A GLORY SUCH AS SHE NEVER DREAMED OF

by Karen Van De Loop

Mother’s Day card messages seemed so saccharine to me. Whose mother were they written for? None resembled my mother.

Olive Van De Loop was the best penny poker player in town—never forgetting a card that was played all night. And if you are a Wisconsinite, you would hesitate to take her on in Sheeps Head! In card games and in life, to borrow a phrase from G. K. Chesterton, Ma did not “suffer fools gladly!”

This was my kind and steadfast, wily and intelligent mother, and I’d like to tell you about the profound surprise God gave her and all of us at the end of her long, long life.

Among the great white pines, in a Wisconsin that was still pioneer country, Mary Olive was born in a small cabin in 1908 to Martin and Nettie Pearle Mullen. They had three children and Pearly died after the birth of the third when Olive was three.

Martin’s parents raised the children until, when Mom was ten, her grandmother died in the 1918 flu epidemic. The children were left in a lonely farmhouse with their grandfather and Uncle Christy while close by, their dad remained in his house down in the slough.

The children spent their summers with their mother’s family where there were many aunts and uncles their own age. That side of the family, Yankee-American, traced their ancestry to the Mayflower.

Her father’s family was Irish Catholic. In the 1840s Olive’s great-grandparents made the hard journey from Ireland on ship and then ox cart to a homestead in Wisconsin. With a few other families, they were among the first to settle in the wilderness along the Wisconsin River.

They were poets and fiddlers, full of song and life as they scrabble-farmed the poor soil. In this time before statehood, itinerant priests came on horseback, staying in homes as they made their rounds to say Mass and baptize, to marry and bury.

I always called her Ma, a moniker she told me in her eighties she never did like. Ma was a Catholic of her times: faithful to the sacraments and Sunday Mass. She always kept the fast and she gave up smoking for the forty days before Easter, and with no regard to our rebellion, there was no radio during Lent.

There were Lents when she went to daily Mass and communion. Ma’s marriage to Hank, an industrious Hollander, sometimes appeared a mismatch, and our rough and tumble family life was not always clear sailing. When it wasn’t, Ma’s salt-of-the-earth faith instinctively knew where to go.

And we did manage to say grace before Thanksgiving dinner when Grandma and Grandpa Van De Loop were with us, and, as happened with many families in the ’50s, our attempts at the family rosary never panned out.

In the ’40s Mom and Dad built our home. Side by side with him she laid cement block, hammered nails, and shingled. Ma held the board when Dad sawed; she made supper, kept the peace, and fed the dog. She was a good neighbor on Sixth Street and we lived in that home for over fifty years.

Families on our street remained intact and reflected the immigration to Wisconsin in the last 150 years. Most were Lutherans and Catholics, and there was one “Holy Roller” family to fill up the mix. We were Polish and Croatian, English and Scandinavian, French Canadian and Meti, Dutch, German, and Irish.

Sixth street was full of kids, and if we had had too many fights in a day she would not allow us to “let the sun go down on our anger.”

Mom did not hesitate to enlist a partner and engage in an innocent prank aimed at some other mother “just to set things straight.” But I never heard her gossip about anyone.

We had a big yard and during the war Ma had an impressive Victory Garden. An avid baseball fan, she always baffled me as she kept that intricate scoring during a game. And she called the Green Bay Packers, the Wisconsin football team, “our boys.”

She taught us the Charleston, threatening the studs of the kitchen floor! Every night after supper Ma worked the daily crossword puzzle—and never sneaked a peek at the answers.

In the early 1950s, Ma owned and ran a corner grocery store in which we all took turns working. It wasn’t a busy store and spending time around the square oil burner, in a variety of cast-off chairs, I learned to chit-chat with the collection of folks gathered there. Forty years down the path I realized they were the lonely ones of our neighborhood.

This is the “quite ordinary Catholic woman” Olive was. I miss Ma dearly for her spunk, dogged survival, and zest for finding life wherever she was and among whatever people she found along the way. She was fun! And I learned so much just by watching her.

———-

We grew up and left home and the years passed. Then came the day when it became apparent that Mom was having more difficulty with daily life. At first we thought it was due to grief, for within three years Dad and my brother, Bud, had died. Plus she had lost her independence when she had to move from her home and could no longer drive.

But it was not so simple. In her 87th year, my Ma was diagnosed with late onset Alzheimer’s disease. Needing attention to keep herself from harm, she moved into Bethel Center, a care facility not far from home.

Ma adjusted rapidly to this new setting, and those years at Bethel were happy ones. She was ambulatory and able to socialize and was not suffering from any debilitating organic disease. They had a terrific staff and Ma enjoyed all the daily activities.

Ma was the honey of the wing, and to her delight, the food was good! Because she had lost her mother when she was three years old, she had always carried a certain loneliness. Now in her nineties, she was receiving the care she had missed as a child.

Three months before her death Ma had a series of setbacks and could no longer walk. Soon she was refusing to eat. Slowly God was calling her back to himself, and we were faced daily with very sobering decisions about her end -of-life care.

“What would Jesus do?” I knew the ethics of all this, but this was my mother we were considering. Paragraph #2278 in the Catholic Catechism was helpful to me during these days of troubling decisions.

With the help of my spiritual director I sent a few lines to my sister, Rita, to pass on to Bethel.

•Our mother is dying, we know that.

•We do not want to hasten her death, nor do we want to prolong her life.

•We want our mother to die with dignity with whatever comfort is possible, and we want to be sure we are all reading on the same page when the term “comfort care” is used.

•We wish to maintain her present medications, for they are providing comfort and easing pain.

•If the question of the use of antibiotics for new infections arises, we wish to be consulted about that.

The day came when Ma’s condition radically changed and the news came that she had only a few days to live. I hurried home from Combermere.

Ma was in bed and unresponsive when I arrived. “Comatose,” they said, but when we prayed with her, powerful and appropriate emotions passed over her face. Although she had little speech, her facial expressions led us into the center of her heart where God was moving powerfully. In this super-charged spiritual atmosphere, I knew that she was aware that God was calling her home.

Though comatose, Mom would at times show gripping agony and fear, and my sister and I had many anguishing talks about just what to do for her. Then one day Mom managed to tell Rita that she “wanted to go down the path but just couldn’t.”

In the face of such unrelenting pain, my prayerful ministrations with holy water were frightfully inadequate. Sometimes I, too, was frightened. I had a “relic” of our Catherine Doherty and I prayed to her to obtain for Mom a peaceful death. We felt so impoverished, so powerless, that of ourselves we could do nothing for our mother.

I asked myself what was this all-embracing anguish that was keeping her from “going down the path.” All along she had been receiving the Sacrament of the Sick. Was this old, old woman waiting for what she remembered as “the Last Sacraments?”

We decided to send for a priest to come to anoint Ma again and to assure her that she was ready for “the great banquet.”

All during the anointing Mom’s eyes were closed and she remained unresponsive. We could not waken her, and I received her final Viaticum. Then…

The Turning Point

We were just saying good-bye to Fr. Chester when Ma opened her eyes with a sparkling twinkle in them and a great spreading smile! After so long not doing so, she seemed to recognize us!

We were witnessing the veil being lifted, and our mother glimpsing the Other Side.

For the whole next week we had our Mom back! The beautiful eyes, the loving smile were always there. A profound and sacred mystery had occurred before our eyes. So graciously had our prayer been heard! Now Mom was ready to “go down that path.”

“Mom, whom did you see when Father Chester prayed with you?” I asked her. “Jesus? Our Lady? Your guardian angel? Did your mother come to be with you?” Knowingly, she would serenely and silently gaze at us, but nary an answer came from her lips. Wordlessly she seemed to say, “This is my secret and mine alone.”

Mom did speak occasionally and, although I am no medical person, it seemed to me that her dementia was lifted. Photos of her that week show interior beauty, peace, contentment, and a sure knowledge that she had passed the final test.

So many of her loved ones came to be with her, retelling stories of the past. Sometimes Mom would just laugh aloud. We thanked her, we loved her, we held her—kisses all around.

The purest childlike love emanated from her. So close was she to God that it was like being with the Blessed Sacrament.

We were all pulled into this great mystery of one very ordinary woman who in two weeks had plunged into the totality of the solitude and abandonment of dying. Jesus in his dying on the cross had led the way for her. He taught her how it would be, and she had suffered with him.

My mother, a strong-willed survivor, was made able to peacefully let go of this life and “go down the path” to her True Home.

She spoke few words and each time they were words of piercing consolation. For six years she had known no one by name, yet one day she dredged up from the shadows of her disease Aunt Marie’s name! They had been friends for over seventy years.

A granddaughter, who has had “hard turns” in her life which had left her feeling a bit estranged from our family, visited Grandma. Mom fixed her silent eyes on her. In full serenity, Mom looked deeply into her for a long time and then said: “You did the best you could.”

And I? I was able to give my mother unconditional love and to receive total love from her in return. All hurts and disappointment were erased— gone forever.

Not knowing how long Mom would linger, I knew that the time had come for me to return to Combermere. My family understood and accepted that I would not come back to Wisconsin for the funeral if her death came soon.

When I left her room the final time she spoke words that come hard for women of her generation. They just never seemed to be able to put them together out loud. They lived them out. “I love you.”

Mom lived three more weeks, slowly and peacefully napping away into eternity, moving away from this familiar and loved world of hers into that Wedding Feast prepared for her from all time.

Mary Olive (Mullen) Van De Loop died in her sleep on May 5th in her 94th year. In the Byzantine Liturgy there is a phrase in a prayer that is fitting for Mom’s death: “Christian, painless, unashamed and peaceful, and with a good defense before the awesome judgment seat of Christ.”

It was early Sunday morning, which on the Orthodox calendar was Easter Sunday. May her memory remain with us forever.

Combermere Diary

SEASON OF FRUITFULNESS

by Alma Coffman

As I write this in the last weeks of September, I am looking out at the garden at St. Mary’s. The big yellow pumpkin reminds me that Kieran Kilcommons, who planted it, and Denis Lemieux, are now beginning another year in the seminary.

This pumpkin is quite large, and I can almost taste the pies that will come out of it. I can also see the potatoes, a whole acre of them. Their tops have died and they are waiting to be dug up.

These potatoes have already been tasted by the elderly who live in Our Lady of the Visitation, who, along with their friends, ate them at the 97th birthday party of Kathleen O’Herin, our oldest member.

She said that the reason she lived to be 97 is that she is still being challenged to live the Madonna House life. First, she said, she was constantly challenged by “B” (Catherine Doherty, our foundress), and now she is challenged by the lives of the younger members!

So far it has been an unusually mild autumn, so warm that the basil which turns black with the slightest frost, is still green. Elsie Whitty, who is in her eighties, another resident of Visitation, is still swimming in the river, and only a very few leaves have started to turn red, orange, and yellow.

One warm evening with clear skies, we gathered at the farm to harvest the onions. The next week, we had another evening work bee to cut up the defective ones that wouldn’t last the winter. And now the ones that will keep are drying in the hay barn which is the fullest it’s been in years. We have about 8,000 bales.

Another day, many of us gathered for the annual fall chicken bee. Now the old hens are in the freezer, and the new pullets are laying the small-sized eggs of beginners.

Our tomatoes, which we are enjoying fresh these days, have come from two sources —a few of our own (we have too short a growing season to get very many to ripen, even in a greenhouse) but mostly from some Amish who live two hours south of here.

Diana Breeze and Theresa Girard, who are in charge of food processing, and their helpers, have been canning the tomatoes and green beans (another crop that did well this year) and our other produce for the winter.

And last Saturday, with such a good supply of tomatoes, onions, and oregano from the herb garden, Doug Guss and the kitchen crew made pizza for supper.

Four big trees were cut to make room, and the foundations laid for a new building for MH Publications. They need more mouse-proof space to store their books and to get them ready for mailing out.

They recently put out three more books—Journey to the Heart of Christ (Fr. Wild’s three books on the Little Mandate combined into one), and In the Furnace of Doubts and An Experience of God by Catherine Doherty. From time to time they have book tables at varying events and Doreen Rousseau combined helping at one such table at a CWL (Catholic Women’s League) convention in Moncton, New Brunswick with her vacation.

One afternoon we had a heavy wind and rain storm during which one of the apple trees in the orchard by the main house was blown over. It was a very special tree—one of the few left of the original ones planted by Catherine and Eddie on the day they arrived in Combermere (May 17, 1947).

From the old stump are springing three new shoots onto which head gardener Mary Davis grafted scions from the old tree. So, hopefully, a new tree will grow from the old one.

September 8th, Our Lady’s birthday, is a very special day for us, for it is the day we receive applicants who then begin their two-year journey to become staff workers. At supper, when they are received, we have cake. This cake, which is chocolate with white icing and decorated with a plain wooden cross, is a symbol of the sweetness of the cross.

This year we have six new applicants: three women and three men. They have already begun their classes.

The wilderness of Algonquin Park, a nearby provincial park, continues to entice some of us for vacation. With an able crew—Zoyla Grace, Christina Milan, and Ruth Siebenaler—Mary Davis led her annual eight-day canoe trip.

Darrin Prowse, visiting from MH Ghana, and Steve Heroux, visiting from MH Brazil, also did a canoe trip. The men did a five km. portage and even saw a bear! Fr. Gerry Wallner also took his holidays at the park. But instead of canoeing, he hiked—a different trail every day.

Over the last couple of years, we have had an unusually high number of Koreans visiting Madonna House. Right now there are seven. Yesterday for the feast of the Korean martyrs, the library put up a display of books, pictures, etc. of that country.

At breakfast, one of the Koreans, Maron Young-Su Cheun, a seminarian of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of Korea which sends missionaries all over Asia, told us the powerful story of one of their little-known martyrs, a boy of twelve. And during vespers, three of the Koreans sang a song to the martyrs in their language.

Although many of our summer guests have left, the house is still alive with visitors, both those staying with us, and those coming for tours or for a day. Recently 150 people from a Melkite parish in Ottawa, for example, came for a day.

Today as I walked by the woodsheds, filled with wood for the winter, the sun was so warm that I wanted to join Elsie in the river. I saw one maple tree tucked among the green-leafed trees, beginning to turn shades of dark red. Summer is still holding tightly to its warmth and green. But by the time you read this, autumn will have come and be almost gone.

The Pope’s Corner

I WILL VISIT THEM ALL

by Pope John Paul II

The following is from a brief commentary on the Solemnity of All Saints, given on November 1, 2001.

———-

Today we celebrate the solemnity of All Saints. In the light of God, we remember all those who witnessed to Christ during their earthly life, doing their best to put into practice his teachings.

We rejoice with these brothers and sisters who have gone ahead of us travelling the same path that we must take and now enjoy their merited reward in the glory of heaven.

They are the ones who, as the Apocalypse described it, have passed through the great tribulation and have washed their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Apoc 7:14).

They knew how to go against the tide, accepting the Sermon on the Mount (cf Mt 5:3-10) as the norm that guided their lives: poverty of spirit and simplicity of life, meekness and non-violence, repentance for their sins and expiation for the sins of others, hunger and thirst for justice, mercy and compassion, purity of heart, dedication to making peace, sacrifice for justice (cf Mt 5:3-10).

Every Christian is called to holiness, that is, to live the beatitudes. Some are examples for all: the Church points to the brothers and sisters who are pre-eminent in virtue and have become instruments of divine grace.

Today we celebrate them all together, so that with their help we can grow in the love of God and be the salt of the earth and light of the world (cf Mt 5:13-14).

The communion of saints crosses over the portal of death. It is a communion that has its center in God, the God of the living (cf Mt 22:32). Blessed are the dead who died in the Lord henceforth, we read in the Book of the Apocalypse (14:13).

The feast of All Saints sheds light on the reason for the commemoration of all the faithful departed which we will celebrate tomorrow. It is a day of prayer and of serious reflection on the mystery of life and death.

God did not make death, affirms Scripture, but created us all to live (Wis 1:13,14). Through the devil’s envy death entered the world and those who belong to his party experience it (Wis 2:24)

The Gospel reveals that Jesus Christ has an absolute power over physical death, that he considered it to be a sleep (Mt 9:24-25, Lk 7:14-15, Jn 11:11).

There is another death that Jesus suggests we should fear: the death of the soul, which on account of sin loses the divine life of grace, and is excluded definitely from life and happiness.

God wants all men to be saved (cf 1 Tim 2:4). For this reason he sent his Son on earth (cf Jn 3:16) so that every man might have life abundantly (cf Jn 10:10). Our heavenly Father is not resigned to losing any of his children, but he wants them with him, holy and immaculate in love (cf Eph 1:4)

We are to be holy and immaculate like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the supreme model of the new humanity. Her happiness in the glory of God is full. She shines as the goal to which we all are tending. To her we entrust our deceased brothers and sisters, whom we hope to meet again in the house of the Father.

This evening I will descend into the crypt of St. Peter’s to pray near the tombs of my predecessors who are buried there. Spiritually I will visit in pilgrimage all the cemeteries of the world, where they sleep who have gone before us with the sign of faith and await the day of the resurrection.

… Our prayer for (the dead) must also include a prayer to the Lord to grant comfort and peace to those in sorrow for the tragic loss of their loved ones. May the blessing of Almighty God descend upon all.

Word Made Flesh

A New Earth

by Fr. Bob Wild

The following is a reflection for the feast of Christ the King, Sunday, November 24th. The Mass readings are: Mt 25:31-46, Ezek 34:11-12, 15-17, and 1 Cor 15:20-26, 28.

———-

Do you ever think about the second coming of Christ? If you do, are you longing for it, or are you afraid of it?

The early Christians were very conscious of the second coming of Christ. In fact, they yearned and prayed for it. This is a quote from the Great Eucharistic Prayer in the earliest liturgy on record, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.” (“Grace” was one of their names for Christ.)

“May Grace come, and this world pass away. If anyone is holy, let him advance. If anyone is not, let him be converted. Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus.”

Catherine Doherty, the foundress of Madonna House, often spoke about the Second Coming. The following is one of her most beautiful statements about it:

———-

“How clearly the Russian Christians understood that each Sunday was a little Easter, that each Sunday was a parousia (second coming). For in each, Christ came again in the mysteries and in the Eucharist, and at the same time, in each was the expectation of the second coming of Christ.

“When this was to be, no one knew for sure, but all should be always expecting it. And that feeling, that flaming hope and expectation, was deeply rooted in the Russian heart.

“It made all things bearable…. It brought a mysterious understanding of the things that the human intellect alone cannot understand. It made the nights of life, with their stygian darkness, light with this hope.

“It was an ever-present reality. It was spoken about amongst the pilgrims and paupers…. It gave a zest for life while at the same time taking away the fear of dying. For there was the resurrection and there was the parousia. So all was well, even if it seemed to go wrong on earth.” (RESTORATION, April, 1961).

———-

At every Mass, we proclaim, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” And in the Creed we profess, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

In the Book of Revelation, we read about the new heaven and the new earth and the Bride adorned for her Husband. And at the end of Revelation, the whole Church cries out, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Rv 22:20).

So this second coming is something greatly to be desired. But I ask myself, “Do I have a passionate longing to see Jesus return to the earth?” Yes, but also no, for I find in my heart some attitudes which inhibit this longing. What are these inhibiting attitudes?

1) I am not suffering too much. My situation in life is not tragic. In fact, things are basically all right. There is a sliding scale of comfort in this world all the way up to what Jesus said in one of his parables about people eating and drinking (Mt 24:38). In that story he tells us that people were having such a good time that they didn’t want the Master to come back at all.

When I am not suffering too much, I can easily forget that there are others who need to be delivered from their suffering.

2) And of course, there is always the question: Am I ready? Remember the story about the bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom to come (Mt 25)? Do I have e

3) Then we read about the apocalyptic cataclysms in Revelation. And so we think, When the Lord comes, all these terrible things are going to happen. How is it possible to desire these things? How is it possible to say, “Come, Lord Jesus” while thinking that everything is going to blow up?

But the fact is that many of the cataclysms described in Revelation are about the spiritual world. They are about the defeat of evil.

Take for example when the Soviet Union fell on one of the feasts of Our Lady. We saw a few thingsthis happpening, that going on, some tanks rolling around. But at that time in the spiritual world there was a terrible cataclysma defeat of evil spirits that we did not see with our eyes, but that was certainly happening.

In the Gospel, when the apostles went out to preach and came back, the Lord said, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Lk 10:18). The apostles didn’t see that!

Yes, in the spiritual world, when the Lord comes again, there will be a great defeat of evil and of evil spirits.

So we must be very careful about applying these catastrophic details of Revelation to our imaginings of the second coming.

4) One of the biggest deterrents to my longing for Jesus to come is the conflict I experience when I read the parable about the wheat and the darnel (Mt 13:36-43). The darnel is burnt in the fire. People are going to be thrown into the blazing furnace! How can I long for Jesus to come if this is going to happen?

But when Christ came to earth and redeemed us, he inserted tremendous life into the world. And this life has great power. It often seems very small, but like the leaven in the dough (Mt 13:33, Lk 13:21), it eventually will be able to work through and penetrate all of God’s creation.

When we think about the Lord’s coming, we must keep our eyes on the One who is coming and not on what we think will happen. We do not know what will happen. But neither do we know the depth of the love of God for us, or of his mercy on all people.

When we think and pray about the end times, I urge us to follow St. Paul’s advice : Listen. When you don’t know what to pray for, ask the Holy Spirit to pray within you (cf Rm 8:26-27). This means that not only do we not know what words to use, but that we don’t know what to pray for.

Let’s not try to figure out how it will be. No, let us keep our eyes on Jesus, the all-merciful One, and on the power of his resurrection and the power of his victory at work in everyone.

Catherine Doherty, in the passage I quoted earlier, was certain that when Jesus comes again, there will be a transformation of the whole cosmos. There will be a new heaven and a new earth.

I know that I have to pray that the Holy Spirit purifies these inhibitions I mentioned so that when I say at Mass, “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again,” I really mean it, and I really desire it.

And when I am doubting God’s mercy or his love, when I am ambivalent, I can ask the Holy Spirit to pray this prayer in me. And I pray that the Holy Spirit prays very strongly this prayer in us: “Maranatha. Come. Come, Lord Jesus.”

St. Joe’s, Combermere

A Day in the Life of an Applicant

by Tom Kluger

Last year when I became an applicant, that is someone in training to be a member of MH, I knew that I would be given more jobs and responsibility than in my “care-free” days as a guest.

But just as knowing something about military history cannot really prepare you for sitting in a trench, so too, knowing something about Madonna House did not really prepare me for living it.

I had been working at St. Joseph’s, the MH house that works among the people of the area, for two weeks when I experienced the day I am going to tell you about.

There could hardly be a better symbol of the poverty that I was embracing than the old blue pick-up truck I had to drive. It was nicknamed Blue Betty, but because it was so beaten-up, I called it the “Blue Beater.”

A `79 Ford, it had definitely seen better days. The tailgate had fallen off, the bed was full of holes, the interior smelled of rotten fruit, and the body looked like Skylab after it had just fallen to earth. To top it off, it was equipped with a sub -standard standard transmission, and all the thirty-five years of my life, I had only driven automatic.

Terry, a longtime volunteer at the R.A. (or “Rural Apostolate,” as St. Joseph’s House is sometimes called) told me that once I had mastered shifting on this truck, there would be no truck I couldn’t handle.

In short, I was discovering that poverty is not quite as romantic as it is portrayed in the movie about St. FrancisBrother Sun, Sister Moon. And there was no Donovan soundtrack playing in the background either.

The only soundtrack was the grinding transmission, followed by me cursing, followed by my extremely quick recitation of the Jesus Prayer: “Lord-Jesus-Christ-Son-of-the-living-God-have-mercy-on-me-a-sinner.”

I was busy hauling wood from the woodshed to the house where the staff of the R.A. reside, when Jo-Anne, Diane, and Janine simultaneously called out “Tom!” I froze, wondering to whom I should respond first. All three ladies started to laugh.

Janine wanted me to take out some empty cardboard boxes from the back of our used clothing centerand to bring firewood and kindling there. She also wanted some empty cardboard boxes brought to St. Mary’s, to the room where the clothing is sorted.

Jo-Anne, who is in charge of St. Edward’s, our store where we sell a variety of used household goods, wanted boxes of landfill taken away, and empty ones brought in their place.

She also needed two containers of metal-to-be-recycled taken out, firewood and kindling brought in, and some boxes of merchandise to be moved upstairs to the selling area. Plus, like Janine, she had some empty cardboard boxes to go to St. Mary’s.

Diane wanted some for-sale furniture moved to the St. Francis shed, where we sell other goods. Then she asked, “Do you remember when we talked about those boxes that needed to be moved from St. Ed’s to out here?” “Here” being St. Francis’ shed.

I stood there trying to straighten out in my head the Madonna House litany of buildings and their saint’s names. I couldn’t remember which building was St. Ed’s, let alone a conversation about moving boxes. Standing there, feeling quite befuddled, I must admit I did not feel as sharp as a light sabre.

I accomplished most of the above and then felt the need to take a trip. So I decided to take the boxes to St. Mary’s and at the same time pick up some needed electronic goods from St. Mary’s. By doing these two things at once, I would save both time and gas. I congratulated myself for living poverty so well.

In Madonna House where we live in obedience, we are supposed to check with the person in charge before deciding on one’s own to do a job. But puffed up by manly pride, I felt it was time to make my own decision. So I decided not to bother asking if it was a good time to bring back the electronics. Of course, I should have remembered that disobedience takes us “outside the boundaries of grace,” but…

When I got to St. Mary’s, I noticed that the floor was wet. Dina and her crew had just finished their Saturday mopping of the floors! But, not wanting to waste my trip, I decided to move the electronics anyway. The cart I used left marks on the floor.

When Dina saw the marks, she asked me with a very pained expression, yet with great politeness, if it would be possible for me to retrieve the electronics on some morning other than Saturday. “Hmm, yes, I can see your point,” I meekly agreed. I apologized as well.

Then when I got back to the R.A., I realized that the St. Francis shed was too full to hold all the stuff I had brought, which I would have been told if I had bothered to ask in the first place! Like Dina, Diane, with a look both pained and polite, did a quick, last-minute culling of the St. Francis shed to make room for the electronics.

It was, by now, only fifteen minutes until opening time for the rummage sale, and the crowd of people standing around the yard waiting must have been wondering what was going on.

I had already made quite a spectacle of myself coming in the Blue Beater coughing and stalling all the way because I didn’t know how to drive standard. Mothers, fearing for their children’s safety, had quickly grabbed them out of my way.

That evening, someone asked me how my day had been. “Oh, a little hectic, I guess, but pretty good,” I repliedsummoning up what was left of my stoicism.

And thus ended one day in the spiritual formation of an applicant of Madonna House.

Yesterday…

A Blessing For the Journey

by Cheryl Ann Smith

“Cheryl Ann, how would you like to write a column for RESTORATION?” At Paulette’s (our editor’s) request, several responses flashed through my mind and heart: I’d love to… It would be a wonderful creative and apostolic outlet. But I don’t have enough time….

Seeing these thoughts written on my transparent face, Paulette offered, “You could write about our daily life. When I told Fr. David May (a previous editor) that I wanted to write but didn’t know what to write about, he said, `What did you do yesterday?”’

Joy pulsed through me, and a sense that this request was truly of the Spirit. God does indeed permeate every moment of every day, but most of the time we don’t see it. Perhaps writing this column would open my own eyes.

“Yes, ” I said, “I’d love to write a column.”

———-

Yesterday, we received three men and three women as applicants to Madonna House (novices). They joined the two men and two women who have already completed a year of formation. Our applicants range in age from twenty to fifty, and they come from countries as far away as Columbia and Korea, as well as from North America.

Two have first had to do some English studies in order to be better able to communicate and to take in what they will be taught. And this group is a particularly gifted one, some of them having had highly successful careers in law, the arts, and social justice. All are seekers.

I am director of training for the women. As we talked together for the first time yesterday, the maternal part of my heart melted. I gazed on their young, beautiful, and innocent faces, and I wanted to protect them from the pain that lies ahead.

Suffering is a part of every human life, but to those who follow a crucified Lord, those who desire union with him no matter what the cost, the cross will be ever present. (Did Our Lady look upon her Child, so tender and lovely, and shiver with the intuition of what would befall Him? I’m sure she did, even as she put her trust in God.) But the lover’s part of my heart quickened with joy, that they are being called to this privilege.

When Catherine Doherty was teaching my class of applicants about our Madonna House life, she often said, “This is a hard life. You leave all your rights at the door, except the right to surrender and serve. Know that right now, and if you feel it’s too difficult, leave now!” This challenge only served to strengthen our resolve!

“Why is it such a hard life?” one of the applicants asked. Two lines from our Little Mandate (which summarizes our MH spirituality) leapt to mind. “Love, love, love, never counting the cost,” and “Preach the Gospel with your life, without compromise.

It’s a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It puts you on the path of complete stripping and death to all that is not of God and brings you to the glory of resurrected life in him.

Only those with a fierce, desperate desire for a life of holiness; only those with a passionate desire to love God and all His people; only those willing to walk into a humanly impossible life and willing to allow God to take over, will persevere.

“Will Madonna House be able to prevail against my stubbornness and willfulness?,” one asked. “I’m a tough nut.”

I smiled inwardly, thinking how long it’s taking to crack my tough-nut heart! “Don’t worry,” I said, “This is about God leading and directing your heartthrough events, circumstances and people in Madonna House, to be sure but it’s God, your jealous lover, who will stop at nothing to draw you completely into his heart. Don’t worry. He’s stronger than you, yet very tender.”

I wanted to cry out to each of them: “Let God have His way with you! Let yourself be consumed and crushed, that your deepest heart may live! You have no idea what a glory is being offered you!”

Another of the women said, “The biggest objection I met in my friends and family was that my God-given gifts will be wasted in this simple life.” Oh yes, I understand that objection; periodically, I still have to combat it in my own heart.

“Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor’s feet.” That’s another line from the Little Mandate. How can we be both?

Again, we follow Jesus. Think of it: for thirty years, he lived a hidden lifea simple, ordinary village life in Nazareth. It was so hidden that people in his village objected to his later reputation: But is this not the son of Joseph the carpenter? (Mt 13:55, Mk 6:3).

So our work is “ordinary,” as it is for the vast majority of people in the world. And yet, through our union with Christ, this work becomes suffused with his light. We live from, with, and in him, in everything we touch, and what a power that becomes!

These are not just pretty words; this is the heart of the Incarnation. It’s not contingent on any particular circumstancesonly on faith, trust, and surrender. Whatever we touch and do can become Light and Love for others.

As for our giftsyes, we all come with certain talents, but once we are truly given over to God, he draws forth and bestows spiritual gifts. He gives us the power to penetrate hearts and lives. But first we must be purified. I will love watching these women through the yearswatching them come alive and blossoming in ways they cannot now imagine.

On the eve of September 8th, the feast of the birth of Mary, and the day we receive new applicants, we were treated to a stunning show of the Northern lightsshimmering, dancing lights, in soft greens and reds. It seemed that Our Lady and all her angels were rejoicing in the new life they’d brought to Combermere. For the new applicants are the children of Our Lady of Combermere, and she will bless and protect them always.

When the women moved into Little Flower, the home for women applicants, the first thing we did was stand before a large statue of St. Therese, and pray together. Then I blessed each of them for this journey into the heart of our Madonna House life.

Last night, when the festivities were over, I went for my poustinia to a cabin near where the men applicants live. Suddenly, I clearly heard the voice of Mark, the director of the men applicants, saying, “Let us pray.” I looked over at St. Julia’s, their dormitory, and through the window I saw my new brothers bowed in prayer. And then, Mark blessing each of them.

My heart overflowed with love and gratitude for this spiritual family, and for this life of prayer and love. Please pray for each of us, that we persevere to the end and allow God to have His way with us.

A PRAYER FOR PRIESTS

Author Unknown

O my God, I wish to pray for priests and make reparation for those who may have fallen from grace because of human weakness or illness. One can only imagine their remorse and great pain for having wounded the Church and the priesthood and for causing harm to others, especially the young and vulnerable.

Grant healing to them and to their victims. I pray that all concerned will find mercy and forgiveness and be given the power to rebuild their lives and return to you.

In praying for consecrated souls, help me to remember my own utter weakness, misery, and nothingness. Were it not for your grace, I would be far worse than those for whom I pray.

For those priests who have been falsely accused of terrible deeds, but are innocent, give them the grace to maintain their holiness and to continue serving the Church as dedicated and holy priests.

Help those priests who have served God and the Church throughout all the years of their priesthood, those priests who ask for little in return, and who are being harshly “painted with the same brush” as those who have fallen. Without these faithful priests, there would be no Mass and no sacraments, and without the Mass and the sacraments, there would be no Church.

Help those priests who are faithful to remain faithful and to realize that they are loved and appreciated by their congregations whom they serve.

Christ promised to remain with his Church until the end of time, and he will continue to do sothrough his priests.

Help the faithful and the entire Church to take courage during these difficult days. Let the enemies of the Church be aware that we stand united in our Faith and continue to love our Holy Father, our bishops, and our priests, who are serving us faithfully throughout each day of their lives.

Our Lady, Mother of the Church and Queen of the Clergy, give grace and support to our priests and to the entire body of the Church.

Give us generous and holy young men who will walk towards their ordination to the priesthood with courage and zeal. Give them a deep faith, a bright and firm hope, and a burning love for you. Make these virtues increase in them throughout the course of their priestly lives. And show them how much they are needed by the Church.

Lord, give us holy priests. O divine and great High Priest, may the power of your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continuously being set for the souls of priests.

Dear Lord, restore and remain with your Church and bring peace to the entire world, making it a kinder and gentler place in which to live. Help us to learn that solutions to every problem and concern can only be found in you!

We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

My Dear Family

THE RUSSIAN WAY

by Catherine Doherty

Death was simple in my Russian yesterdays. There wasn’t the fear that seems to shroud her or any mention of her in our modern days. Because she was inevitable, people took time to consider her, to get acquainted with her, so to speak. They prepared themselves to meet her and welcome her.

Nor were the dead forgotten. Constant prayers sped up to heaven for their souls. Anniversaries were scrupulously observed, and in every Sunday Mass the dead were mentioned by name.

All Soul’s Day was a major holiday in Russia, for the love of their dead was deep and abiding in the hearts of its people. Throughout the land, at Mass and in special prayers, the dead were remembered solemnly and with all the family present. All day the cemeteries were filled with throngs praying, fixing graves, visiting the beloved who slept their last sleep.

At eventide there were more prayers in the church and there was usually a candlelight procession to the cemetery, with everybody chanting litanies and hymns. The candles were left to burn on the graves, in little containers or lanterns.

They made beautiful patterns of light and shadows for the passers-by to see. They demanded that all who saw must whisper a prayer as they went by.

Praying as one passed a graveyard, any graveyard, anywhere in the land, was a must for a Russian. Men would lift their hats respectfully, and both men and women would whisper a prayer that the souls of those resting in this cemetery might know the deep peace of a Christian’s final resting place.

To clean and adorn cemeteries was considered one of the corporal works of mercy, but to me it was a human joy, too. For the Russian cemeteries were indeed fascinating places. They sprawled unevenly, at least in the country, all around the church.

Their wooden picket fences were often painted red, blue, or white. Some remained unpainted and acquired that gray, satiny “paint” that hardwood gets when exposed for a long time to rain, sun, and snow, with an undertone of faint violet or purple. I loved these fences ever so much better than the painted ones.

Each grave had a wooden cross, surmounted with a little roof, that made a sort of shrine, under which an icon might be place, together with an enclosed lantern that would burn on big feast days.

Then the cemetery looked beautiful with its big trees and simple flowers becoming immense in the shadows thrown from the gently swaying lights.

And in every cemetery there were special nooks and corners that attracted the passer-by to stop, rest a while, and say a prayer for the good souls that slept so peacefully in these homey surroundings.

Spring and fall brought out the villagers to clean the cemeteries, rake the leaves, cut the dried branches of the many trees, and plant new flowers.

Wakes were solemn affairs, much resembling Irish wakes. The family, visiting pilgrims, nuns, and friends prayed constantly, in relays at the coffin. Not for one second was the body left alone or without prayers while it remained in the house.

Yes, death was simple in my Russian yesterdays. Simple, beautiful, sacred, and to be made ready for by a life lived in conformity with God’s most holy will.

Excerpted from My Russian Yesterdays, chapter 13, available from MH Publications.

World Youth Day

Jesus, Do Something!

by Vera Varthouk

The author, a Russian, was a working guest in MH Combermere who went with us, as did many of our guests, to World Youth Day. This story took place on Saturday morning of that week, just as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were beginning to make their way to Downsview from every part of Toronto.

———-

I was on a streetcar, on my way to the church where my son, who had come to World Youth Day, would be attending Mass with his Italian group. The plan was that I would attend Mass with him and then walk with him and his group to Downsview.

My son, my only child, is a seminarian studying in Rome. He has been there for five years and before that, he was in Slovakia for five years. During those ten years I did not see him often.

And now he and I were both in Toronto. We would be together today for the walk to Downsview and then tomorrow for the papal Mass. On Monday, he would fly back to Rome.

The trip to the church from where I was staying, by streetcar, subway, and bus, was longover an hour normally. But today I had had a longer wait for the streetcar than usualsomething I hadn’t counted on.

After about four stops, I reached into my bag, a WYD knapsack which was the same as everyone attending World Youth Day had, for my rosary. And discovered that this was not my bag! It belonged to Lucia, the woman I was staying with.

If I go back, I’ll be late, I thought. And because it was so important to me to be with my son, I was tempted to just keep this one. But then I realized that there might be something in it that Lucia needed.

So saying a quick prayer: Jesus, do what you can to delay the group, I got off the streetcar. I figured I would miss Mass but still have time to get to the church before the group left.

When I got back to the house, Lucia said,“Thank God you came back. My house keys are in there, and I wouldn’t have been able to leave home.” She too was going to Downsview.

Once again I took the streetcar. Once again I waited a while. And when the streetcar finally came, it moved very slowly. Then I took the subway and went to the bus stop where I waited for the #106.

I waited and waited and it didn’t come. Finally I asked a driver of a #84 bus why there was no #106. He said they weren’t running today.

Oh, no! I suddenly realized that I couldn’t get to the church by the end of Mass.

The driver told me to go back two stops and take another bus. But something in my heart told me to stay where I was and that I would find help there.

I asked someone about getting a taxi and was told there were no taxis in that area, and that if I could find a car that would take me, it would cost $100. I had only $15.

I prayed: Jesus, help me. Our Lady, help me. You know what it means to be with a son. You know how important it is.

If the group left before I got there, I would never find him. I wouldn’t see him except for a very short time on Monday. And I really wanted to be with him for this very special time with the pope.

A young woman, who had overheard me approached me and asked if she could help me.

When I explained the situation, she offered to phone the church on her cell phone and asked me the number. I didn’t know it, so she phoned and got it from information. But when she phoned the church, she got the answering machine!

A car with two men stopped at the corner. I suddenly had a sense that they had been sent by God to help me. So I went to the car window and asked, “Can you help me?” They listened intently to my story, and when I finished I cried out, “I’ll miss my son!’

“How old is your son?” one of them asked. “Doesn’t matter how old he is,” I said. “He’s still my son and I’m his mother. He’s 28 years old, but he’s studying in Rome and I live in Russia and we met here. Every day here is a treasure to be with him.”

He said, “I’d like to help but I’m very sorry. I’m not allowed to take passengers.”

At this, my tears just flowed.

Then he said, “Wait. Wait. Wait,” and got out of his car and went to a man who worked for the bus company.

The man from the bus company came to me and I told my story to him, too. He said, “I don’t really know how to help you. But what I can do is give you a bus.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t believe it! Was this a joke? Was it a miracle?

He said, “Just wait.”

I waited ten or fifteen minutes and just prayed and prayed. So much time had gone by, but God could do something.

Eventually the bus came and the driver told me he would take me to the church. About five other people got on, too.

As we drove, traffic was very heavy and many young people were walking in the streeton their way to Downsview. The bus had to stop and stop.

I knew that by now even the longest Mass would be over. I knew that if I got to the church before the group left, it would be a miracle.

I said to God, If it’s not your will for me to be with my son, I accept it. I don’t know why it would not be your will, but I accept it. You’ve shown me how good people are. That’s already a grace. Thank you. And I continued to pray that I would find him.

When we were almost there, I saw a group marching away from the church, but I couldn’t tell if it was my son’s group. They were coming towards us, but then they turned a corner.

As they were turning, suddenly I saw him. I screamed, “It’s my son. It’s my son. I see him.” The people on the bus cheered.

The driver opened the door and I ran to my son. I put my head on his shoulder and cried and cried. “It’s a miracle!” I said. “It’s a miracle! God is so good!”

As we walked, I told people my story. A Sister in the group said, “We were late leaving because two of the girls in our group forgot something and had to go back to get it.”

The group had been staying closer to the church than I had, and I realized that they must have left home at just about the time I prayed, Lord, do something to delay them!

Later I asked God why this had happened. Was it to teach me to be more careful? If I had been more careful, I thought, I would not have taken the wrong bag. But if this had been the reason, I would not have found my son.

Then in answer the gospel story of the healing of the man born blind came to my heart.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to have been born blind?” “Neither he nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “He was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him (Jn 9:2,3).”