring of 2001, one of the MH staff told me about a pilgrimage she had recently made to the Holy Land. As she spoke, I felt a stirring from deep within, a sense of the Holy Spirit stirring the waters of my soul.

This surprised me. I hadn’t travelled in almost twenty-five years, since before I joined Madonna House. Yet I suddenly knew that I should take this same pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Intuitions like this need to be tested. First, I gathered information: how much would it cost? Could I raise the money? Would I receive the necessary permission from my director at MH? Would I receive the blessing of my spiritual director? Was it safe to travel there, with all the political turmoil in that land?

After I had completed this stage of the process, I had to let go of the idea, because it was decided that the summer was too busy a time for me to be away from Combermere.

Also, there were concerns about the danger involved. I was also concerned, so was quite able to obey this decision.

Imagine my surprise, then, when a few weeks later, out of the blue, I was told that my responsibilities could be covered by others, and that I could go after all! It seemed to be God’s will, but because of my own concern for safety, I asked my spiritual director to help me receive confirmation from God.

He directed me to simply open the Bible and ask God for confirmation. The first passage I turned to was from the Old Testament, a passage recounting God’s pledge to lead his people to the Promised Land. The second passage was from the New Testament, a passage recounting the going up to Jerusalem! Pretty clear!

Then because I had followed the process through to the end, I had complete peace about entering this holy but troubled land. There were virtually no other pilgrimages or tours, but I knew we’d be safe. And so we were.

“How can I know—really know—God’s will for me?” Listen deeply to the Holy Spirit. Allow him to purify and teach you, so that you can clearly hear. Be honest in your willingness to obey what God tells you.

Peace can only be found in God’s will, no matter how that path feels or looks to you and whether or not you understand it. Trust him and his love for you. He is faithful.

My Dear Family

FALLING IN LOVE WITH GOD

by Catherine Doherty

Why should it be difficult to fall in love with God? In the Old Testament, God is the bridegroom of Israel and she is his spouse. The Song of Songs speaks of him leaping over the hills to come to her.

In Jeremiah Yahweh says, Even if you have prostituted yourselves under every bush, come back to me, Israel (3:2,12). And in Isaiah: If your sins be red as scarlet, I shall make them whiter than snow (1:18).

In the New Testament, Christ speaks to us constantly about being the bridegroom. If all this is true, why do we have to inquire about how to pray? Perhaps we are really asking how to love, because, after all, prayer is simply an expression of our love.

Our prayer could be like this: “Lord, I love you for all those who do not love you. Lord, I love you for all those who do not love you.” We could repeat this over and over again.

In Zen Buddhism, one is supposed to sit in the lotus position and meditate until nothing at all is left in the mind: Forget about yesterday, today, and tomorrow and concentrate on the present moment.

But it seems to me, Christianity has a better idea. For us, contemplation is the contemplation of a Person. We contemplate God as two lovers contemplate each other on park benches and when they are alone. They hold hands and look deep into each other’s eyes.

For us, prayer is like a woman contemplating her husband after the marriage act. Both lie still and gaze upon each other in silence.

Silence can be the greatest expression of love. Such silence is deep, unfathomable, and endless. It already partakes of eternity. Such silence touches the face of God upon whom, without God’s grace, man cannot gaze and live.

This kind of silence embraces Christ, touches the face of the Father, and knows by experience the reality of the Holy Spirit.

At first such silence is tremulous, because it is difficult for us to rid ourselves of extraneous thoughts. But little by little the silence becomes very quiet, and the person, with hands extended or with no gestures at all, loses himself of herself slowly into God.

Or rather, God draws the person into himself until everything is totally still. Then we know that God is truly present. Because he is present, this silence becomes the moment when the kingdom of heaven is here among us. Such is the knowledge we receive in the darkness of unknowing, where God teaches us about himself.

Our prayer is simple. Many Eastern religions repeat one word over and over, and we do, too. We repeat the name of our beloved: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

We call this prayer the “prayer of the presence of God.” When we close the window of our intellects and open the door of our hearts, when we go into the depths of silence, we return with the name of God upon our lips and in our hearts.

Now we go about the world repeating it, and in this way we become a prayer. A human being achieves great joy when he becomes a prayer. Wherever he goes, he radiates Christ.

Prayer will come when we fall in love with God. The way to fall in love with God is on our knees.

Everything in us resists this falling in love. For who wants to fall in love with the Crucified One? Who wants to climb the hill of Golgotha, eternally present to all of us? Who wants to be crucified on the other side of Christ’s cross, even though this is his wedding bed?

But if we fall in love with the Crucified One, we shall know something else as well. We shall know joy beyond all knowing.

We shall have peace, the peace he promised. We shall be able to lift up all things before his face. We shall make up what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ, for the body of Christ still suffers. Are we ready?

If we reach this point, prayer will spring like a song from our hearts. Love will uphold it.

Once we fall in love with God, we will love—even if we don’t necessarily like—the untrustworthy, the ugly, the tired, the sick, the drug addict, the murderer, everyone.

When we fall in love with God, we will receive the gift of compassion and tenderness. With these gifts, we will really begin to be “people of the towel and the water,” washing the feet of everyone, because now we know that everyone is Christ and Christ is in everyone.

On my bed at night, I sought him whom my heart loves, the bride says in the Song of Songs (3:1). And suddenly I encounter him! There he is; he is here, just here! Now everyone around me becomes my beloved. Now it is easy for me to love. Now prayer comes forth from my heart as a brook runs down to a river. Prayer is simply love gushing toward the beloved.

Adapted from Soul of My Soul, pp. 11-14, available from MH Publications

THE STORY OF A HIPPIE

by Sandra Lynch

Occasionally, over the years, I’ve heard various people ask the question, “Whatever happened to those hippies of the late 1960s and all their talk of peace and love?” And I’ve always wanted to say, “I can tell you what happened to this one.”

But since most of those people were talking on the radio, I wasn’t able to tell them. Now I have a chance to tell you. This “hippie” was picked up by a hank of her long hair and deposited on the doorstep of Madonna House to learn about a God that she didn’t believe in.

How I got there, I don’t know. I wasn’t a Catholic, I didn’t have any interest in going to Canada, and I certainly didn’t want religion. I wasn’t even interested in living in the countryside.

All I know is that at the age of 23, I was in a dead-end rut —a university student in Austin, Texas, working part-time as a barmaid. I had no vision of what I wanted for my future.

I talked about high ideals but lived with the attitude of “It’s my life, so I can do with it what I want.”

One day a friend walked into the bar and in a 15-minute conversation, told me of a place she’d just come back from—a community in Canada where men and women were living out our ideals of “peace and love.”

The glitch for me was that it was a religious community, a place where people made promises of poverty, chastity and obedience. Good grief, she had to be kidding!

I had had my fill of Christianity. When I was a child it was: “go to Church” every Sunday, and then in the summertime “go to vacation Bible school.” My father was in the U.S. Air Force and we moved around a lot. We were “non-denominational Protestant,” which meant that wherever we happened to be living, we went to the nearest church.

When I was in high school, I decided to join the Methodist Church and took instructions. I’m afraid I spent most of my time with my ears and heart closed and my mouth open, challenging the tenets of their faith. I must have been a real pain in the neck for those people, but they were consistently kind to me. So in the end I joined up.

It didn’t take long, though, before I began to feel there was something wrong. People didn’t seem to be living out the faith they professed. Christianity looked to me like a Sunday-going-to-church thing, and, if that was all there was to it, it was pretty dull. Once I went away to university, I stopped going.

In my second year of university, I came in contact with religion in a different form—a more personal spirituality that I found in books and in people I met. I fell in love with Russian history and Russian novels, especially Dostoyevsky.

I studied philosophy for the first time and found I wasn’t alone in the questions I was asking. People had always asked these questions.

I went to a Catholic Mass (I was pursuing a certain red-headed boy who was Catholic) and was stunned by a sense of mystery that I had never experienced in a church before.

Then I began to notice that it was the Catholics in my philosophy class who were the most serious about what we were studying and that my favorite professors were Catholics. And whether they went to church or not, these professors approached their subject matter on a spiritual rather than on a material level.

I read the novels of James Joyce and thought about the Church which he was so critical of and yet was so formed by. What was this Catholic Church that consumed people’s lives—this Church that wasn’t just a Sunday morning institution?

Then I moved. I changed schools (I had been in school in Europe) and hit the American university scene in 1967. I was drawn into Zen Buddhism. I took some courses on it and tried meditation (I always fell asleep). Then I abandoned all this for the high rhetoric of anti-war marches and hedonistic living.

It was at that time that I heard about a community in Canada where men and women were trying to live out the ideals of peace and love. Within a week I had taken care of my obligations, packed up all my worldly possessions, and was on my way to Boston, via Combermere.

I planned to check out this Madonna House and then head on to Boston to see what life had to offer me there. I never made it to Boston.

I know now that it was the power of Our Lady of Combermere’s outstretched arms that drew me across the continent to that small, out-of-the-way place in order to have my feet placed solidly on the path that God intended me to travel.

It wasn’t easy being there, though. I wept a lot. I didn’t like the hugging when people greeted me. I questioned everything.

Why did I have to go to Mass? Why couldn’t I work in the bush with the men? How did you know God exists? Do I have to iron that shirt again? All of me was met with patience, love, acceptance, and answers.

I discovered that God draws the whole person—through the intellect as well as through the emotions and spirit. So you don’t need to surrender your rational self to be religious.

I found someone who would sit and listen to me by the hour, someone who was real smart, highly educated, well-travelled and even loved God—a Madonna House priest who became my spiritual director. If he could believe, I figured, there must be something to it.

I don’t know how it happened, but as Christmas approached (I had come in September), I knew there was a God, that He loved me, and that I wanted to get to know him.

After passing through the liturgical richness of Advent and Christmas, I knew that I wanted to become a Catholic.

I wanted it partly for the “glitter” and incense which enabled me to experience a wee bit of the glory of God, and partly because, as a student of history, I could see that this was Christ’s Church established by his Apostles, a Church that was still flourishing after 2,000 years. (That longevity really impressed me.)

So, how was my life changed by my time in Madonna House? In every way. Besides becoming a Catholic, I married a man who was also a guest there, and together we have daily sought to live our faith as we saw it lived out at Madonna House. Thank you, God and Our Lady of Combermere.

FACING A DECISION?

Are you faced with a difficult decision? Do you feel trapped in a gray area with no black-and-white options? You need a path out of your quandary. You need discernment.

It’s a Latin word: cern (to sift), and dis (among/between), a procedure used by sages and saints—John Eudes, Thomas Aquinas, and Ignatius Loyola —to name three classic Christian authors. Here are 25 steps to practical wisdom, winnowed from their works.

Be Prepared

First, you need to be:

1. Peaceful. Unless it’s an emergency, never make an important decision when you aren’t at peace.

2. Patient. Don’t demand instant answers. Be willing to live in mystery and let the plan unfold in its own good time.

3. Confident. Trust God; he is with you and within you.

4. Prayerful. Ask him for clarity of mind and courage of heart.

5. Honest. Look at your situation as candidly and as fully as possible.

Get Started

To give the Holy Spirit some elbow-room, more space inside you to do his job:

6. Cleanse your soul of sin and of other obstacles to God’s grace.

7. Seek to know God’s will rather than your own.

8. Choose to set aside your personal preferences if necessary in order to do his will.

9. Pray for the light to know and for the surrender and power to act.

10. Call upon the angels or saints for help.

Listen Up

Let God speak to you in:

11. Scripture, Church documents, and writings and lives of saints or wisdom figures.

12. Your personal life. Your mental, emotional, and physical make-up and your childhood and later experiences.

13. Daily happenings. The people, events and circumstances of every day.

14. Your conscious mind, with its desires, dreams, feelings, and hopes.

15. Your deep heart, with its hidden mysterious yearnings and its sense of rightness about given situations.

Take a Risk

Make a preliminary choice:

16. Examine your motives. A mixed motive is not necessarily a bad one, but it will need to be purified later on.

17. Reason things out coolly and neutrally. Weigh the pros and cons without rationalizing.

18. Let intuition guide you. Listen to that “feeling of rightness,” one that is accompanied by peace rather than by fear or anxiety.

19. Imagine other possibilities. If close to death, or before the judgment seat of God, would you modify the choice? If it were someone else’s problem, how would you counsel them?

20. Seek guidance. Reveal, as openly as you can, to someone you trust, enough information for him or her to make a trustworthy appraisal.

21. Ask God if he approves your choice. Does he want to fine-tune it?

22. Make your Choice. Transform your preliminary decision into a fully-committed one.

Follow-up Steps:

23. Move discreetly. Major changes often require some delay. If it’s a vocational choice, ask those in a similar state of life what is the best tempo at which to progress.

24. Move decisively in the direction you’ve chosen. If your decision is to remain in your present situation rather than to change it, you may need to take steps to alter it, and/or to revitalize your commitment.

25. Be at peace. When God asks you to choose, he rarely intervenes as dramatically as he did with St. Paul or St. Matthew. He usually gives hints and suggestions and lets you sift (discern) the options for yourself.

If, after making a choice, you find yourself with some misgivings, peacefully ask God about it. Let him lead you as he wishes.

Combermere Diary

CELEBRATING WHAT IS HIDDEN

by Paulette Curran

For the rest of the world June 8th is an ordinary day, hidden among other ordinary days. But for Madonna House it is very special. It is the feast of Our Lady of Combermere and the day on which our members make and renew their promises. It is a day in which what is usually hidden is celebrated—in songs, in the liturgy, in the homily, the decorations, the food, the festive clothing, the joy-filled reception.

And what is it that is usually hidden? The call of Christ to a covenant, to an ongoing communion of love, and the “yes” of a human soul in response.

On June 8th, four made their first promises, thus becoming members of MH, and four, having made temporary promises over a seven-year period, made their promises “forever.” Another eight renewed for two years, either here or in their mission houses.

Many eyes filled with tears as we watched one after the other of them say, “Because I desire with my whole heart to respond to the call of Jesus Christ to preach the Gospel with my life, I, , hereby promise with the help of Our Lady to live in poverty, chastity, and obedience… according to the Madonna House spirit and mandate.”

Those making their promises for the first time were given their crosses—the plain crosses with the words ”pax” (peace) and “caritas” (love)—the cross which we wear as the only visible sign of our membership in Madonna House.

It was, as always, a glorious day, and as always, some details varied. Making more visible the increasing multi-culturalism of our apostolate, one person make promises in Polish and two in French.

Another thing that was different this year was the presence of numbers of children. Family and friends of those making promises always come, but this year there were more children than ever before.

Now the festivities are over, and, except for those who made first promises and have left for their vacations, for all of them as for the rest of us, it is back to the ordinary everyday life that is the vehicle for living out those promises.

And in Combermere, that ordinary, everyday life has been busy and full. The jobs that always need to be done continue to be done—dishes, cleaning, cooking, laundry, fixing machinery, feeding the animals, etc., etc., etc.

These days the farmers have been getting the fields ready for planting, and the shop keepers have been stocking the shelves and making displays in preparation for the summer crowds. Others of us have been getting things ready for the young people who will be visiting us immediately after World Youth Day. Still others are doing carpentry while others are mailing out books for MH Publications.

And events, both liturgical and otherwise, we always have with us. We celebrated Pentecost, and had our usual Corpus Christi procession together with our local parish. Many families including numerous children attended. (It is said that our parish, in this highly Catholic area, has a very high per capita number of children.)

And Fr. Brière travelled to Korea. He felt moved to go there to “plant seeds” of MH and to get people praying for priests. While there, Fr. Brière met with many people including three bishops and a cardinal and was interviewed by the Korean Catholic press. When he spoke to one group about apostolic farming, they said, “We have those ideas ourselves, but never knew anyone was doing it.”

God even used a brief time when he was hospitalized in Korea. As a patient, Fr. Brière ministered to a number of people—Catholics (who are 10% of the population), Protestants, and Buddhists—all of whom wanted to receive a blessing.

One major event for our community was the re-election of Jean Fox as director general of women. Madonna House has a unusual way of electing a director general—a way which Catherine taught us, a way called “sobornost.” We do not talk about the election among ourselves but pray to the Holy Spirit to know who he has in mind. Then we have however many ballots it takes to reach unanimity. This time it only took a few, and when Jean was re-elected, the women celebrated with a party.

And in May as usual, the directors of all our houses came to Combermere for their annual meetings. One change this year was that the directors met in small groups as well as together as a whole which, a couple of them told me, resulted in more focused and deeper discussions.

One of those attending the local directors’ meetings for the first time was the new director of a new house—Victoria Fausto. The new house is in Surrey, British Columbia, outside Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. By the time you receive this paper, the four staff will be there, and the house, which is located on the property of a retreat center, will have opened.

Well, the first event of this article celebrated the beginning stages of a vocation —commitment. This next event, the last in this article, celebrates the living out of that commitment—perseverance.

May 3rd was the 50th anniversary in promises of two women staff: Marité Langlois and Mamie Legris. And a very special 50th anniversary it was—the first fiftieth anniversary of members of our young community!

The library put up a display which included a poster of photos of them, copies of the promise form they signed, and a write-up of their first promises by Fr. Eddie Doherty in a 1952 issue of RESTORATION.

And though we generally haven’t been making a big deal of personal anniversaries, (which up until now have been 25ths), two days later, on Sunday afternoon, we feted Mamie and Marité at a special tea. Jean Fox spoke of Marité’s unfailing graciousness and hospitality, recounting how she could even make the basement dorm sound inviting. And about Mamie she said, “If God gives me one drop of the faith that Mamie has, I will be grateful for the rest of my life.”

Jean reminded us that “Madonna House was built on the faith of these two women, and if it weren’t for them, the rest of us wouldn’t be here.”

Others told stories about them, and they themselves “said a few words.” It was a blessed, blessed time—one in which the unique beauty of each of these women and the fruits of their commitment and perseverance were not only visible but radiant.

Word Made Flesh

TREASURE IN THE MANURE PILE

by Fr. Pat McNulty

The following is a reflection on the story of the treasure in the field, the Sunday Gospel for July 28th.

———-

When I was a little kid on my imaginary “Old MacDonald’s Farm,” as the children’s song was called, we sang “a moo-moo here; a moo-moo there.” So for us, my brothers and sisters and me, all cows were “moo-moos.”

We learned to distinguish the moo-moos’ gender, and we learned about the wonderful products that came from the momma moo-moo’s milk —things like butter, cheese and ice cream. And of course once having tasted ice cream, who could not love all moo-moos?

I continued to love them all until I began to spend some time on my uncle’s farm. Though I didn’t lose my love for ice cream, I did temporarily lose my love for moo-moos when I discovered that the mammary output is immeasurably exceeded by the cow’s other output. Manure.

And that has to be shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled, which leads me to Christ’s parable about a treasure in a field. And what is that connection?

In the late 1960s during a very difficult and important time in my life as a priest, I was corresponding with Catherine Doherty, the foundress of Madonna House, about my difficulties in the parish. At one point, she advised me to come to Madonna House as soon as possible, and to go into the poustinia (a particular kind of hermitage).

So I went and when I got there, she sent me to a little cabin which was about a 45-minute walk from the MH farm. There I lived in solitude from Sunday evening until Thursday morning.

On Thursday morning, I walked to the farm and worked. Guess what? Among other things, I was in charge of cleaning up after the “moo-moos”— and I don’t mean their ice cream!

One Sunday evening I was at the main house for supper and sitting next to Catherine. I don’t remember the conversation exactly, but I know that I was trying to make sense out of my life in Combermere. I was, after all, the pastor of one of the most active, avant-garde, relevant, issue-orientated parishes in my diocese.

“I don’t get it,” I said to Catherine. “The world is going to hell in a hand basket, and here I am in the Canadian bush shoveling you-know-what.”

She may have put her fork down, but I think she simply turned to me and said, “Fr. Dolly—her nickname for me —if you don’t find Christ in the manure pile, you won’t find him anywhere.”

Clunk! Thirty-five years later I am still learning about the kingdom of heaven through Catherine’s words about the “treasure” in a field on a farm in Ontario, Canada.

So whenever the Sunday gospel is about the treasure in the field and the kingdom of heaven, this incident comes to my mind. And I think it is obvious why.

But perhaps not so obvious is its relationship to a RESTORATION issue about vocations. Let me see if I can explain the connection which is very clear to me.

There are many dimensions to this reality that we Catholics refer to as “a vocation.” The one I want to focus on is the one I think I re-learned from the “moo-moos” on the farm.

After conception and birth our first “vocation” is to be baptized. And after we are baptized, the fullness of the Christian vocation is gradually revealed to us: namely, that, empowered by grace, we are called to love as Christ loves.

That’s it! That’s the vocation of all Christians. Period. The rest of the question about vocation is about how we are going to love: whether as married folk, single folk, priests, religious, or consecrated lay people.

So when I am “looking for my vocation,” what I am really looking for is the way for me to live out my vocation as a Christian: the way God is calling me to love.

Often when people talk about finding their vocation, they sound as if they are waiting on God to reveal to them personally some new and totally unique call—as if the basic Christian vocation were something other than the call to love.

So when such people ask me, “What is God’s will for me,” I say, “God’s will for you is that you love as Christ loves. When you understand that, it will be much easier for you to know and choose the way to live that out—married, single, or whatever.

Because if you reach that point of clarity, then you can listen to your heart which already has its own deep, unique, and holy desire.

For within each of the vocations—marriage, single, consecrated, etc.—there are endless possibilities for your baptismal vocation to blossom and come fully alive socially, spiritually, and in every other way.

And, if you listen to your deepest heart, you will know how you individually are meant to live all of that out.

What most baptized people who are looking for their vocation are really looking for is how to discover their heart’s desire. In knowing that heart’s desire lies the treasure of knowing how to best live out their baptismal vocation to love.

And sometimes we do need to get away from it all for a time so that the Holy Spirit can show us, and so that we can listen and hear our heart’s desire.

That’s where cows and farms often come into the picture. They are symbols of places where we can go to listen to our hearts, and when that place is a Christian community, to also see how others are living out their baptismal vocations to love.

Back in the ’60s when I began to doubt both my baptismal vocation and the way I was living it out as a priest, Catherine reminded me in very graphic imagery that if I didn’t discover Christ wherever I was and in whatever I was doing, I wouldn’t discover him at all.

What I was actually doubting was that my being a priest was relevant to a troubled world. And so I thought I had to find another vocation.

The treasure which the Holy Spirit was pointing out to me “in the field” was that my primary vocation as one who is baptized doesn’t change whether I am in the most vibrant, relevant parish in the diocese or on the most remote farm in Ontario, or whether I am married, single or a priest.

And if I didn’t get that clear, everything else in my Christian faith would also remain just a parable that I would never understand.

Yes, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field… (Mt 13:44), and sometimes what we have to do in order to discover it again may be as simple as spending a few weeks on a farm away from it all so we can hear our heart’s desire.

But don’t be surprised if the answer isn’t in the ice cream!

My Story

GIVING GOD A CHANCE

by Denise Becker

One day in my grade eleven religion class, we were given a choice between two assignments. We could either write an essay about a religious topic or do volunteer work at Marian Centre (the Madonna House in Regina near where I lived) and write about that experience. I decided “to give God a chance in my life.” I chose the volunteer work with the Christian community.

So every Saturday for a few months, I went downtown and helped serve the noon meal to the “Brothers Christopher,” as the MH staff, seeing Christ in them, called the men who came to their soup kitchen.

The staff there welcomed me into their work, life, and hearts. It was my first experience of a Christian community, and of people living their faith in a vocation other than marriage, and it is difficult to express how much this experience touched me.

One day, they told me their foundress Catherine Doherty was coming for a “visitation.” I had noticed something special was going on because they were waxing all the floors and doing lots of extra cleaning. Their way of doing ordinary things with care and their joy in doing it made an impression on me.

They invited me to her lecture and I went. Then after she was given three standing ovations for her talk, I was introduced to her. I was only sixteen and was so nervous and overwhelmed that I don’t remember if she said anything to me.

When I was writing my essay about my volunteeering experience, I came to the conclusion that this, of course, was not my vocation. The truth was: I didn’t understand the life and it scared me. I had given God a chance, and then I ran away.

And though I promptly seemed to forget the whole experience, somewhere in the back files on my mind, I made note of this way of living out the Gospel.

And there it stayed for twelve years, during which time I married, divorced, and had an annulment. It stayed there until, that time of crisis over, I was in another one.

I was a recent university graduate with a well-paying job as a social worker in child protection. By external, secular standards, I was “making it.” But inside I felt like a dried-up desert dying of thirst.

Every morning before going to work, I felt like screaming. It was extremely difficult for me to face the immense pain of the people I was working with when I couldn’t look at my own pain and need for forgiveness and healing. After only ten months in my job, I was beginning to experience burn-out. I felt like I was at the end of my proverbial rope.

It was while I was in this state that God began to invite me once again to give him a chance. I read Medjugorje: The Message by Wayne Weible and something began to change in my heart.

Then one day as I sat on my bed feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted, I thought: if I ask God to get me out of this mess, what can I lose? Certainly not joy. I don’t have any. So I decided to give God a chance—this time a chance to rearrange my life.

I picked up my Bible and praying, “What am I supposed to do?” I opened it. I opened to the story of the rich young man—Lk 18:22. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one more thing you need to do. Sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come follow me.

Oh no! The Little Mandate of Madonna House begins with the words, “Arise - go! Sell all you possess…” Suddenly I knew in my heart that I was being called to visit Madonna House in Combermere.

All the “buts” rose in my mind: But I have to pay off my debts. But I have a permanent job. But everyone will think I’m crazy.

I opened my Bible again. Maybe there was a different optional plan in there for me. I opened to Matthew 21:43. “And so I tell you,” added Jesus, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits.

God meant business! I felt it was too late to turn back now. I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I did.

So I quit my job, sold my car to pay my debts, and went to Combermere. There I stayed as a long-term working guest, and the routine of community work and prayer, the liturgies, the sacraments, the consecration to the Mother of God, and having a spiritual director healed my burn-out.

Plus I learned more about my Catholic faith and began my faith journey in earnest.

After ten months I left Madonna House. I worked as a nanny and then attended a Bible school. I still believed I was called, not to Madonna House, but to marriage.

Then when I was thirty years old, during a praise and worship session at the Bible school, God again gave me a gentle invitation.

I saw in my mind’s eye the image of Jesus standing at the front of the altar of a cathedral looking towards me. I was standing at the back at the beginning of a long aisle. I knew I was being asked to make a choice: Jesus was asking me to marry him!

In my mind, I danced on the spot for a while. I was very uncomfortable, to say the least. Then I decided to say “yes” and ran down the aisle to Jesus.

There he stood radiating joy and welcome and an incredible, unconditional acceptance and love for me as a person. I had never seen such love in anyone’s eyes.

But though this experience impressed itself vividly on my mind, I didn’t understand it. I had never heard about the vocation of marriage to Jesus the Bridegroom. The only kind of marriage I knew was the usual kind with husband and children.

So after Bible school, still thinking I was called to marriage as I understood it, I went back to work and started dating. But God never seemed to tire of giving me chances to choose his will for me.

A year later after that experience, when I was 31 and had suffered the break-up of another relationship, I prayed for the courage to look at God’s will for me. Then I took the risk of praying my rosary for the intention of receiving the desire for the vocation that God seemed to be calling me to—the vocation of Madonna House. I did this for several months.

Then one day my spiritual director said to me: “I think you had better listen to this vision you had of a marriage with Jesus. It could be that Madonna House is the way he has in mind for you to live it out. The proof is always in the pudding, so to speak, when it comes to a vocation.

“And so, if you really think you are called to Madonna House, then you had better write to the director there soon.”

So I did, and I asked her which community was the best for living out the marriage to Jesus. She answered:

“If Jesus is asking you to be his lover, you can only say “yes” to that call. Madonna House is certainly a community where you can fully enter into the mystery of that love affair. So if you are ready to plunge into the depths of faith, hope, and love according to the spirit of Catherine Doherty, I say, Come as soon as you can and become an applicant on September 8th.”

So I did, and on June 8, 1996, after almost two years of formation, I made my first promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience “according to the Madonna House spirit and mandate,” Thus I became a member of Madonna House.

The “Hound of Heaven” had never given up on me, and his gentle nudgings had finally won me.

The Pope’s Corner

CHOOSE JOY

by Pope John Paul II

In connection with World Youth Day 2002, we here present an excerpt from a talk at an international meeting of young people at Assisi in October 2001.

———-

The theme chosen for your international meeting is “Joy.” It is a topic of great interest and timeliness because we all need authentic, lasting joy.

Young Francis was called by his friends “the king of parties” because he was available and generous, brilliant and likeable. Humanly he could have had many reasons to be happy. Yet he was missing something. He abandoned it all when he found what he needed most.

He met Christ and discovered true happiness. He realized that one can only be happy by giving one’s life for an ideal, by building something enduring in the light of the demanding counsels of the Gospel.

Many false teachers point out dangerous ways that lead to fleeting joys and satisfactions. Today expressions of our culture are mired in superficiality. In imitating Francis and Clare, refuse to sell your dreams too cheaply! Dream, but in freedom! Plan, but in truth!

The Lord is also asking you: “Will you also go away?” Answer with the apostle Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (Jn 6:68). God alone is the infinite horizon of your life. The more you know him, the more you will find out that only he is love and an inexhaustible source of joy.

But to enter and remain in contact with God, it is indispensable to establish a deep relationship with him in prayer. When it is genuine, prayer spreads divine energy in every context and at every moment of life. It makes us live in a new way. Is it not prayer that made Francis a new man and Clare a source of light?

You are God’s and God is yours! The awareness of belonging to God will make you, like Francis and Clare, creatures who are soothed by his presence. “The love of God gives happiness,” wrote St. Clare in one of her letters.

“His sweetness pervades the whole soul, which is the worthiest of all creatures. It is made by the grace of God greater than heaven. Indeed, whilst the skies with all the other created things cannot contain the Creator, the faithful soul instead, and it alone, is his dwelling place and home.”

The soul is greater than heaven! Having understood this profound spiritual reality, Francis and Clare did not hesitate to hasten towards the peaks of holiness.

Holiness is not a sort of extraordinary journey which can only be undertaken by a few “geniuses” but, as I recalled in my recent apostolic letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, it is the “high standard” of ordinary Christian living. Holiness is doing something beautiful for God every day, but also recognizing what he has done and continues to do in us and for us.

Be holy, because the lack of holiness is what makes the world sad. The saints that inspire you continue to exercise an extraordinary fascination because they dedicated their whole lives without interruption to Christ. And, involuntarily, they have given rise to a “revolutionary” evangelical style, which still today continues to fascinate so many….

Francis and Clare, not only became brother and sister to every human being, but to all animate and inanimate creatures. In contemplating nature, when Francis discovers that everything speaks to him of God, his eyes are filled with joy, and he exclaims in the Canticle of Brother Sun: everything “…from you, Most High, bears significance.”

May you too learn to look at your neighbor and at creation with God’s eyes. Mainly respect its summit, which is the human person.

At the school of such excellent teachers, learn the careful and attentive use of goods. Do your utmost to see that they are better distributed and shared, with full respect for the rights of every person. In reading the great book of creation, may your spirits open to grateful praise to the Creator.

Like Clare and Francis, learn to have constant recourse to divine help. They repeat to each one of you, “Put your trust anew in the Lord, and he will take care of you.” Yes, trust in God.

Also imitate Francis and Clare in their filial entrustment to Our Lady and seek warmth and protection in her. Be close to Mary, our sweetest Mother, whom the Church has invoked down the centuries as “cause of our joy.” She will also be a cause of joy for you because Mary is a caring Mother for everyone.

THE VOICES OF GOD

by Bill Ryan

I am at Madonna House because of a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.

Angela and I sat in a restaurant, sipping wine by candlelight, awaiting our meal, getting reacquainted. She leaned toward me, her shining black hair haloed by the soft light, and whispered: “I have a book on a Russian baroness and her work among the poor. Her life is too heroic for me; you should be the one to read it.”

I knew Angela was a heroic person, and I was not. So we turned to other subjects—the paths we had taken after high school, the differences in education (her big university, my small college), our careers (hers in Spanish, mine in chemistry). We talked with quiet enthusiasm, as all young adults do when fresh out of school, secure in their first jobs, open to the future.

Burning Heart

Later, as I read the book she gave me, Tumbleweed, my heart burned within me, knowing that Catherine Doherty and her group lived in heroic dedication, and I didn’t. I had to silence my heart, telling it to wait for an explicit call.

A few years later, I had a new job in a new city. Angry at God’s silence in my life, I was looking for a church in which to complain to him. Passing a Catholic Information Center I’d never seen, the thought came: how I’d like to work there!

But I walked on. Juggling my time between a good job and graduate-school studies left no room for outside activities. When I was a few paces past the storefront, however, God stopped me in mid-stride and forced me to enter it.

There I found a beautiful young blonde talking on the phone. Her eyes widened. She gave me a beatific smile: “My name’s Betty. You married? Engaged? Going steady? No?! Then you have free time. Why not work with me?” What to say, but yes. She spoke on the phone to the Center’s director, “Okay, we got the male volunteer we were praying for!”

Months later, she and I drove from Ohio to Combermere for a Catholic Action week: she, to consider a nun’s vocation; I, to learn more about social justice and ways to change secular society.

Driving Passion

At the end of the week, we started home with a redhead in tow—Helen—hitching a ride back to the USA. As I drove, we talked passionately. I explained why I couldn’t return to Combermere, much as I admired the place. Helen insisted I’d be back soon.

The more I contested this, the more she laughed. Frustrated, I challenged her logic. She replied, “Methinks thou dost protest too much!” And I realized God was working deeper in me than I knew.

Hearing Voices

God speaks through people, events, and circumstances. Angela, Betty, and Helen were God’s voice—his spokespersons—calling me to a new level of commitment.

Shortly after this trip, God woke me up, five nights in a row! A voice in my heart said: (1) I love you very much; go to Combermere. (2) I didn’t say “join” MH; just be there a while. (3) I won’t say how long is “a while.” (4) I will not hold it against you if you refuse. (5) I can’t wait; I want a yes-or-no answer right now.

I took a month’s leave-of-absence from my job to return to Combermere and get this religious fervor out of my system, so I could return to a normal life. But the passion did not go away, and I ended up staying here.

Unspoken Words

Though it was women who brought me to Madonna House, it was the men who lived the life here that taught me to follow God’s call fully and faithfully.

In areas of spirituality, men’s voices tend to be quiet and muted. Yet the male of the species can be a spokesperson for God, for those attentive to the subtle whispered word.

Men embody two masculine virtues little understood by society. Catherine Doherty calls them Molchanie (Silence) and Strannik (Pilgrim).

The first quality is that of a man who teaches by indirection, knowing that mere words are frail creatures, unable to convey the robust complexity of life, and that actions (and a simple quiet presence) speak more loudly.

The second quality is that of a man unafraid of life, willing to risk everything for a noble cause, who nurtures and protects by reaching out to the wider world. He tends not to be a home body, a nest builder, a navel gazer. He yearns to be a champion of fairness, a warrior courageous enough to step “outside the box” and to pilgrim wherever life calls him. He accepts challenge, and often revels in it.

With Jesus

When this trait is touched by the presence of Jesus in a man’s soul, the `macho’ facade that protects his self-esteem slips away. He becomes open and free—maskless as Catherine Doherty calls it—able to show the face of love, compassion, courage, fidelity.

MH staff take promises of Poverty, Obedience, Chastity. I prefer to call it a commitment to being Open, Attentive, Loving! In this way I avoid the negative trap of thinking that, to be faithful, I must become destitute, subservient, frigid.

True Manhood

The MH men presented me with the path to life. Their “voices” expressed a strong virile manhood, courage and patience in adversity, generous service to the world so in need of witness. No pious sentimentality, wimp-ness, macho-ness, naivete. What prevailed was dignity, simplicity, honor, and innocence. And the bonds of brotherhood enhanced them.

Both men and women staff in MH revealed to me a maturity far beyond anything I’d experienced in any group of people. And Catherine Doherty was in a class by herself!

So, in 1961, I made a commitment to be Open, Attentive, Loving within this family. In 1968, I made this commitment for a lifetime.

LIFE OR DEATH?

by Jean Fox

As Catherine Doherty, the foundress of Madonna House often said, the heart of the difficulty in the world is not the economic, political, or cultural circumstances, but the division between good and evil, the division between life and death, a division in our own hearts.

The heart of the matter is identified in Deuteronomy where God says, I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life then, so that you and your descendants may live in the love of Yahweh, your God (Dt 30:15-20).

The domain of the inner being, called “free will,” is the sacred domain of each individual. No other person can take away from us this God-given ability to choose.

Every morning when we awake we must choose life— choose to live, choose to love, choose to serve. We must choose every day and perhaps several times during the day, in order to grow in grace, in truth, and in the fullness of life, as promised by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Time is short and the signs of a growing confrontation between spiritual forces are everywhere. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or magazine or see a current movies or television programs or the internet to see it.

You’ll find pornography, euthanasia, murder by abortion, children trying to blow up schools, and nations ripped to pieces by internal wars.

On the other hand, for those who stand for life, love, and God, there are signs of a revival. Witness, for example, the profusion of Catholic periodicals that have been launched just within the last ten to fifteen years.

We are in a catastrophe and, through faith, we know that God will ultimately triumph. But that triumph can be delayed, short-circuited, or watered down by the lack of fire in your heart and mine.

Many are undergoing transforming purifications. Many face pain or unspeakable fears. But all this can be transcended, because God’s presence is coming to you every day that you are faithful to the duty of the moment and every day that you receive the living Lord in the Eucharist.

We don’t have a minute to lose. Give your life to others. Pray and see how you can truly be the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears, the heart of Jesus Christ. Wherever you are, you carry God, and someone is waiting to receive the love he gives you today, to pass through you to those who are desperate for a drop of living water. Pray for one another and cling with all your might to life, the life that comes from God.

No Christian today can afford to be asleep, compromised, or complacent about anything. The life and death of the globe, to say nothing of billions of souls, is at stake.

From Inflamed by Love, pp. 44, 46, 191, 192, available from MH Publications.