WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?

By Cheryl Ann Smith

My life changed this Lent. Oh, you wouldn’t know it from the outside: I look the same. I act the same. I do the same things. But in my deepest heart, which I call my heart of hearts, something has changed. It began with a dream I had a few weeks before Lent began.

This was the dream: I needed to go on a retreat, and I had a particular kind in mind. It was unorthodox and a little risky, but my heart was set on it. I found a priest who agreed to direct me, although he was a little hesitant, and I extracted a reluctant permission from my superior.

After the usual dream obstacles were thrown in my path, another priest came into the room to talk with me. His presence was big, and I meekly sat at his feet to hear what he had to say.

"You can do this kind of retreat if you really want to," he said, "but first let me tell you a story. There was once a monastery in which the monks lived in strict poverty.

For example, they would not eat meat unless it was for the sake of hospitality. One day, they really wanted a little meat, so they invited many people for a banquet. Do you know how much that banquet cost?"

I was thinking it might have cost $15 (remember, these are dream prices), when this priest exclaimed, "Seventy five dollars! That meal cost $75!" He let that enormous sum sink in. Then he said, "Now, what was it they really wanted? "

"Meat," I said. "They wanted a little meat."

"Right", the priest affirmed. "So they should have simply eaten a little meat, instead of throwing that huge, expensive banquet. That would have been more honest, direct, and poor!"

Then he turned his piercing eyes to me. "And you, " he challenged, "What is it you really want?"

Suddenly, I realized what it was, and I blurted it out. My teacher raised his eyebrows, lifted his hands in a gesture that said, "Well then? Now what must you do?"

I awoke from the dream with that question burning within me. And it continued to burn for about a week.

Then one morning, as I was hurrying down the road for Lauds (our morning prayer), trying to protect myself against the icy winds, I was complaining a bit to Jesus.

"What do I want? Well, I want to get up early again to pray before I begin the workday. But I can’t get my energy back after that flu bug, and I can’t claw myself into consciousness early enough. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is very weak and tired…"

"No!" came a booming voice within. "What is it you really want?"

That voice of Jesus pierced through my mind’s nattering to my heart of hearts, and a cry came from deep within, "I need silence in the morning. I need time alone with you. My soul is like a dry weary land without water. I really want this. Please give me the grace."

And God did give the gracegafter he had brought me to the awareness of my aching desire. For it was only then that I could really receive what he gave.

I have always loved the story of Zacchaeus (Lk 19). I guess it’s because I am a lot like him. Zacchaeus was a tax collector, and although we don’t know this for sure, it’s a good guess that, in order to give himself what money offers, he defrauded plenty of people through the years.

But in his heart of hearts there was a spark of desire to be right with God and othersBin other words, to be saved. That was the "meat" he was really longing for.

It doesn’t seem like Zacchaeus was aware of this deeper desire. It seems like he was just curious to see JesusIso much so that he didn’t care how foolish he looked up in that sycamore tree. But Jesus knew the desire in his heart and he drew it forth.

By the end of the encounter, Zacchaeus was ready to make four-fold restitution for his sins. He had found what he had been secretly longing forBsalvationsand nothing else mattered. (Isn’t he a powerful model for the Lenten journey?)

It is striking that the sinner, Zacchaeus, was able to embrace salvation in a way that the righteous Rich Young Man couldn’t.

This young man seemed to have such big desires as he asked about eternal life. But when it came right down to it, he was unwilling to do what was necessary to reach the depth of union with Jesus that was being offered. What he really wanted was riches. He made his decision and he went away sad (Mk 10).

Jesus looked at the rich young man with love, and understood how hard it was for him.

In the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26), Jesus himself agonized about his coming passion. Three times, he asked to be spared this cup of suffering, yet each time he stood in the truth that his deepest desireIa desire even deeper than that for life itselfawas to do the Father’s will. So he chose obedience.

When I told you about my dream, did you wonder what I answered when the priest asked me what I really wanted? I cried out, "I want to be known!" Now, I didn’t know that was such a burning desire, and I pondered this in my morning prayer.

It is only in the depths that we are fully known: known to ourselves as we’ve always been known to God. But in order for us to get there, we have to be stripped of all that obscures our identity as children of God, and so the pathway to our heart of hearts inevitably includes suffering.

The Prodigal Son shows us the way on this journey inward. At first, he seemed only to desire "freedom". However, as his life of debauchery degenerated into destitution, his desire shifted to survival. Then as he became poorer, less proud, he came to know his father, not just as provider of money, but as one who would shelter him, unworthy though he was.

Then when the Prodigal returned home and was loved, forgiven, and restored, he finally came to know himself fully as son of his father. And this is the end of our Lenten journey.

This is Resurrection, Redemption, Easter. This is the path Jesus came to give us the path to our deepest heart where we come to truly know ourselves as beloved children of our Father.

Around the same time I had my Lenten dream, I was given a profoundly moving photograph of a little girl hurtling herself towards the waiting arms of Pope John Paul II.

The picture crackles with intensity. The child’s hair is flying behind her. The Pope’s face is alive with love and delight as his arms reach out and strain to catch her and press her to himself. Surely that embrace was as full of love as that of the Prodigal father and son!

I posted this photograph in the choir room by the chapel door as a reminder of what the liturgy is all about. The Father waits with longing to press us to his breast in a union of desire and love. Because he will be satisfied with nothing less than that union, he keeps pushing us deeper into our hearts, until we know who we are as his children, and we desire him with total passion!

When I die, I pray that I will see this same expression of love and welcome on my Father’s face. And when I throw myself into his arms and he asks me, "Cheryl Ann, what is it you want with your whole heart?" I want to cry out, "You! I want you!" And I hope I hear him whisper, "Me too! I want you!"

My Dear Family

THIS WEEK IS HOLY

By Catherine Doherty

This is the week of quiet. We must have quiet hearts this week. We are on the threshold of such a miracle that we could repeat the warning: "Take off your shoes; this place is holy."

People of rank rode beautiful Arabian horses. But for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ chose to mount a donkey, a beast of burden, an animal that is a servant. In doing so, without words, he again proclaimed himself a servant of the people.

The heart quietens. In some of us is a lifetime of teaching or learning defensive religion, offensive religion, wrong religion. This has affected our hearts. Some of us have wrong ideas about God. He was born naked and died naked, but we have covered him with a lot of robes that don’t suit him at allTthe robe of anger, and the robe of Jansenism, for example.

So let us quieten our hearts this week that we might take away all the garments we have heaped upon him.

Let us quieten our hearts; let them be peaceful.

This is the week of the Passover, and we will see what it means, both the first Passover supper that the Lord asked for in the Old Testament, and the Supper of God giving himself to us as food.

For look! Soon there will be a Supper of a kind that has never before been on earth, a Supper in which God will give himself as food for us.

For God couldn’t leave us. He loved us too much. He remained in the Blessed Sacrament, in the priesthood, in the sacraments, in all of us; he gave us his body, the Church, of which he is the head.

Whenever we are perturbed, miserable, and are just scratching our little souls until they bleed, can’t we realize, just for a moment, that we are fed on God. And we who are fed on God are one with God. We are his children, and we can do what he can doWwith his help. For in fact he said, You will do greater miracles than I (Jn 14:12).

During this week which is holy, our faith should rise like a blazing fire, for we know a little of what it is all about. The events of the week should shake us and hold us tight in a sense of expectation.

This is a week of love. It is not by doing what I want, but what is best for the other person, that I begin to love.

This is the week of love, the kind that makes one’s head and senses reel. It is the week of total kenosis, that is, self-emptying. When Christ came down from heaven at Christmas, he emptied himself. Now on Calvary, he does it again. What he has done, we should do.

Who of us has not been hurt by others? But is there anyone who has been hurt as Christ has been hurt? What has he not done for his people?

This is the week of mystery. This is a week of entering without understanding, of "putting our heads into our hearts."

What we have to enter into is so extraordinary that we really must see who we are. Christ has lifted us to his Father, who had asked him to make us one and to look after us. We are the people who have been salvaged by God.

This is the week of Christ’s joy: I have longed to eat this Passover with you ( Lk 22:15).

This is the week of his sorrow. This is the week of his death. We can only prostrate ourselves before a cross and pray a prayer of thanks, the kind of thanks that is torn out of us because it is buried so deep that we don’t often bring it forth. This is the hour of thanks.

This is also the week of examining our consciences. For it is useless to prostrate, to kneel, or to pray, unless I too become a servant of the people that Christ became servant of. When Jesus finished washing the feet of all the apostles, he reminded them that the Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve.

Now we should enter deeply into the "poustinia of the heart," which I spoke of in my book, Poustinia. This means having a place set apart in your heart where you are attentive to God, no matter where you are or what you are doingTwashing dishes, or anything at all. It makes no difference what you happen to be doing because you are with your Beloved, in the poustinia of your heart.

But this is also a week in which I have to serve my brothers and sisters in whatever capacities I might be needed, because prayer without action is dead. We have to integrate our prayer into our lives, that is, preach the Gospel with our actions. Otherwise people will not know that this week is different from any other week that ever was or will be.

Let us enter this week with quiet, undistracted hearts, with prayer, and with the realization that we are touching Love Incarnate.

Take off your shoes. This week is holy.

Adapted from Season of Mercy, pp. 73-76, available from MH Publications.

My Story

I ONLY KNEW ‘LIKE’

Interview by Editor

Lee Kyung-A, who is twenty-four years old and from Korea, is one of our long-term guests. On January12th she was baptized at our Sunday Mass, (cf. Restoration, March 2003), and now wishes to be called "Rita Marie," her baptismal name. She agreed to tell her story for Restoration.

———-

What religion was your family?

Nothing.

Did you ever have any experience of any religion or of God or learn anything about any of them?

Once I went to a Protestant church for Christmas. They asked me to pray alone out loud. I had never done this and didn’t know how to do it. I was embarrassed, so I never returned.

And in school they taught us a little bit about different religions.

I think I also talked with God a few times when I was a child, but I’m not sure.

As you got older, when you were a teenager and adult, were you ever interested in God or religion?

No.

Did any of your friends belong to any religion?

I don’t know. They never said.

How did you get to Madonna House?

I came to Canada, to Toronto, to take a course in English. I lived in a little house with other Koreans. Juliana (a former MH applicant) lived there.

I heard her telling two of the other girls about Madonna House and asking them if they’d like to go there with her. They were the only Catholics in the house. I said, "Can I go, too?"

Why did you want to go?

I had a month with nothing to do. My course was going to finish soon, and one month later, in June, I was going to go and see Europe.

Did it matter to you that it was Catholic?

No. I had a positive feeling about Catholics because they were not aggressive. They didn’t try to make us be Catholic and tell us that we’d go to hell if we didn’t, like some Protestants told us.

So you came to Madonna House for a month?

Yes. Five of us came with Juliana. None of us was Catholic.

Did you like Madonna House?

Yes. I liked it very much. Everything was new. It was exciting, an adventure. It was the first time I lived with Canadians, and I met lots of people. And I did many things. Most things I did at Madonna House I had never done before. And I learned how to sew. Everything was perfect.

What did you think about the religious part—praying, the Mass, and so forth?

I didn’t think about it. It was just part of everything, new like everything else, and I just did it.

Did anything that was religious affect you at all?

We had a talk by a priest who was visiting. It didn’t seem to be about God, and I didn’t understand anything he was saying.

I was sitting around with Fr. Sharkey and one of the men guests afterwards, and I asked them what that priest was saying, what was the point of the talk.

Fr. Sharkey said that he said that if two people hate each other, God loves them both. If God is between them, through God, they can come to love each other.

This was very strange to me. If I didn’t like somebody, I didn’t like anything about them—not their hair, not their speech, nothing. I just quit relating. If you don’t like someone, how could this ever become love?

Fr. Sharkey said, "You can control your actions."

I said, "But if I treat you well and my heart is against you, that’s just pretending. I’m a fake."

He said, "Do you like it here?"

I said, "Yes. People are nice."

He said, "Why do you think people here are nice? It’s because they put you second. God is first, other people are second, and they are third."

I didn’t agree with this idea. I said, "If I like what I see, I like it, and if I don’t like what I see, I just don’t like it. And that’s it. Isn’t that okay?"

He said, "You can live like that if you wish, but it’s not God’s way."

I felt sad. I felt that Fr. Sharkey should have tried to convince me. Because he didn’t, I felt that he had given up on me. There were just three more days until I left, and I avoided him.

I went to Europe, but that talk was still on my mind. I still felt uncomfortable about it inside.

I went to England, Paris, Switzerland, Italy, and there was so much to see, and everywhere I went there were pictures about the stories in the Bible. I was a little upset and angry because I knew so little about the Bible.

Then when I went to the Vatican I took a tour because I wanted to know about what I saw.

When I saw the picture of creation on the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, it was so wonderful, so beautiful. (Her face lit up.) Suddenly I knew that this was the true story of creation. Before I thought maybe there’s a God and maybe there isn’t, but suddenly I knew that God exists!

After I got back to Toronto, I went back to Madonna House. Things weren’t perfect anymore. I started to think about my family and problems with them. And I thought that maybe I should get a spiritual director to talk with.

I knew that Fr. Brière wasn’t taking any more people for spiritual direction, but I went to talk to him anyway. We talked a while, and then he asked me, "Do you want to be baptized?" I said, "yes."

Diana Breeze gave me instructions and, as I studied, it was so wonderful. As I learned each thing, I felt, "Yes. This is true. Yes, I believe this".

Were there any other experiences that touched you here?

One day a few of us Koreans took a bike ride to the park where the falls are. It was a beautiful day, and suddenly as I rode the bike, everything was beautiful—the trees, the rocks, everything. (Her face lit up.)

"Wow!" I thought, "Every day I see these things. How stupid that I didn’t realize before how beautiful they are! God made them. Why did I never wonder before who made them?"

And Jim Guinan’s funeral (cf. Restoration, February and March 2003)! I had never seen a funeral before, only in movies and on television, and they showed death as only terrible. At this funeral, people were happy. I even saw Jim’s sister smile. And there was so much love.

What is different now that you are baptized?

Now I see love. I didn’t see it on my first visit. I couldn’t feel love. I didn’t know "love;" I only knew "like."

What are some times or situations when you saw or felt love?

Oh, so many times. So many times. And I feel people’s love for me.

I saw love at Noreen’s funeral when Mike sang a song.

I felt it once when I sat at Jean Fox’s (director general of women) table for supper. She was looking in my direction, and I turned around to see what she was looking at. She said, "I watch you. We love you." That was so strange. I wanted to say, "why?"

But the main times were Fr. Paul Burchat and Fr. Brière. I asked Fr. Paul (my spiritual director and godfather) if he would play hockey with us on Sunday. He said no. Then he got a cold. And then on Sunday, with his cold, he came to play hockey. Tears came to my eyes. That is love!

Fr. Brière wasn’t well after his surgery. He couldn’t stay for the whole Mass, but he came for my baptism. That’s love, too. And I want to thank him.

Is there anything else you want to say?

Yes. Now I really want to live God’s way.

Good Friday

AT EVERY CONCEIVABLE TIME

by Fr. Pat McNulty

As I started to write this article a few moments ago, I think I discovered a new Way of the Cross! It is one I have personally made about fifteen thousand times between my birth and my twentieth year.

And if I could figure out a valid method of counting the times after my twentieth year, I’m sure I would discover that I’d made it thousands—perhaps even millions of times from then until now.

As a matter of fact, I would say that, since I am a cradle Catholic of a particular era, my life was built around this particular Way of the Cross. I am talking about the Sign of the Cross!

That’s right: the Sign of the Cross in the life of a cradle Catholic from my era was very much a Way of the Cross. We made that sign under every conceivable circumstance and in every conceivable place all day long.

It was the very first thing we did when we got up in the morning and the very last thing we did before we fell asleep at night. (In my family, we even asked our Guardian Angels to do it for us, if necessary, while we slept.)

As a matter of fact, in my mixed-denomination neighborhood, we Catholics were known for being people of that strange sign.

I remember a young neighborhood kid asking me one day, "How’s come you ‘Cat Lickers’—the Protestants called us ‘Cat Lickers’ and so we called them ‘Pot Lickers’—how’s come all you Cat Lickers do that fly thing?"

"Fly thing? What fly thing?" I asked.

"You know, that ‘fly thing.’" Then he did something with his right hand which I realized was supposed to be the Sign of the Cross, and he said, "you know, that thing you do with yer hand that looks like yer shooin’ away a fly."

At the time I was too young to explain to him that, though it has nuthin’ to do with little ole flies, it had a lot to do with big ole demons.

Yes, it was kind of nice to have some special outward sign which everyone knew about, one that was your own, something strictly between you and God, but which could also be seen by others. It was a sign we were very proud of.

And I’ve often wondered what people really thought as they noticed us making this sign in every conceivable place and circumstance. For, besides all the ordinary times we would make the Sign of the Cross in our Catholic lifeAofficially at least twenty times a day when we were in schoolopeople saw us do it at some rather unusual times as well. Like?

Well, people often saw a Catholic ball player make it right before scoring an important point in a game, or the whole team making it when they came out of their huddle. They saw it when we passed Catholic churches, though they probably weren’t aware that we did it to reverence the Blessed Sacrament reserved there.

They saw us make that sign when some disaster was announced over the radio in a public place. Or they might see one or two of us talking together making that sign, and if they had been able to hear the conversation, they would have discovered that something sad or dangerous had been mentioned.

But I imagine one of the strangest memories people would have of the Sign of the Cross would be if they happened to see us reverence our bishops in public. What would they make of us kneeling to kiss his ring and remain kneeling until he signed us with the Sign of the Cross?

And then there were the crosses. Every jeweler, no matter what his religion, knew enough to have an ample supply of gold and silver crosses on hand for people who wanted to wear this Sign of the Cross.

Yes, whatever people did not know about Catholics, there was one thing they knew for sure: we were people of the Sign of the Cross! It was our way.

At this point you might ask if we really knew as kids what we were doing when we made this Sign of the Cross. For us in the beginning, perhaps it was like learning a foreign language.

When we begin a foreign language, we don’t realize its beauty and its power. It is only when we have used it over and over and over again that suddenly one day we are pleasantly humbled by the immense mystery of letters forming words, and words forming sentences, and sentences forming ideas and conversations, and even literature, which is able to touch hearts all over the whole world.

So, too, with the Sign of the Cross. We make it over and over and over, and one day we suddenly realize its immense power and beauty.

I think I was always aware of this power and beauty when I was a priest in a parish, because I could almost see the effect of that sign on people, especially when they received sacraments or when they were dying.

But I realized it in a whole new way when things got a little "spooky" after The Exorcist or PoltergeistPthose movies which opened Pandora’s box tand people began to be aware of spiritual and emotional phenomena in their lives and in their homesaphenomena which, until then, had remained (necessarily I think) hidden from their eyes.

But when they became aware of these things happening, as if by some instinct, they turned to the Catholic tradition, to the cross and the Sign of the Cross.

I cannot tell you how many times between 1970 and 1990, when I was still in a parish environment, that non-Catholics asked me to bless their home, to bless a troubled child, or to give them a cross to hang on the wall in their houses. Why? Because they knew we believe in the power of the cross over "the spooky stuff," over disaster, and over Evil.

How did they know? They knew because they’d seen it in the movies or on the TV. And they knew it because they saw many of us making the Sign of the Cross in every conceivable circumstance and place. Like?

Well, I make it whenever I see someone who is in distress or obvious needeon the street, on the bus, on the TV. I make it when I hear or see something sad or dangerous. I make it when a disaster occurs, and I see or hear it replayed on the evening news. I make it when I am being tempted beyond my means.

I try to make it when I am about to say or do something stupidIor immediately after, if I’m too stupid not to not say or do it! Sometimes I simply make it for the healing it brings to my mind and body when I am confused or in pain. And sometimes I make it just because I love the Cross and him who died on it for me. Period. It’s my "way."

True, sometimes (not always), I make it in such a way that others might think I am shooing away a fly, when I am doing it quickly so that people will not be confused or offended.

After all, how would some poor, disheveled person on the street or the bus feel if someone clean and well dressed, made the Sign of the Cross over them in a very obvious way? (Yes, one has to be charitable even with holy signs.)

Yet I have often thought: wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could once again see with their own eyes, in every conceivable place and circumstance, a people who believe in the healing and the power of the Sign of the Cross, a people whose lives would be a Way of the Cross once again?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if little kids all over the world began asking again, "How’s come all you ‘Cat Lickers’ do that fly thing?"

I don’t think Jesus would be offended at all by the question. I know I wouldn’t be. And I would be delighted if people began to talk about the Catholic way of life as "The Way of the Cross." And I suspect Jesus would too. After all, he was the One who made the Way of the Cross the sign that it is.

"We adore You O Christ and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world."

Easter

I WAS ALLERGIC TO LITURGY

by Fr. Eddie Doherty

The train is bumping eastward. It is difficult to write. I could work more easily on the inside of a cocktail shaker, if I could crawl into one. But who cares?

I am hurrying home to Madonna House for Easter. The special Mass. The special foods! The kiss of peaceIthat three-in-one salute we give each other on the cheeks with the greeting "Christ is risen!" and with the answer, "Truly he is risen." The knocking together of gaily colored eggs. The special Easter bread and rich spread.

And that spine-tingling Easter Proclamation, that incomparable hymn of exultation—the Exsultet. Above all, Lord, I am thinking of the Exsultet! My memory of Fr. Callahan singing the Exsultet redeems the sins of this foul roadbed!

Lord, have I become a liturgist? I used to be allergic to anything "liturgic." Was it my natural lethargy, my natural stupidity, or my natural orneriness? I was a journalist, and it seemed to me that the average liturgist was as strident and strutting about rules and regulations for divine worship as the old Pharisees, or as some modern editors were about the writing of the news.

Some of these, Lord, insisted that no story should begin with the article "the." I broke every writing rule I could—and usually got away with it. I reacted to the liturgy lads the same way. When one told me it was improper to say the rosary during Mass, I felt rebuked. And I felt like rebuking back.

"Not improper," I said. "You mean impossible. What with the priest whispering parts of the Mass, and saying some out loud, and singing other parts sometimes, a guy gets distracted.

And there are the altar boys ringing bells like they were paid for it, and falling over their clumsy little feet, carrying books and stuff. And sometimes a choir’s singing on or off key. Sure it’s impossible."

I guess I was always a brash and callow fool. There was certainly nothing of the "rapture stuff" in all my speckled soul. You know, I still can’t say a single Hail Mary without distractions. You know, Lord, how I feel when I read the extravagant words of some of the saints…."

"Our dear eternity … our most sweet consolation and reward … most dear St. Joseph … most sweet St. Theresa."

My vaulting vertigo!

I don’t—though never with my ears. Yet there have been times when my emotions have rocked the chapel.

When Cardinal Rugambwa, while he was still a bishop, visited us at Madonna House one Holy Thursday and sang the Our Father, I felt a glad earthquake in me. For the first time in all my years, I realized the meaning of "our Father."

It was your Son, Jesus, in that delightful African bishop, who addressed you as "Our Father." His Father and mine! Ours! Father of all the people in the world, black, white, yellow, red, brown, and all the various mixtures of those colors. How could I help shaking, realizing in that flash of light that all of us were so closely related to each other and to you?

We felt blessed and honored. We took that tall, black, handsome man, that humble, smiling Christ, to the deepest parts of our hearts. We sang songs to him that first night at dinner. We had a royal feast and a riot of music. We felt as though you yourself had come to dine with us.

I was unusually elated, but in my usual, fumbling, humpty-dumpty, happy-go-lucky way, I pretended to take everything in my stride. But with the Exsultet, I gave in. I gave in all the way. I even gave in to myself!

You tried in many ways to teach me something about the liturgy, but I refused to learn. You did everything a long-suffering God could do. You failed. But at last you had your way with me. God bless you, God—if I may put it that way.

I was in the chapel shortly after eleven o’clock on Holy Saturday evening. I watched the priest kindle the fire. I saw the incense begin to burn. I saw the paschal candle lighted.

Then the electric light snapped off, and the candle, symbolizing Christ, the Light of the World, was slowly carried down the center aisle.

"Light of Christ!" our chaplain, Fr. Callahan, sang. "Thanks be to God," we answered.

Twice more he sang as he came toward the altar; and many candles, lit from the paschal flame, were being held erect. The light of Christ was burning in many places in the world.

Before I quite realized what was happening, Fr. Callahan began to sing the Exsultet. It was then your tide of grace seeped into me, flooding me.

There was a book in my hand, which someone had carelessly left near me. And there was light enough to read.

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels! Exult, all creation around God’s throne! Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!…

I was helpless against the deluge, helpless and dazed. I caught at the words as they went by, and clung to them as though they were as precious as life itself.

This is our Passover feast, when Christ the true Lamb, is slain, whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night when first you saved our fathers: you freed the people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry-shod through the sea…

There was more beauty in those words than I had glimpsed in shell or flower or star or bird or stone or stream or forest. And I was walking dry-shod through a red sea of my own, bringing those words with me.

Most blessed of all nights, chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead! Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled with God! (Easter Proclamation, Easter Vigil)

At last I realized that the liturgy was more than rubrics, more than rules and regulations and rituals. And I knew, eventually, that you were talking to me, God. That is, your ideas were rattling around in all that empty space I call my mind; and you were bringing them, slowly, into a disciplined and orderly array of words.

"The liturgy is not in the beautiful and profound words alone. Nor in the words or gestures of the priest. Nor in his voice. Nor in the voices of the exalted people around you. Look at them. They are even happier than you.

"It is not in the ornaments on the altar, nor in the burning of wax tapers, not in the smell of the incense, not in the ritual set down in official books. But it is in all these things together.

"Through all the beauty it can gather up"beauty of words, of tone, of music, of rich aroma, of gold and silver vessels, of brocaded vestments, of symbols and ceremonies and gestures, the Church, the bride of my Son, woos her Beloved. And officially she says, ‘This is the way best to show him our love, to woo him; let us be one in him as he is one in us.’

"This is the liturgy. I have given it to you. I have spread beauty before all your senses that you may fill yourself with it and offer it to me. I have blessed your eyes, your ears, your nostrils, your mind, your heart, your hands, your feet, your mouth. I have blessed you all, that you may all bless me.

"This is the liturgy. I am the creator of the liturgy. I am I. I am God. Out of my mouth comes the Word. The Word I utter is I. I am the Father of the Word. I am the Word. I am the voice that utters the Word.

"I am the Concord, the Love, that exists between the Voice and the Word. I am the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I am the Three in One, the One in Three. I am the Crucified. I am the Resurrection and the Life. I am the Eternal kiss that you will feel before the Mass is done."

If I wasn’t exactly dead, I was living in a tomb of ignorance, with a great stone of orneriness rolled against the door. Your flood has washed me out of the tomb. You are my Resurrection and my Life.

A happy Easter, God, from your addled Easter egg.

From Getting to Know God, pp. 60-65, available from MH Publications.

FROM THE EASTER PROCLAMATION

Rejoice, O heavenly powers!

Sing, choirs of angels!

Exult, all creation around God’s throne!

Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!

Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,

Radiant in the brightness of your King!

Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!

Darkness vanishes forever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Savior shines upon you!

Let this place resound with joy,

Echoing the mighty song of all God’s people!

I JUST LIVED HERE

by Mary Kay Rowland

Whenever I think about Noreen Hickey, the good friend of Madonna House who died recently, I think about the faithful women of the New Testament who served Christ, his disciples, and all in need.

As I imagine them doing, Noreen served so simply and so naturally that she was not aware of how much she gave or of her impact on people’s lives.

Noreen was a widow, and like so many women alone throughout the ages—single, divorced, widowed, separated she performed many acts of service that women with husbands and families have less time to do.

The examples are endless—an hour listening here and there, an evening "sitting" with an elderly neighbor playing cards or Scrabble, an afternoon of shopping for someone housebound or of driving someone else to a doctor’s appointment.

She served at a potluck supper for one group, organized an outing for another, was secretary or treasurer for this or that committee.

For her and for such women, the whole world is theirs to serve—parish, community, all kinds of civic organizations. For these women know that their neighbor is the person right in front of them—the clerk in the store, the neglected child, the searching teenager, the harried single parent, the lonely, the sick, the elderly, the needy.

Those who serve so continually require continual dying to self. And so often what they do is so hidden that we hardly notice it. Often we depend on them as unconsciously as we do our lungs breathing and our hearts beating.

I first met Noreen in 1954 when she and her husband, Neil, came to Madonna House to visit her brother Fr. John Callahan, our first MH priest. The next year I spent part of my vacation with them and then drove back to Combermere with them. Thus began a friendship that goes back 50 years.

Neil died in 1959 and Noreen came to Combermere to live in 1963. She was from Rochester, New York, and the adjustment from city to country life was not easy.

But over the years, through her unassuming helpfulness, her working with local civic and church organizations, and our own St. Joseph’s House, she gradually became part of the local area.

Shortly before she died, a large group of her friends and neighbors gathered together at the hospital for an ceilidh (pronounced "cay-lee"), an Irish or Scottish gathering which includes fiddle music, dancing, and singing, to express their love and appreciation for her and to say good-bye in an Irish way so dear to her heart.

She was amazed at the things people said about her. One neighbor, for example, a man who is usually quiet, said, "You came here to live, and you became a neighbor. Then you became a friend. Now you are family."

Noreen was overwhelmed and deeply touched by all of it. "I just lived here," she said. She had no idea how much people loved her.

Yes, Noreen was a friend to one and all. I was always delighted whenever I returned to Combermere from a mission house and rang her doorbell. When she opened the door, her eyes would light up as she smiled her welcome. "Oh, do you have time for a visit?" she would ask as she moved toward stove and kitchen.

When I think about her now, I can imagine Jesus and his Mother extending to her an even warmer welcome and saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into our joy."

Combermere Diary

A VARIED TIME

by Alma Coffman

"It’s the Little Things You Do That Count." These words, the title of a song written here in the 1950s, still describe our life here in the middle of February 2003.

We are just coming out of a cold snap, a month of temperatures generally below –20 C and often below –30 C. This has kept our men busy tackling rundown batteries, furnaces that aren’t hot enough, block heaters in cars, and frozen oil lines, air vents, and faucets. Meanwhile Fr. Louis Labrecque and the rest of the bush crew have been out cutting firewood for 2005. (It has to age before being used.)

The carpenters have put hardwood on the stairs to the main house dining room to protect them from wearing out from the constant use, and are now building a new cabinet and counter top in the main kitchen.

We continue to study and learn no matter how long we have been here. The guests continue their Wednesday morning classes from The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the applicants are studying the MH Constitution.

From February until Holy Week, the staff are having our annual Friday afternoon study time. We can choose our topics, and this year they include Church History, European History, the spirituality of the various MH work departments according to

Catherine Doherty, the Church’s perspective on current world problems, the theology of the body (by Pope John Paul II), the Pacific Rim nations, and French.

The nurses have been especially busy, and some of us have spent time by the hospital beds of those who are sick. Sean O’Callaghan, Kathleen O’Herin, and Theresa Marsey, for example, have all been hospitalized during the past month.

Noreen Hickey, the sister of Fr. John Callahan, our first MH priest and Catherine Doherty’s spiritual director, died peacefully in her sleep from cancer on January 29th. She lived in Combermere for forty years, and during that time was a good friend and support to our MH family.

The wake was held at our St. Mary’s chapel and the funeral at the parish church, Canadian Martyrs. Both our schola and the parish provided the music. She had asked to be buried by her husband in Rochester, New York, and several of our staff traveled there for the burial.

On Sunday, February 2nd we gathered for the blessing of a new building, St. Michael the Archangel, a building which is tucked among the tall pine and cedar trees near Loreto House. It is a storage and mailing area for the books, book catalogues, tapes, CDs, etc. that MH Publications publish and send out.

During the blessing ceremony Fr. David May read from Catherine’s writings about the importance of spreading the Good News through the printed word, and Linda Lambeth, who heads the department, expressed her gratitude to God and to the men’s department who labored so intensely to get St. Michael’s completed.

An open house followed in which the electronic equipment used by the department (including the computer on which Restoration layout is now done), were demonstrated. And all around were displayed the products books, tapes, videos, prayer cards, etc., etc.bof MH Publications. Plus there were homemade cookies!

February 14th was the 65th anniversary of the foundation of Friendship House Harlem, a house Catherine Doherty founded before MH and which worked among African Americans and for interracial justice. All around the dining room were photos from Friendship House and books and magazine and newspaper articles about African Americans.

In the evening, we watched the video, Having Our Say. The displays stayed up for a week, during which time the library made four other presentations. These included a short talk by Marian Moody about the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s, a time of flowering of African American culture and about some of the dramatists, writers, dramatists, artists, and musicians, who were part of it, and a presentation of African American music (on tape) along with a talk by applicant Maaike deBruyn.

Visitors, of course, continue to come and go. Among them were some from Brazil, Mexico, and the West Indies, who experienced our winter at its coldest. And to celebrate their New Year, Maria Park, our Korean applicant, and our Korean guests cooked us some delicious sweet potato noodles.

On February 16th, St. Raphael’s, our handicraft department, put out a display of their winter’s work. Sheep from our farm have provided the source of wool fleeces, skeins of spun wool, and woven rugs and shawls.

Other items included clay figurines and religious statues restored by Denise Becker, Mass candles and sanctuary lights made by applicant, Teresa Gehred, wooden carvings by Mark Schlingerman and Patti Birdsong, and knitting and embroidery done by staff as recreation. All of these craft items will make it possible for us to send more money to the missions.

Every evening right after supper, while we are still sitting at the dining room tables, we pray the rosary together as a family. As we do so, in our hearts we hold before the all-merciful Father all the current conflicts, tensions, sufferings, and fears in this world.

And we trust that the little things we do every day and the suffering of those among us who are ill, are all for the glory of God and for peace in the whole world.

Holy Thursday

WHAT IS A PRIEST?

by Catherine Doherty

Catherine wrote this a number of years ago, and were she writing it now, her examples would be different. However, this message, which was unchanging throughout her lifetime, would remain the same.

———

Today Christ instituted his priesthood. It is such an awesome day! Since morning I have been filled with its awesomeness.

The day before his passion, the day of the breaking of the bread, the night of Judas kissing him: all these things came into my mind early this morning. But my mind centered on the priesthood and the gladness of this day.

We who are eternally tearing priests apart because of their human sinfulness, we who leave the Church because a priest has erred or upset us, we who criticize, who walk around with our heads high but with stones in our hands, we are so full of sin.

As Christ said when the woman was taken in adultery, Whichever one of you has not sinned, let him cast the first stone (Jn 8:7). We can apply this to ourselves in relation to priests.

Instead of doing this, let your mind enter into this mystery beyond all mysteries: that Christ chose to take men out from among men, for he said, You have not chosen me. I have chosen you (Jn 15:16).

Into these men he has entered, not like the milk has entered the cup. No! He has become the cup as well as entered into it.

It is the hands of Christ that anoint; it is the hands of Christ that give us the Eucharist. It is the lips of Christ that pronounce the words that change the bread and wine into his Body and Blood.

In every priest Christ walks across the width and breadth of our whole land. There are no nooks and corners where he isn’t present. Though people are yet not converted to God, that will come in time, for Christ is the Lord of history. Think of that! Ponder over it!

Sometimes men ask, "Should I become a priest?" Well, it is not up to you to say so. But if in the heart of any man there passes the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit which makes him turn his face toward the priesthood, let him go and find out, because he might be one of the few chosen ones.

For Christ knew our hunger for himself. He knew that we would not all accept his commandment of love. He knew that we would be angry and hurt each other, even kill each other. He knew that we would be walking around in the darkness of a thousand wars and miseries throughout this life.

In order to have someone walk over the waters as he did, the waters of all those miseries of man, and to bring his peace there, he enters into the ones he has chosen as priests.

If one really understands what is going on at an ordination, one should faint, even if he or she is strong. Because a miracle is before you, a miracle beyond all proportions! A miracle like those performed at Lourdes!

A man becomes another Christ, and in his hands he has the power to heal men, the power to heal souls, the power to bring back the prodigal son. He has the power to feed the hungry: those who haven’t bread and those who have; for the Bread that the priest gives assuages the hunger of both rich and poor.

What is a priest? As I said in a poem I wrote, "A priest is a lover of God."

Let us not analyze, or try to poke our dirty hands into the wounds of a priest. He might appear to have "jumped over the wall," married somebody or simply lived common law or whatever, but who are you or I to know how much he loves God? And he still has the power, at a moment of death or of catastrophes of all kinds, to give us the Body and Blood of Christ and to absolve us from our sins.

Make no mistake about that. His name might be "Mister," but he is still a priest of the order of Melchizedek forever!

A priest is holy. This doesn’t mean that every priest you meet is holy in the sense that kids in the first grade, or even we who are seventy years old, may think of holiness. He is holy because Christ in him is holy, and because he stands, no matter where he goes, before the Face of the All-Holy, the Trinity. So he is as if he were not: God is in him!

I also said in my poem, "A priest understands all things, and a priest forgives all things, and a priest encompasses all things." Priests, as human beings, often understand very little, and as human beings, do not forgive very much. (Priests are human beings like you and me.)

And sometimes they encompass only a very small part of the spiritual territory, but don’t kid yourself. Don’t be deluded. What they can’t do, Christ within them can.

So you become a priest and you arrive at a new parish and they say to you, "Oh, you are wearing your clerics! What an old-fashioned guy! Very structured."

Or you’re a parishioner there and you have a few ideas of what the new parish priest should be like. You look for some priest who has ideas like yoursOunstructured or whatever.

Or maybe you are on the opposite side and you want him to say the Latin Mass! All this has nothing to do with it at all. It is just fog in the valley of our thoughts.

Faith that is like a burning bush, faith that transcends all understandingFthat is you, standing before a priest. You have to go before this opaque, fat, thin, tall, ugly, or whatever, man, in the tremendous power of faith.

The heart of a priest is pierced like Christ’s with a lance of love. Whether he knows this or not! He may try to tear the lance out but he can’t, because it is Christ who put that lance in. Christ has put a seal upon his heart, and there is nothing that will rub it off.

Now we are entering into the realm of faith. I am not appealing to your reason, which would be impossible, because your senses and mind might feel the opposite.

But this is Holy Thursday. This the day that the Christ we are talking about took an ordinary piece of bread and a little wine and changed it into his Body and Blood.

Is it impossible to believe that Christ is in every priest because he wishes to be there? He wishes to be there so that he can walk with the priest’s feet, heal with the priest’s hands, and give the Eucharist to us through the priest’s hands.

Enter now into the reality of a priest. Shed all preconceived notions and ideas. Suddenly, easily, simply, before you will stand God, who fills the priest. And that Face that no one can see without dying will be there, and you will be looking at an icon.

No, you will look at Christ himself and know beyond all knowledge that he is here in our midst, in the shape of this fat, unshaven, good-looking or bad-looking priest, with a breath that stinks or a breath that doesn’t stink.

That doesn’t make any difference. He is always the same, this Christ that loved us so much that he returned to heaven and yet stayed in our midst.

Remember this day always, year after year: the day of Christ’s infinite love, when he went away and yet remainedhin Bread and Wine and in the priest. It is the day of Christ’s ordination of the priesthood. Pray that you might understand, and understanding see, Christ in the priest.

Adapted from Season of Mercy, pp.94-98, available from MH Publications.

My Story

JOURNEY TO BAPTISM

by James Rogers

The author, currently a long-term guest at Madonna House for the third time, was baptized here in 2001.

————-

Though I think I’ve always known that there’s a God, until I was sixteen, I never really thought about it. My family didn’t go to church and, when I was growing up, I doubt I went to church more than three times.

I left home when I was sixteen, and for the next six years I just sort of wandered from place to place, never staying long anywhere. I did a lot of hitchhiking around Canada and the U.S., and I met a lot of Christians. We often ended up talking about religion, and it made me start to question the way I was living.

Finally I moved back to Toronto, where I’m from, and got a job as a cook at a mission and drop-in center for street youth, which was run by Christians. My supervisor invited me to a Bible Study that her husband led, and I attended about three sessions and even went to a few services at their Baptist church. I don’t know why exactly, but it didn’t attract me.

There was a Capuchin friar working at the mission and we became friends. One day he invited me to Sunday dinner at his friary, and it was at that dinner that I first caught sight of what would eventually lead me into the Catholic Church.

I remember thinking about family and being struck by a sense that this group of people lived more like a family than my own family did. They seemed to be normal people, not what I expected religious people to be. And why had they left whatever they had, I wondered, to live a life of poverty? I wasn’t able to put words to it then, but I realize now that what I saw in them was love.

Later on that same friar invited me to Sunday Mass, and there was something there that kept making me think. My friend later asked me if I would like to talk with the Sister who ran the RCIA program (the instruction program for those becoming Catholics). When I did, she asked me what I was looking for.

I couldn’t answer her, for I didn’t know. But now as I look back, I would say, "acceptance," and also being able to be who I was without pretending to be something else. I had spent my life living up to another person’s expectations.

Not too long after that, I got a job working with the Capuchins at a restaurant where they serve meals to the poor. There I met Tom Kluger, who would eventually become my godfather. After working there about six months, I was invited to move into the friary with the monks. So for the next five months I lived the life of a Capuchin!

It was at this time that I came to the realization that the Catholic Church is the one for me. A combination of factors had led me to this: the belief that there is more to the end of life than just death, the love the friars showed everyone, and the realization that there is Someone who loves me no matter what. I came to believe that Jesus had always been with me, even when I hadn’t believed in him. But I didn’t become a Catholic then.

After I left the Capuchins, I wandered around for a while without really doing anything.

That Christmas I got together with Tom Kluger, who was now in the spiritual formation program at Madonna House, and who was home for Christmas. We met for coffee a couple of times, and he told me about his time in Combermere. As he talked, I felt a push to go with him when he returned. It wasn’t until later that I realized that this was a push from God himself.

But after I decided to go to Madonna House, I did everything I could to avoid going. I even waited until three days before Tom was due back before I phoned to see if they had room for me. They did, and when the day arrived, I got on the bus to Combermere.

This was the first time I remember experiencing God’s nudging. I’m sure he had nudged me before, but this was the first time that I really listened.

Even though Tom had told me about Madonna House, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it turned out to be like nothing I had expected. Here was a community of people, Catholics, living together, and having the same problems that every family does. These people were a lot like me, that is, not perfect.

At Madonna House, I started to learn about the teachings of the Church and gradually came to see what was missing in my life. It’s amazing but, until you see what you don’t have, you don’t realize what you’ve been missing.

But now that I look back, I wonder how I was able to live without God more directly in my life. For the love God shows us each day in little ways makes living that day so much easier.

After a month with the community, I decided to begin the process of becoming a Catholic. I can’t easily put into words the final thing that brought me to this step. I remember feeling that I would really like to take full part in the liturgy, that I would really like to go to communion. Or maybe it was the desire to belong totally to Christ that brought me there.

So after talking extensively with my spiritual director, Fr. Tom Zoeller, and taking instructions, finally, at the Easter Vigil in 2001, I was baptized, confirmed, and received my First Communion.

I have never regretted becoming a Catholic, even though in some ways, being a Catholic is harder than my previous life. But the difference is that now I know that God and Mary are watching out for me.

The Pope’s Corner

THE PALM AND THE CROSS

by Pope John Paul II

The following is excerpted from the Holy Father’s Palm Sunday homily at St. Peter’s Square, April 8, 2001

———-

Our celebration of Palm Sunday begins with a "Hosanna" and ends with a "Crucify him!"

The palm of triumph and the cross of the passion: this is not a contradiction. Rather it is at the heart of the mystery that we want to proclaim. Jesus was not crushed by forces greater than himself. He freely faced crucifixion and in death was triumphant.

By searching the Father’s will, he realized that his "hour" had come, and he accepted it with the free obedience of the Son and with infinite love for human beings.

Today we look at Jesus who is nearing the end of his life and is presented as the Messiah long awaited by the people, sent by God in his name to bring peace and salvation, although in a different way from what contemporaries were expecting.

Jesus’ work of salvation and liberation continues down the centuries. That is why the Church never tires of acclaiming him in her praise and adoration. "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

The reading of the Passion sets before our eyes the terrible scenes of Jesus’ passion: his physical and moral suffering, Judas’ kiss, the disciples’ desertion, the trial before Pilate, the insults and scorn, the condemnation, the sorrowful way, the crucifixion.

Finally, the most mysterious suffering: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt 27:46). A loud cry, then death.

Why all this? The beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer gives us the answer: "Though he was sinless, he suffered willingly for sinners. Though innocent, he accepted death to save the guilty. By his dying, he has destroyed our sins. By his rising, he has raised us up to holiness of life " (Preface).

However in reading the account of the Passion, the Church does not only consider Jesus’ sufferings. She approaches this mystery, trembling yet confident, knowing that her Lord is risen.

The light of Easter reveals the great teaching contained in the Passion: life is affirmed through the sincere gift of self to the point of suffering death for others, for the Other.

Jesus did not understand his earthly existence as a search for power, as a race for success or a career, as a desire to dominate others. On the contrary, he gave up the privileges of his equality with God, took the form of a servant, became like man and was obedient to the Father’s plan unto death on the cross.

Thus he left the disciples and the Church a valuable lesson: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit (Jn 12:24).

What does the cross teach us? Jesus died and is risen. Now he lives forever. Through his death and resurrection, the Gospel triumphed and the Church was born.

If we have died with Jesus, we shall also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign with him (2 Tim 2:11) For Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The apostle Paul has given us the answer: I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39)

Praise and glory to you, O Christ, Word of God, Savior of the world!