Epiphany

THE GIFT THE MAGI RECEIVED

by Fr. Bob Pelton

What made them set out, those magi? What did they hope to find? What did the star tell them about the new-born king of the Jews? What did it promise them that they should have let it draw them forth from home to journey so many miles westward to search in (what was for them) such an unlikely place, not for a wise man like themselves, but for a baby?

They were pagans, these magi, and they were astrologers, but they were also masters of all the elements. They knew the secrets of the earth and the air, of fire and water. They had waited patiently, in silence, for the earth to speak to them in the slow, careful syllables of herbs, in the many-voiced whisperings of leaves, in the languages of bears and rabbits.

They had learned the grammar of acorns and could prophesy the shape of oaks. Their words had been molded by the silent shapes of desert hills.

They had listened day after day to the air. They had yielded to the wind that they might discover whence it comes and where it goes. They had sung with the nightingale and flown with the falcon, and trembling, they had felt the shadow of the griffin’s wings.

They could read the book the sun writes every day, and even in their sleep, they could do the sums of the moon. They knew the voices of rivers and had explored the caverns of the sea.

They had let the tides carry them out into nameless currents where all their bones were melted and they became as fluid as the waves. When they returned, they knew the mysteries of the blood, and could trace the liquid patterns of the human spirit.

Fire had burned in their hearts. It had left them empty and so still that their eyes looked always to the marrow of things. It had given them true ears to hear those things speak their real names. The words they spoke fell like sparks on the world.

The magi knew the language of the stars, of course. The planets told them stories in simple declarative sentences—bluff, bold Jupiter and dazzling Venus and elusive Mercury. Beyond them the stars sang in the desert nights, faintly, with steadier, stranger voices.

In their yearly ebb and flow they wove a subtle incantation—not a spell of luck and chance as the ignorant then and now believe, not the chain of cause and consequences that the half-wise seek to forge, but a simple insistent word that the magi had come to know testified to the way each of the eternal spheres was fixed unalterably in its endlessly turning course.

Not that the word of the stars made the magi despair: no, they understood only too well how, within the perfect balance that all things kept, patterns here and there could be reshaped, this figure or that could be transformed, moments now and again could be speeded, slowed, or ever so delicately shifted into some new phase.

The magi were content to spend their years learning the true names of things and drawing into their burned hearts the threads of all the vast powers of the universe—the forces of light, the energies of gravity and mass, the immense dynamism of dissolution itself—so that when summoned, when the time was right and an opening showed itself, they might speak the right word in the right language and bring a blessing to an old woman or a goat or a king.

No, the magi did not despair. Their wisdom had taught them humility, and the humble do not despair. But at times they did grow sad. It is not easy to describe their sadness. It was not exactly suffering that made them sad, though it was never easy for them to acknowledge how few were the creatures, human or animal or otherwise, they were able to pluck from the net of pain.

It was not death that saddened them, though often they used their healing skills on their own hearts as they stood on the far boundaries of life and watched as children, kind rulers, young mothers fled before them through the twilight into the country of the dead.

Nor was it boredom that made them sad, the inner fatigue that feeds on a surfeit of knowledge, where the whole universe is stripped of flesh and its dry bones crammed into the maw of an already gorged brain.

No: even if the light that shone within them had changed for them the ghosts and gods their countrymen sensed everywhere into more familiar shapes, the magi knew that this very familiarity sprang from such an intermeshing of names and powers, persisted with such marvelous solidarity in the face of the darkness that flickered all about it, that they never grew tired of seeing how even the smallest thing spoke not only its own name, but the name of all the rest.

It was just here, somehow, that their occasional sadness took root—in their ever-growing awareness that the name of all the rest, the word that encompassed all their words, was a nameless name, unuttered and unutterable, unknown and unknowable, forever hinted at, forever silent.

The magi were lords of language, and kings came to them barefooted, bearing rich gifts, to learn the words that would lift a drought or stop a war or heal a city.

They were masters of the secrets of the heart, and even though they lived in solitude, each had others, two or three, as many as most men ever have, who knew his own true name. Even love was not a stranger to them.

Yet the magi knew that a nameless ignorance clouded their deepest souls and the souls of every man and woman who had ever lived, so that some insatiable hunger gnawed them in secret and kept them from whatever knowledge, whatever act it was that would give them the perfect joy that forever eluded them.

So it happened, I think, that when they saw the star that spoke to them of the newborn King of the Jews, they were not reluctant to set out on their difficult journey.

The star made no promises. It summoned them. They were used to that. Even the song of an unknown bird is a summons to a wise man. The star simply told them to go and give homage to the new-born King, and they obeyed.

I do not know the word that the unexpected radiance of this star gave to them. I think that it did not speak to them in Persian or in any of the other ancient languages they normally used to say the real name of things. I suspect that when the star told the magi to give homage, it spoke in Hebrew and used the Hebrew word for "fall prostrate before."

Certainly this would not have surprised the magi; they knew what to do in the presence of kings, even infant kings. Yet there was something strange in this word, some odd shape that caught in their mouths when they said it, some odd feeling that caught in their hearts when they remembered it, something elusive and nameless that, even if it did not make any promises or stir any hopes, rang in the ignorance of their souls and drew them across all those wintry desert miles to the city of the Jewish kings.

As the magi neared Jerusalem, their silence deepened. They were used to silence. They were lords of language, but because they were servants of light, not darkness, they had long since learned that light breathes its words only into the clear spaces of silence.

But the silence that enfolded them now was so huge that it almost frightened them. The star grew brighter, and its word more urgent, and the enormous silence in them pulled that word down into them, down into the cloud of nameless ignorance that lay still in their depths.

The magi knew Herod at once for what he was. They did not have to trick him or cast a spell on him or weave a net. They played him as a wise angler might play a wily old bass so accustomed to lures that it has forgotten what a worm looks like. They stood there in their strange clothes, their faces calm, speaking the simple truth in their odd accents, and Herod bit.

He found out what they needed to know, told them, then lied to them, and sent them on their way, so caught up in schemes and so sure that they were not what they seemed, that it never occurred to him that they would know he was exactly what he seemed. As for his evil plan, they trusted that the true King would somehow bring life where Herod meant to sow death.

Now the magi moved through the night toward Bethlehem. Now the star went before them, no longer summoning, but guiding them, its radiance so filling them that all the names they knew fell away from them into the silence that wholly possessed them.

They were empty now, bearing within themselves only that nameless cloud that no longer seemed like ignorance, but shone with the brightness of the word the star had given them.

Then they were at the door of the stable, their hearts beating against their ribs, their fingers stiff around the precious gifts their hands still carried.

They pushed open the door and stepped in. They could smell the cows and hear them gently chewing their cuds. A few sheep looked up at them with quiet eyes.

In the corner, on a clean blanket laid over the straw, sat a young woman, a girl really, with a baby on her lap. Her husband stood by her side, and the baby played with his mother’s fingers. She looked at the magi and was still.

They came a few steps closer, then stopped. Their gifts hung at their sides, useless. They had nothing to give. Their words had all dropped away, vanished into the namelessness that was revealing itself to them.

They knew nothing—no languages, no secrets, no mysteries. Earth and air, water and fire were silent. The stars were dumb, and the measureless powers of the universe itself were wordless in the magis’ hearts.

Even the abrupt syllables of pain and death were hushed, and sadness too had disappeared. The wise men stood there, still, voiceless, lost in wonder before the girl and her baby, no longer even knowing what they did not know.

Then the girl smiled at the magi and said, "His name is Jesus." They looked him in the face as she spoke his name and saw, as another wise man saw, that his eyes were the color of glory.

Then suddenly but very gently, they felt that glory reach into their deepest souls to embrace the silent radiance now shining there. And as it did, they felt that cloud of namelessness break open and receive its true name, the name that the mother had named her Son.

Then the magi knew that it was to him that all their words belonged, and as those words returned, still and lovely in the glory that filled them, they offered them to him, one upon another, some as rich as gold, some as fragrant as incense, some as deep as myrrh.

And the words became a song in the wise men’s hearts, the song the universe is always singing, and as the universe sang that song in them, sang it to the one whose name sings the universe itself into life, the magi knew that beyond all songs, beyond knowledge, beyond wisdom, beyond silence, beyond even love, they were receiving from this new-born King the word the star had spoken in them.

As he spoke it in them, their whole being leaped to greet it, and they found they knew it and had always known it. The word was "worship," and when their hearts spoke it, they found that they could say the baby’s name, and they said it, and then, falling down on their faces in the dry, sweet straw, they adored him.

From Circling the Sun, pp. 41-45, available from MH Publications.

Combermere Diary

IN THE MIDST OF THE ORDINARY

by Mary McGoff

At 6:45 a.m. the alarm rings at St. Germaine’s, the dorm for women guests. It is dark and still on this winter morning as we rise and prepare for an ordinary day at the Madonna House Training Center.

"Dress in layers," we tell our new guests. Many of our buildings are heated by wood stoves and depending on where you work, and how close to the stove you are, you may need just a t-shirt or you may need an extra sweater.

"Do you have your extra shoes or slippers?" We live in many different buildings —dormitory, chapel, workplace, main house (which includes a room that serves as dining room, library, lecture room, recreation room), outdoor jons, etc., etc. In winter we put on and take off boots many times a day.

"Have you done your dorm job?" There are dirty clothes to go to the laundry, tea cups and leftover bread to go back to the kitchen, waste baskets to be emptied, toilets and sinks to be cleaned, and (if it has snowed during the night) snow to be swept off the steps. If everyone does a little bit…

This same routine is being followed all around Madonna House as staff, applicants, and guests make their morning offering of hidden humble service before coming together at 8 a.m. in the chapel to pray lauds, our communal morning prayer.

By now some have already begun the workday in earnest. Someone has stoked the furnace at the main house, someone has shoveled the path to the chapel If it has snowed), someone has sanded it, someone has cleaned off the cars, and someone has prepared our breakfast. We take turns at these jobs.

The applicants are learning these routines and this month they are learning how to lead morning prayer.

At 8:30 we sit down to a breakfast of tea, oatmeal, brown bread, yogurt, and stewed rhubarb. Every week Pat Probst makes about 150 loaves of that bread in the Dutch bread oven at St. Mary’s. Every week up at the farm, Michael Weitl makes fifty gallons of yogurt. They do these little things well over and over for the love of God and their brothers and sisters.

At 8:55 a.m. Mary Davis gives us a brief report on world news and the local weather report. We conclude the meal with a prayer of thanksgiving and a prayer for all travelers. Now we are ready for our day’s work, which for most of the women, begins with dishes.

Let me just tell you some of the many things we have done during the past month. (I write this in mid-November.)

At the farm we have completed preserving and putting away our harvest for the winter. This includes cutting and packaging our meat and pounding our cabbage for sauerkraut.

They had to wait until after hunting season (so they wouldn’t be mistaken for deer!), but now our bush crew is able to begin the winter work of felling trees and dragging them out by horse-drawn sleigh to where they will be cut for fire wood, fence posts, and lumber. And although the fields are under snow, the horses, cows, sheep, and chickens still need daily care—fresh water, bedding, and feed.

Our priests stay busy with a variety of things such as spiritual direction, both person-to-person and through correspondence, the preparation of homilies, and going away to give the occasional retreat. They also take part in our manual work.

Fr. Sharkey is currently teaching a weekly course on "The Fundamentals of the Spiritual Life" to our guests. Fr. Louis Labrecque, besides being a member of the bush crew, works with our liturgy class which is preparing for the feasts of Advent with our guests.

Last Sunday afternoon, they all went out gathering greens, which was buried under six inches of snow. They’ll use them to make our Advent wreath.

One evening Fr. Louis and Maryana Erzinger and a crew of volunteers boiled some of our maple syrup down into maple sugar, which we will use for our Christmas baking. This process takes lots of stirring and sifting.

Fr. Pelton gave a talk at a conference sponsored by The Colebrook Society (see www.colebrooksociety.com). Founded by Bud McFarland, Jr., the author of several Catholic novels, the society has as one of its goals support for young Catholic leaders and the building of friendships among them. Among the approximately 80 people attending were a number of our friends from the local area.

Fr. David May gave a weekend retreat at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto, and Fr. Zoeller just returned from a month in the American Southwest where he attended the 25th anniversary celebration of Sister Ancilla Murray in the Carmelite Order and the wedding of Joanne Davis. Both are former working guests of Madonna House. He also gave a retreat to our staff in Winslow, Arizona. Fr. Brière’s work this month is to recover from surgery.

Our priests have also been giving classes to the applicants on Friday afternoons.

Janine Langan came up from Toronto to give the second talk in the St. Mary’s lecture series—"Christianity and Culture: Encountering the Church." She spoke from her experiences as teacher, philosopher, mother, and as a woman who had been educated in France in the late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s when she came under the influence of some of the great Catholic thinkers of that time—including Danielou, deLubac, and Congar.

Fr. Bob Wild, postulator for the Catherine Doherty’s cause for canonization, and Kathleen Janet Thompson, the vice postulator, attended a meeting in Ottawa of people involved in pursuing causes of canonization of various Canadian servants of God and blesseds.

Kathleen Janet followed up this meeting by getting together with the Sisters of Charity involved in the cause of their foundress, Mère Elisabeth Bruyère. (Our fourth newsletter concerning Catherine’s cause is now available.)

I don’t have room to tell you about all the adventures of our staff but here are a few more. Rae Stanley attended a conference in Montreal entitled, "Pluralism, Religion, and Public Policy." Some of Donna Surprenant’s paintings were displayed at a local gallery as part of an "Art in the Kitchen" exhibition. Bonnie Staib was honored at Parliament where she was one of twenty recipients of a commemorative medal for the queen’s jubilee.

Such are a few individual highlights. But for the vast majority of the time, our lives are very ordinary, and let’s go back to talking about that.

Joanne Treige, for example, is responsible for the laundry for over a hundred people. Every week she and her assistant, guest Bonnie McLaughlin, do innumerable loads of washing and untold amounts of ironing.

In the kitchen several people prepare three meals a day for those same over a hundred people. All day long, every day except Sunday, in the workshops and gift shops, at the wood piles and dishwashing sinks, "the people of the towel and the water," as Catherine called us, are doing little things well for the love of God.

It is in the context of this humble and ordinary life that I want to tell you about the death of one of our members, Jim Guinan. Jim had rapidly-growing bowel adhesions and, for the last six months or so, we watched him deteriorate. He was in pain and getting visibly weaker and weaker.

But there was Jim, age 81, still raking leaves, opening doors for the ladies (always the gentleman), praying his rosary, and present at community liturgies and meals. What a witness of perseverance and fidelity to our life of love and service!

Then on November 5th, Jim had major surgery. Just five days later, at 6:15 a.m. on Sunday morning, in the hospital in Pembroke, sixty miles away, he died. At his side were Fr. Emile Brière (who was a patient in the same hospital room), Mark Schlingerman, Deirdre Burch, and Jim’s sister, Sister Margie.

His last words were: "My mother, my mother, my mother. Mother Mary, Mother Mary, Mother Mary. How can I love, love, love…"

The week of Nov 10th to 16 was one of sadness but also one of celebration and joy, as befits the life of a faithful and faith-filled Catholic man who was very much loved. Jim’s life and death exemplify a deep truth of our Madonna House life. True holiness is possible through the hidden, humble ways of the ordinary. We who knew Jim Guinan have seen it.

In the February RESTORATION, we will tell you about this one man’s life.

Catherine’s Cause

BREATHING WITH TWO LUNGS

by Fr. Bob Wild

When the Lord desires to create a new community, he usually does so, not through a committee, but through an individual. And he forms the spirituality and lifestyle of that community through the particular gifts or charisms of that person, the founder or foundress. In this article, the author, who is the postulator for Catherine’s Doherty’s cause for canonization, looks at one of her charisms—her blend of Eastern and Western Christianity.

———-

Catherine Doherty from a very early age "breathed with the two lungs of the Church," (to use an image coined by the Russian poet, Vyacheslav Ivanov).

Her father, Theodore Kolyschkine, who was born in Russian-occupied Poland in the mid-nineteenth century, was the son of a Russian military officer and a Polish Roman Catholic woman. Catherine’s mother, Emma Thompson, was descended from the European professionals whom Peter the Great invited in the early 1700s to westernize Russia. (Her deep soul, however, had been Russified.)

Catherine was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church. Though she probably didn’t have much formal religious education as we in the West understand it, she was deeply formed in Orthoxy through the liturgy, customs and traditions of the Russian people.

Her book, My Russian Yesterdays (available from MH Publications), gives a vivid picture of a culture in which the secular and religious were blended into one—a culture which differed sharply from that of the secularized West into which she was propelled by the Russian Revolution.

But there were strains of Catholicism in the family as well. Catherine’s patron saint, the one given her by her parents, for example, was not Catherine of Alexandria but Catherine of Siena.

When the family, in connection with Theodore’s work, moved to Alexandria, Egypt, Catherine was put into a Roman Catholic school, something which would not have happened had the family been strict Slavophile Orthodox Russians.

In that school, Catherine was exposed to the Mass, received some instruction in the Catholic faith, and experienced the full panoply of Catholic devotions. Some of Catherine’s most fundamental graces were implanted at that time.

Moreover in the summers Catherine’s family often visited her Catholic grandmother in Poland, and she learned a great deal about Catholicism from her.

The following quote from the introduction to My Russian Yesterdays reveals the religious world in which Catherine grew up:

"The customs, celebrations, prayers, and ways of doing things that you will find in these pages were common to both Catholic and Orthodox Russia in those days; parts of Poland, Lithuania, and a great part of Catholic Ukraine officially formed part and parcel of ‘Russia.’

"Unofficially, intermarriage, the close living together, the influx of Russians into Catholic parts of the country and vice versa all had their effects. I give them to you as they came to me…."

When Catherine came to England after escaping from Russia during the Revolution, she made a profession of faith in the Catholic Church. We know how and when it happened, but the "why" is still shrouded in mystery.

And though she retained some Orthodox customs all her life, bowing instead of genuflecting, and venerating icons, for example, her diaries before 1960 give little indication of Orthodox spirituality.

Then in 1960 Fr. Joseph Raya, a Melkite (Eastern Rite Roman Catholic) priest, walked into the MH dining room carrying two huge icons as gifts for the community. Something happened in Catherine’s heart. All the memories of Holy Russia flooded back into her. It was as if the Lord said, "Now is the time to breathe with the two lungs I have given you."

After that, during the last 25 years of her life, she wrote her Russian books: Poustinia, Sobornost, Strannik, Molchanie, Urodivoi. Their spirituality is neither Orthodox nor Western, but something like an interweaving of both.

Ever since she had arrived in the West, Catherine had tried to assimilate Western Catholicism. These books now expressed the flowing together of the two currents that were in her very blood, and which had been mingling in a hidden stream throughout her life.

In religious communities, something of the charisms of the foundress is communicated to the members who have been "mysteriously attracted" to that foundress.

So if you were to come to Madonna House, Combermere, or to any one of our mission houses, and see the icons on the walls and the many books about Eastern Christian spirituality, and hear that our foundress was Russian and hear us talk about poustinia, you might at first wonder if we are Catholic or Orthodox.

This is because for many years before the pope began using the imagery of the two lungs, Catherine had been led by the Spirit to begin to integrate in our personal spiritual lives and in our community customs, the two great traditions.

She wanted us to know and to understand Orthodoxy —she saw understanding as the first step to unity—while at the same time remaining Catholics of the Latin Rite. She saw this as part of her mission, and it is part of the apostolate of Madonna House.

We are not, however, involved in great projects or programs to foster unity. We strive, first of all, to breathe with two lungs ourselves. I think it’s true to say that many of us are beginning to do so.

The two lungs are not two different sets of doctrines: they are two ways of relating to the mysteries of faith, two styles of worship and devotion.

Fr. Raya eventually became Archbishop Raya—the archbishop of Akka, Haifa, and all Galilee. When he retired to Combermere and became a full member of the community, he deepened his teachings to us. Most importantly, he regularly celebrated the divine liturgy for us, thus helping us to imbibe the spirit of the East through its most essential medium—worship.

It is mainly through praying and singing and worshipping that we in Madonna House have come to begin to breathe with both lungs.

Yes, Catherine saw Madonna House as "a bridge between the East and the West," and she saw it as part of our multi-faceted apostolate that by our very being, we foster the union of the two.

The Pope’s Corner

OUR DEEPEST NEEDS

by Pope John Paul II

The following is excerpted from an address delivered at a general audience on December 27, 1978.

———-

Man is a being who searches. His whole history confirms it. Many are the fields in which man seeks and seeks again and then finds and sometimes, after having found, he begins to seek again.

Among all these fields in which man is revealed as a being who seeks, there is one which is the deepest. It is the one which penetrates most intimately into the very essence of the human being. It is the one most closely united with the meaning of the whole of human life.

Man is the being who seeks God.

The ways of this search vary. The histories of human souls along these paths are multiple. Sometimes the ways seem very simple and near. At other times they are difficult, complicated, distant.

Now man arrives at his "eureka": "I have found!" Now he struggles with difficulties, as if he could not penetrate himself and the world, and above all, as if he could not understand the evil that there is in the world. But even in the context of the Nativity stories, this evil showed its threatening face.

Many have described their search for God. Even more numerous are those who are silent, those who consider everything they have experienced along the way as their own deepest and most intimate mystery: what they experienced, how they searched, how they lost their sense of direction, and how they found it again.

Man is the being who seeks God.

And even after finding him, he continues to seek him. As, for example, in a famous quote from the French philosopher, Pascal, Jesus says to man, "Take comfort. You would not be looking for me if you had not already found me" (B. Pascal, Pensées, p. 553: le mystère de Jésus).

This is the truth about man. It cannot be falsified. Nor can it be destroyed. It must be left to man because it defines him.

What can be said of atheism in the light of this truth? A great many things should be said, more than can be enclosed in this short address of mine. But at least one thing must be said: it is indispensable to apply a criterion, that is, the criterion of the freedom of the human spirit.

Atheism cannot be reconciled with this criterion—a fundamental criterion—either when it denies, a priori, that man is the being that seeks God, or when it mutilates this search in various ways in social, public, and cultural life. This attitude is contrary to the fundamental rights of man.

But I do not wish to dwell on this. It I mention it, I do so to show the beauty and dignity of the search for God.

Why was Christ born? Why did he come into the world?

He came into the world in order that those who look for him can find him. Just as the shepherds and the magi found him.

I will say even more. Jesus came into the world to reveal to us the dignity and nobility of the search for God, which is the deepest need of the human soul, and to meet this search halfway.

Word Made Flesh

THEY COME BEARING GIFTS

by Fr. Pat McNulty

The following is a reflection in connection with the Feast of Epiphany.

———-

As I was meditating on the great feast of Epiphany, I was focusing on the three kings. I was thinking about their pilgrimage and suddenly I found myself thinking about some other pilgrims—the many guests who come to Madonna House. And I thought: This is the day to give thanks to them. This is the day to give thanks to God for them.

Epiphany is the feast of all who leave their homes, even if only for a short time, to go on a search, a search to find God, whether they know that they are doing this or not. So this is the feast of our visitors, who come from far and near and who bring us a certain kind of gold, a certain kind of incense, and a certain kind of myrrh.

Though some of them probably think they bring us pewter or iron, the fact is that they bring us gold. They bring us the gold of their struggle with their faith. This is a great gift. They bring us incense—the incense of their holy desire for God. And they bring us myrrh—the myrrh of their submission to this Madonna House way of life.

Often they come for a vacation or a retreat or poustinia, or perhaps they have some other expectation of their stay here. But they come and, gladly or not, if they stay on, they submit to our way of life.

Yes, they bring us great gifts. What would Madonna House be without our guests? Without them, Madonna House, Combermere would be a museum!

They are a source of life for us. By their questions and their grappling, they force us to explain what we believe and in so doing, they help us clarify our beliefs. And, even more important, without realizing they are doing so, they call us forth to live those beliefs. And they enable us to see Christ in a way that we would not see him, if they did not come.

Yes, they bring us great gifts. For they make it clear to us that Our Lady fulfills her promises. If they think they came here because it was their idea, or because somebody else put the idea in their minds, or because they just thought I’d kind of like to visit that place, they are mistaken. They are here because the Mother of God brought them here. Be it for a minute, an hour, a month, a year, or two, or twenty, or for life.

And even in those times when we can’t see God’s work in ourselves, we can see it in them, and that helps us to remember the promise that Our Lady made to us—that she will take care of her children.

They also help us widen our vision; they keep it from being narrow and self-aggrandizing. They "push the button" of our faith. They push the button of our emotions. They push the button of our lives. Yes, they are a great gift to us.

So I want to thank them. I want to thank them, first of all, for listening to the Holy Spirit in their hearts when he invited them to come here. I want to thank them for embracing, while they are here, our way of life, which is not an easy thing for us, let alone for them. And I want to thank them for putting up with our human weaknesses and our sinfulness.

There’s an old saying that the sins and weaknesses of the Church are the greatest proof of its divinity. For were it not of God, how could it survive? Likewise for us, the staff, the greatest proof that our vocation is from God and not from our own "goodness" or whatever, is our weakness and sinfulness.

So I want to thank the guests for coming here, and for staying on even when they discover that what they find is not what they expected and even though it is difficult.

There is a sign at our entrance: "Madonna House Training Center for the Lay Apostolate." Yes, we are training people to be lay apostles, but it is not only our own members that are constantly being trained. Every person who comes through our doors is trained to be a lay apostle, a person who brings the Good News to the world in which they live.

And I want them to know that we know that when they leave here and return home, many of them feel like they are a voice crying in the wilderness. But believe me, believe me, they are not alone. For in some mysterious way, when they pass through, they enter and stay in our hearts.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, anyone who has ever been a guest here. Without you, we would die! And always remember that Our Lady of Combermere belongs to you, and you belong to her. She is eager to help you. Get to know her, and pray to her.

My Dear Family

THE HUNGER FOR GOD

by Catherine Doherty

Everywhere, all over the world, there is a hunger for God. And everywhere, across the world, man is trying to satisfy this hunger. Yet, in some undefinable manner, the hunger persists.

How can this hunger be assuaged? The answer is simple: by a love that is face-to-face, person to person.

Man these days is teetering on the edge of an abyss, with the threat of war as a background. He is finding intolerable the monotony of the assembly line which kills the spirit. The bewilderment continues with the rape of a world which offers air-conditioning and other comforts while threatening the life of the human species.

These and many other questions have coalesced into one question: who is God? Man is slowly beginning to understand that only by God’s power and only by our living his rules of love will the problems of our tragic days be solved.

This is the moment, then, when we who call ourselves Christians must face one another, for the assuaging of man’s hunger begins by man facing man on a on-to-one basis.

To begin to assuage this hunger, man must understand that he is loved, loved as a friend, loved as a brother in Christ. It must be done person to person; it cannot be done en masse.

It is only in the eyes of another, in the face of another, that man can find the Icon of Christ. There are many ways of praising God, many ways of praying to him, many ways of searching for him. But today there is one great way, one profound way, one gentle, tender and compassionate way. It is by a person-to-person love.

We must make the other aware that we love him. If we do, he will cease to hunger. He will know that God has prepared a table for him and has invited him to come to his feast, to drink his wine, and to eat the bread which is himself.

He who participates in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, having been brought there by someone else, will know what love is. He will never hunger again. He will understand in an incredible way, how much he is loved.

Adapted from The Gospel Without Compromise, pp. 24, 25, available from MH Publications.

Yesterday…

THE DIVINE DANCE

by Cheryl Ann Smith

Yesterday morning, I awoke from a magnificent dream: a beautiful young woman was dancing at her wedding. A band of superb musicians were playing in almost feverish joy, and the bride was dancing, twirling, swirling in ecstasy. She was young, radiant, attired in a virginal white dress.

I awoke with the strains of the music of the dance still singing in my heart, and I recognized the bride. Her name was Catherine. In real life, she was my age, and she died from cancer a few weeks ago.

I was well aware, as I came into full consciousness, that I had been given a glimpse of her new life in heaven. All the ravages of time and of the suffering of spirit and body were completely wiped away, and she was now living in the eternal joy of the divine wedding feast.

Catherine’s death hit me hard. I had known her and her family for many years. I first met her when she was a stunningly beautiful woman in her twenties. She flirted with stage life in New York, decided it wasn’t for her, and she had visited Madonna House again before entering law school.

She was a smart, gifted woman, and when I heard that Catherine had been struck with cancer, I rebelled. How could this disease wrest away her life, which had not yet found its fulfillment?

We were the same age. As the normal aging process has been reminding me that death is already at work in my own body, her suffering and death became even more poignant and personal for me.

Catherine’s family is faith-filled, and her funeral was marked by true belief in the resurrection. It was a striking witness for all in the town. Even while they were racked by grief and could not understand this untimely death, they still trusted in God.

The dream I was given allowed me to see the deepest reality: We are not given permanently to this life, rich as it is. Our fulfillment is in the heavenly banquet, the dance that never ends, the joy of union with the Beloved. That’s our true home, our true joy.

It wasn’t long ago that Catherine surrendered her earthly life. But it was in the twinkling of an eye that she was given her new life, and restored by Love.

When you read this article, it will be January, the month of new beginnings. As another Catherine, our own Catherine Doherty, used to say, "Every moment is the moment of beginning again," and the beginning of a new year seems to breathe life into this hope.

What is it that prompts us to make New Year’s resolutions? It’s not just the desire to bring disorder under control. It’s a profound longing to begin afresh; to leave behind the work of sin and death in our lives, and to start again; a desire to somehow share in the divine dance even now.

So I give you this challenge: if you were to die tomorrow, what would you most want healed or restored or forgiven? Is there an area of sin that causes you such shame and guilt that you haven’t been able to confess it, to bring it to the light? Do you long to have that yoke lifted from your weary shoulders? Have you been able to claim God’s mercy and compassion?

Is there a person you have never been able to forgive, a hurt you’ve never been able to release? Do you want to throw off the lie that says it will burden you forever?

Do you want to be free? Do you ache to believe in God’s love for you—just as you are—and yet are afraid to trust him one more time? Are you afraid to open yourself up and then not experience anything?

Can you beg God to cast off the cloak of darkness that keeps any part of your being in prison? Can you dare to hope again? Can you believe that you can begin afresh?

In reality, there is a fine line between life on earth and life in eternity. That divine dance is being celebrated all around us all the time! Even though my dream is over, Catherine is still dancing. It is my deepest hope that I too will one day be dancing that same dance. Perhaps I can begin that dance even now.

Across from my bed is a large photograph of Catherine Doherty. It’s my favorite picture of her. In that picture, although she is an old woman, her eyes are alive and dancing. The radiance of divine love streams from her face. I often look at this photo as I "talk" with her.

So yesterday morning, as I awoke from my heavenly dream, I saw Catherine Doherty smiling at me. I remembered an interview she once gave, when she said, "I’m not afraid of death. One day I shall wake up and realize that I lived in a splendor, the like of which I never knew. And then I will know Love. Doesn’t that make you want to sing? Doens’t it make you want to dance?"

Yes! I do want to sing! I do want to dance! I do want to believe! I do want to begin anew! Lead me, Lord, even now, in your dance of love.

MH Toronto

WYD’S CONTINUING GRACES

by Elaine Dalton

From our vantage point —that of an MH field house with many and deep contacts with young people—it seems that the graces of World Youth Day are continuing to flow like an underground river. It seems they are pulsating beneath the life that is seen—filling, renewing, and strengthening roots with new courage, ingenuity, and inspiration.

Last week, for example, Fr. Duffy and I headed out to York University where he had been invited to give a day’s retreat to a group of Catholic students. Someone said that this is the third largest university in Canada, and whether or not this is true, it certainly is huge and sprawling.

Supported by the archdiocese, the office of the Catholic Chaplaincy is located on the fourth floor of the student center, a building housing the offices of a multitude of student groups and organizations. The chaplaincy rooms seemed to be an oasis of peace in a tangibly non-religious environment, an environment which the students on the retreat called "mission territory."

The sixteen young men and women and their lay chaplain who attended the retreat are bright lights in a great darkness—reverent, solid in their loyalty to the Church and the Holy Father, and eager to deepen their faith.

They were hungry for Fr. Duffy’s presence and words, drinking in and responding to both. An "exchange of life" occurred as Fr. Duffy’s exuberance was spurred on by theirs in a way similar to what happens when the Holy Father meets the young.

Fr. Duffy gave them the unadulterated truth about Christ, Our Lady, the Church, the Eucharist, confession, life, hardships, suffering, joy, the saints, and the rosary (especially the Luminous Mysteries). It was so much in such a short time but evidently it was not too much because they asked him to return soon.

We told them about the evening gathering of young people at our house on the last Sunday of every month, and some said they hoped to come.

At this gathering, from 30 to 35 young adults crowd into our living and dining rooms for an evening of prayer and friendship. The format is simple: the rosary at 7:30 PM, shared prayer for half an hour, and a talk by Fr. Duffy which ends at 9 o’clock. This is followed by tea and conversation which only ends when the last person finally decides to leave.

This gathering seems to answer an enormous crying need in these men and women— most of them single.

Over the past year or so these evenings together have grown and "spread," by which I mean that the 35 or so present each time are not the same ones, but are part of a larger group of over 75 who have connected with us and with whoever is here on a given night. Some come only occasionally, but having been here makes each one an integral part of a larger, active network.

Coming from all over the city, they represent many nationalities, professions, trades, and interests. Almost the only thing they all have in common is their hunger for God. As a result, Gospel-based friendships have been formed, friendships which bridge all sorts of differences, thus broadening vision and enhancing life.

And as they discover peace here and get to know Fr. Duffy and us, some return to talk with him or with one of us, and eventually the spiritual life is opened up to them.

So, though our work directly connected with World Youth Day is over, and though we have taken down and put away the World Youth Day flag that billowed in our yard all summer and fall, our involvement with young people (which was going on well before World Youth Day) very much continues. And what a joy it is to see what God is doing in them!

SUNDAY IN THE KITCHEN

by Sue Perreca

There are many facets to loving and serving God and people through work, and one of them is availability. Availability is related to flexibility, and both are essential parts of surrender to God. Let me give you a couple of examples.

One Sunday at a time when I was working in the Madonna House kitchen, it was my job to cook supper. This particular Sunday, I was making an easy meal, and so my assistant and I were doing little extra things such as decorating the dessert. As we were putting out the things for afternoon tea, I suddenly noticed that there were an awful lot of people standing around the kitchen. And they were standing around for a long time.Then it dawned on me: my work that day was to be to be present to my brothers and sisters who came into the kitchen.

Since it was an easy meal, I said to my assistant, "Why don’t you just do the preparation for the meal while I greet the people who come in." So I stood around and when people came in and stood around the wood stove, I said such things as "Hi. How are you?" or "Did you go on a hike today?" And we chit-chatted, and then they went away. It wasn’t that we were trying to make them go away, but they did! This kept happening over and over.

I think they came to the kitchen, the heart of the home because they wanted to be recognized. Then when they received what they needed, they left. If we had been so focused on the task before us that we didn’t stop to listen to the Spirit, we wouldn’t have known what they needed. And we wouldn’t have responded to that need.

The interesting thing is that at 3:30, when we needed to begin cooking in earnest, there was not a soul in the kitchen! They had come in, we were present to them, we talked to them, and we enjoyed ourselves. And then when it was time to put ourselves to the task that needed to be done, it seemed almost as if God had taken the people away so that we could have time to do so.

Being able to stop "working" when people need us is important. We can get attached in a wrong way to all kinds of things, and one of them is work. There is so much work. It goes on all the time, and we sometimes feel overwhelmed by it. So we can easily get so into it that we neglect the immediate needs of the people around us.

Catherine Doherty talked about "doing little things well" and putting everything into our work, but she also said that the needs of people come before the "work." She talked about being available to people, about dropping things and sitting down and having coffee with them.

That is a great work—to sit and listen to another person. And it’s also a great work when we are at meals to be present to those we are eating with. Sometimes, when we are having a hard time, it’s a great work just to turn our heads 3/4 of an inch and listen to the conversation at the table rather than looking out the window! These things can take an awful lot of discipline. And they take "listening to the Spirit."

I am called to serve. I am called to serve God and people—not myself, not my projects, not my own desires. So I have to always be listening for those sometimes very small clues about how God wants me to serve. Sometimes he just wants me to take just one minute from my work to greet somebody. These things are disciplines and they are part of our work.

That’s the difference between the way "the world" works and the way Christians work. For Christians, people come first; the work is secondary.

There are many ways of putting people first. Not too long ago I was a housemother for the women guests, and that job expanded my heart very much. It requires the same listening to God and being available to the Spirit that cooking Sunday dinner does.

One morning, just before my day off, I had a misunderstanding with one of the women guests. I spent almost my entire day interiorly struggling, praying, and thinking about how to approach this person in a loving way. When I told her that I had done that, she was amazed that I had even thought about the situation twice.

This is really what we are called to do—to open our hearts to the grace of God and to other people.

I have learned to do that when I am asked to wash dishes or sweep the floor and I try to dispose my heart to do it with love. I learned to do it by watching the people around here give themselves to the duty of the moment and in the duty of the moment give themselves to each other and God.

To serve one another is to love, and God calls us all to love whether we’re Christian or Muslim or no religion at all. And so we can share this great message with everybody: loving and serving one another really does usher in the Kingdom of God.