My Dear Family

THE FIRE IN OUR HEARTS

By Catherine Doherty

It is rather obvious, of course, to everyone, that life is a pilgrimage. The expression, "Life is a pilgrimage" has been used and abused over and over again. But what is a pilgrimage?

God evidently loves pilgrims. To some, like Tobias, he sent angels as guides. To others, like Abraham, he just said, "Arise and go." Abraham was one of the first pilgrims.

We wonder what happened to Adam and Eve when they left the Garden. I think they must have embarked on a pilgrimage. For the memory of the audible, visible presence of God was like a fire, or must have been, in the hearts of Adam and Eve.

Where they nomads? Were they hunters? Did they know about sowing and harvesting? It’s not really important. They were pilgrims. They were the first pilgrims of the Absolute, because they had known the Absolute.

Yes, they had known the Absolute, and this knowledge passed into the hearts of all their children. Millions upon millions of them have been pilgrims—in lost civilizations, in Christian times, and in our times. The fire was something hidden in a corner of man’s heart, something that could not be quenched or killed.

Some followed it, and the history of mankind is filled with those who did—those who arose and left all things.

To follow what? To follow whom? A reality? Who could say? Consider the prophets. They were told to arise and go, but that was because from their very childhood they had a dream, a dream of seeking the Absolute.

Oh, they tried to squash it, to quench it, to deny it, but they couldn’t. The Absolute called to them. Out of some depth unknown to them, they heard that voice.

They may not have seen—though some I think did—him who called, but yet they knew. They knew who it was who called and they couldn’t resist.

They had to arise. They had to go out of big cities, out of beautiful surroundings, out of rich houses with soft and downy couches, away from wine, song and carnal attractions. They had to go. They had to go and nothing could hold them back—neither relatives, nor pressure groups, nor businesses, nor anything human. For always those pilgrims had a strange way of listening.

Why do I always imagine that their heads were always a little to the side as if they were trying to catch a voice that was indistinct? They were making sure, as it were, that they heard it.

And hearing, they arose. Half the time they didn’t know where they were going, and many in the beginning didn’t even know why. But this persistent strange voice that was no voice at all, spoke distinctly, though it wasn’t audible.

Yes, the nostalgia. No, that’s not the word at all. It was a hunger that they felt, the hunger that Adam and Eve experienced when they had to leave the friendship of God, the oneness with God. That was what they cried out for.

Just think of it. The unity, the sobornost of the Trinity penetrated, became incarnated in the sobornost of the man and the woman. And then, by some sort of incredible miracle, the sobornost of the Trinity and the sobornost of man, as represented by Adam and Eve, were one. It’s beyond understanding, so let us bow low before this mystery.

No wonder that this experience somehow was captured for all eternity in the hearts of men.

They dreamt strange dreams of that unity, that sobornost. Some spoke of their dreams and were called sorcerers and heretics. But they were not.

They did not give the apple to Eve. They were not Christians who knew that God is the Lord of history and that he touches everybody. They were people such as the Three Kings or the people in the deserts of Australia or the mountains of Asia.

All people who have religion of some sort are dreamers, and dreamers of a very special kind. They dream of unity between God and man in total sobornost.

It is a dream given as a treasure to Adam and Eve. Men can develop that dream or let it lie unrecalled.

Yes, sobornost. When all is said and done, what is man really seeking? Obviously he is moved by the pleasure principle, though the pain principle is built into him, too, as it is in animals. But deep down, hidden under all kinds of emotional fears and desires, lies the hidden dream of unity, of oneness with the God of all creation.

Perhaps it isn’t a dream at all. Perhaps it is a remembrance, and perhaps the word "pilgrimage" in every language refers to the remembrance. Perhaps it is the remembrance that becomes the dream, and for some a reality.

Pilgrims have to leave everything behind and follow this reality that is hidden in the mist of time.

Who can explain the migration of peoples all over the world? Back and forth, back and forth. They didn’t move simply because they were nomads or farmers, though that might be part of it. I believe that in the collective hearts of all those tribes there was hidden the gift that Adam and Eve left to them: the dream: unity with God.

Angry because their dream never reached reality as they expected it to do, they built Towers of Babel to reach God, or in sheer anger they fought among themselves for the possession of this or that piece of land.

Officially the conflict was for political, economic or cultural reasons. But is it possible for one Russian in love with God to say without fear and trembling that perhaps all this was done and is still being done in pursuit of Adam and Eve’s heritage?

For the hunger for God is growing in leaps and bounds all across the world, and it is still visible, palpable in the Third World, whatever the beliefs of its people may be. Could it all be in pursuit of a dream that is a reality, the only true reality that exists?

Well, all I can say is what comes to me in the dark of the nights like a light: this might be the crying of humanity to God. For we were created to be one with God in paradise. That unity was restored upon Christ’s arrival, Christ’s Incarnation.

Christ was the total pilgrim, the Man who pilgrimaged from the bosom of the Father to the hearts of men. Christ, who lived among men as men do. Christ, who became the bridge between all men and God. Christ, who died for all men, no matter who they wereCsinners or saints, Hindus or Muslims.

He is the Lord of history. He is the bridge between the Father and men. He invites us to a pilgrimage, the supreme pilgrimage. He offers us the path. I am the way…, he said, to the Father…(Jn 14:6). By offering himself as the way, he gave us the opportunity to become one with the Father again, one with himself, and one with the Holy Spirit.

Yes, Christ was the supreme Pilgrim, the incredible Pilgrim, who descended from heaven to earth and returned from earth to heaven, thereby making us free. Free to love and free to serve. Free to undertake a pilgrimage of love, a pilgrimage of love of God and of neighbor.

It is a long pilgrimage because the pilgrim has to love himself before he can love anybody else. He has to walk that long road inward, take that journey, that pilgrimage inward that alone will make him touch Christ who dwells within.

There are other parts to the pilgrimage. The pilgrim must love those who hate him and be good to those who are not good to him, even to the point of giving away his clothing and his belongings.

And the pilgrim must preach the Gospel. But in order to preach it, he has to live it day by day, hour by hour, minute, by minute.

And now that Christ has come,. there is a pilgrimage of fire.

Some complete this pilgrimage and some don’t. It is the pilgrimage of passionate, incredible love that gives itself as a path for Christ to walk on. This leads to entering into the emptiness of God where you will see that things that are real belong to him and all things that belong to you are as mist.

This is a kind of strange pilgrimage. It’s a new kind of pilgrimage. It comes from the depth of a man. It will be there until man and God meet again in the parousia.

Adapted and excerpted from Strannik, pp. 9-16, available from MH Publications.

Sean – Pilgrimage

WHERE WAS THE MONGOLIAN?

By Sean O’Callaghan

The following is excerpted and adapted from a talk given by Sean, about a trip he took in 1985 across communist Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

———————-

I had three dreams. One was to live in a house full of books. That was Madonna House. Another was to go to the Yukon. I was in and out of there for twenty years—sent there by Madonna House.

The third one the older staff used to hear me muttering about years and years ago—how I wanted to go to Siberia and shake the hand of a Mongolian. Well, all crazy Irishmen have dreams.

This last dream started getting fulfilled around Christmas last year. Fr. Brière came up to me and said, "I hear that you have a dream—that you want to go to Siberia." I said, "yes." "Well," he said, "Here’s a sum of money, and that’s to start a fund for you to go to Siberia."

I looked at him with my mouth open. It’s not often I get caught with my mouth open, but he caught me there.

But anyway things progressed. People gave me money, and it ended up that I had enough money to go to Siberia.

On the night before I left I asked myself a question: What kind of an attitude should I have on this trip? Should it be to see this or that—or what? And I found out that I wanted to be a pilgrim. At first I was shocked. There’s been enough pilgrimages around here, I thought. But that’s the way it was. I wanted to be a pilgrim. I couldn’t do much on the fasting bit. I did as much as I could, but with the stomach conditions I have, I couldn’t do too much.

And as far as I could see, it wasn’t until the end of the trip that the trip seemed like a pilgrimage.

I had gotten on the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Moscow and had gone all across Russia and arrived six days later in Khabarovsk, which is about 300 km. from the Pacific Ocean. I had seen a lot of places, but I still hadn’t met a Mongolian. Darn it all to heck! Where was the Mongolian?

Anyhow, I turned around and got on the train back to Moscow. On the way back, I hit it right. I saw all the places I had missed when I was asleep on the way out. We hit Lake Baikal again. Beautiful to see. Then we were up in the mountains, and we traveled south to Irkutsk. And I looked off in the distance and I think I could see the mountains of Mongolia.

Then we were in Science City again. We had three days left before arriving back in Moscow. I went to sleep that night, alone in my compartment, and when I woke up in the morning, to my amazement—I’m a very light sleeper—there was a guy in the bunk opposite me. And he was looking at me. Staring at me. And he looked Mongolian! I said to myself, Is this my Mongolian?

He caught my hand and shook it. He shook it and started spouting Russian at me. Man, was he talking! And that was when I wished to heck I knew some Russian.

Anyhow I went down two compartments. There was a Russian lady there who was married to a Japanese man and lived in Japan. Her name was Svetlana, and she spoke English.

I knocked at the door and she said, "Come in." I said, "I have a problem. Could you come and give me a hand? Could you translate for me?" She said, "I’d love to."

So she came into my compartment, and sat on the bed next to me, and the man started firing questions at her. He wanted to know all about me.

So what could I do? I told him I was from Ireland and a place called Madonna House, and that we help the poor and we help the Third World by begging and sending money.

And he said, "What’s the angle? What’s the political angle? Why are you doing this?" I said, "There’s no angle. We just love the poor." He said, "Is that right? There must be some angle." "No," I said, "there’s no angle."

An hour later he had found out all about me, but he got off the train and I never found out a darn bit about him. But I think he was a Mongolian. He had to be! He had to be! Anyway, I think he was.

Then Svetlana said to me, "I’ve never been so happy as in the last hour listening to you talking. You were talking about God, weren’t you?"

I hadn’t mentioned God. I just mentioned the poor. No, I hadn’t been talking about God because I figured that if I did, I’d be thrown off the train. But I was leading into it. If that man had stayed another day, we’d have been talking about God. But he was gone.

Svetlana said, "It made me so happy. My father’s an atheist. My mother’s an atheist. We never talked about God. We never heard about God. I sent my boy to a Sunday School. My husband doesn’t care; he’s a Buddhist. And my son came home from Sunday school a few weeks ago and asked me, ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know. I heard his name some place.’"

Then she said to me, "Tell me, who is Jesus Christ?"

And I said to myself, Sweet Jesus, that’s a tough one! How do I talk about this? Where do I start? So I said a prayer to the Holy Spirit.

She said, "Wait. I have a friend who wants to talk to you, too. But he can only speak Russian." So she went and brought back this guy—a very distinguished-looking fella, and he bowed and sat down.

So we started talking. I hope I gave them what they wanted. ‘Cuz for three days, until almost within a hundred miles of Moscow where Svetlana got off the train, we talked about God. I had a pain in my head by the time we finished. But I was all right. I had asked the Holy Spirit to talk through me.

That, to me, is what the trip was all about. It wasn’t about shaking the hand of a Mongolian. It was about what happened after I shook his hand.

Sean O’Callaghan

NO SWEAT, NO BIG DEAL

By Paulette Curran

Like many people of his generation, Sean wasn’t one to talk about his inner life—at least not directly. But he certainly communicated, and one way was by his one-liners, which he used over and over. Here are a few of them:

Let me shake the hand of a good man. (or a good woman). He used this one when meeting someone new)whoever it was. It was his way of saying, I respect you. I accept you.

Later on when you got to know him better, he would express this love only rarely through words. Mostly it would come through the tones of his soft Irish voice, his gentle smile, and his sensitivity to your needs. You might not be aware of all of this, but you likely felt at peace and at home in his presence.

Is it plugged in? Sean invariably said this when someone presented him with a malfunctioning or "broken" appliance, machine, or whatever. (For whether in the Yukon, where Sean was the only man in the house, or in Combermere, where he worked in the maintenance department, Sean was Mr. Fix-It.)

If you said, "yes," his next question was: Is it turned on?

At this point, if you were that person, you might perhaps feel put down and angry, especially if you had, in fact, forgotten to do either of these things. But it was not a put-down. It was simply a humorous expression of one of Sean’s basic stances in life: until it is proven otherwise, assume the best-case scenario.

No sweat. No big deal. Piece of cake. Sean used these more or less interchangeably, and constantly. Here are some examples:

"Sean, how did that situation work out?" "Piece of cake." "Sean, the furnace has gone out. (It’s the middle of the winter in the Yukon and it’s minus 40 outside.)" "No sweat." "Sean, there are five people coming for supper and I can’t get this dinner cooked because the phone keeps ringing." "No big deal."

Though there were times when at first you wanted to strangle Sean for not panicking when you did, the overall effect of his words and attitude was to lower the anxiety level and calm you down. Especially when the words were followed, as they often were, by suggestions on what to do.

It’s all a part of livin’. This was another weapon in Sean’s arsenal which he used to reduce tension and anxiety and make life manageable. He used it instead of some variation of no big deal when what was happening was not a problem to be solved but rather something to be accepted and lived withwone of the little crosses of everyday life.

Some sweat. In those rare times when Sean admitted that some situation or some time in his life was some sweat, you knew it was pretty serious.

I raised a family. Sean was the oldest of eight children in a poor family, and he often used this line when you were surprised at something he knew.

Perhaps it was through this early experience that Sean learned how to be a father. He was a father, over and over, for however long he was with them, to the native children who stayed with us in the Yukon, and to young staff.

Let me clue you in. I don’t know how often he said this to other people, but when I first knew him, he said it to me often, and always in private.

My first year and a half as a staff worker, my first year and a half in a mission houseMin the YukoniI was with Sean and two women staff. I was an only child living for the first time in a small house with brothers and sisters. And I was a city person, a New Yorker, living in the subarctic, on "the last frontier."

To use a one-liner of another MH person famous for them (Catherine Doherty), "what I didn’t know would fill a library."

Mercifully I’ve forgotten most of the times when I put my foot in my mouth or made some other mistake that, at the time, sometimes felt disastrous.

What I do remember so well is Sean, (who was not the director of the house), when we were alone after such an incident, gently saying, let me clue you in. This was a prelude to my learning how to do one more thing right the next time.

And when I reacted to his words with hurt or anger, as I occasionally did Afor it is no easy thing to constantly crash into your personal inadequacies he would say even more gently, I’m your big brother. I’m just trying to help you out.

Without Sean, without his unconditional love, his peace, his comforting presence, I don’t know how I would have survived that first mission house in the Yukon. Yes, Sean loved me and took me on on a deep level. He took me on and fathered me, as he fathered so many, so simply, so quietly, that I hardly knew it was happening.

It seemed to be no big deal. But now I know that it was. It was a very big deal. And I am more grateful than I can ever say.

Sean O’Callaghan

FAREWELL TO SEAN

by Mary Beth Mitchell

This was written the day after Sean died.

————————

I’m so happy for Sean that he is on his way home. He has waited for a long time, and he has been ready for a long time. He often described things as "first class," and I hope and pray that on this trip he goes first class and has no stops along the way.

There are also tears in my heart, though, because Sean was my special brother. He and I made our first promises together on April 3, 1958. And though it took both of us a few years to realize what we’d done, neither of us has regretted it, in spite of some "iffy" moments. We’ve both had many good years in the apostolate.

Though there were long periods when we didn’t live in the same house, Sean and I always had a close bond. I could tell him anything and know that it would be received well in his loving and compassionate heart… even if I did want to clobber him now and then.

Sometimes I did clobber him. Those were the times when, sensing that my frustration was building and that I needed to let it out, he would tease me to the point that I would slug him on the arm. Then feigning great distress, he would chuckle in his inimitable way and ask, "Do you feel better now?"

We were in the Yukon together for a number of years. He had such an easy way of being with the men staying at our hostel, no matter what their condition was—the men who came from the native villages or from the mines, needing a place to stay.

He was a comforting presence for the children who stayed with us, too. In the evening he would sit in the hostel’s TV room and watch "Yesterday’s News Today." (It was flown to the Yukon from Edmonton or Vancouver.) Many a time, one of the more shy or wounded of the children would sit at his feet or climb up on his lap, knowing it was a place of safety.

Over and over, he consoled himself and those around him with quips like "no sweat" and "piece of cake." And he was always saying "God bless" to everyone. In fact, his very presence in the house brought comfort and peace.

He was a source of fun and laughter as well. One night, as several of us were sitting around together in the living room, Mary Ruth was trying to thread a needle. "They are making the eyes of the needles too fine these days," she sighed.

Sean said, "Here, let me try." Then after a few tries, he told her, "It’s not the small eye that’s the problem. The thread is just too fat." That sent us into gales of laughter.

Sean was a great storyteller, and many of his stories took place in his native Ireland before he came to Canada. Some of the best ones are from the days when he worked with a traveling circus.

At one stop in a small village, for example, Sean and a buddy were told about a haunted house. So they made it a point to see that it stayed haunted. They went into the house at night, lit the lights, and let forth some blood-curdling screams.

A few months later, when they traveled back to that village, much to their delight, folks were still talking about the night they really did hear awful screams.

Another time, when they were in a hurry, they stopped at a diner and Sean ordered a couple of eggs. When the waitress asked him how he wanted them, he said to just give them to him. So she brought him two raw eggs. He cracked them open, put them in his mouth, and swallowed them. The waitress fainted.

Years after that, my sister and her husband and two children ages 2 and 5, visited me in Combermere. We invited Sean for supper where they were staying, and he told us ghost stories. Not only did he hold us all in suspense, but he scared himself so royally that he was afraid to go back home alone afterwards!

Sean had some wonderful qualities. He never said "no" that I can remember. And he never stuck out in a crowd unless he was entertaining people to make them happy.

In the early days of Madonna House, a group of us calling ourselves the "Marian Medlies" used to travel around the area entertaining people and raising money for a local hospital.

One night when Sean was playing the accordion and singing "Danny Boy," he suddenly forgot the words. Not one for being at a loss, he pretended to wipe tears from his eyes and told the audience that this song always made him homesick. He brought down the house.

Well, Sean, you’re not homesick anymore. I’ll miss you, brother, and I wish you the best reception ever. See you again some time. Save a place for me.

Pilgrimage

THE CALL OF LOUGH DERG

By Deacon Paul Lissandrello, associate deacon of MH

"You won’t be back," said the elderly gentleman in the bunk across from mine in his thick Irish brogue. He was saying that I wouldn’t be up to that penitential pilgrimage known as "doing Lough Derg."

"Why do you say that?’ I asked with at least minor indignation. While I respected this senior pilgrim’s earnestness (this was his sixty-second trip to the holy island!), I felt judged by his remark.

"Because it’s hard," he answered. Since he is Irish, Lough Derg is part of his religious culture, and he is well used to the fasting, the all-night vigil, and the walking barefoot in prayer rounds over sharp stones. I am a middle-aged American, who had traveled to this little island in a lake in County Donegal, Ireland. Surely I didn’t realize what I had gotten myself into!

Lough Derg is a unique place of Irish asceticism. According to tradition, St. Patrick went there in 445 A.D. to pray and do penance. (Its other name, "St. Patrick’s Purgatory," comes from a vision of purgatory he is said to have had there.)

People have been making pilgrimages to Lough Derg since 510 A.D., making it one of the oldest centers of Christian pilgrimage in the world. They even continued to go there during the religious persecutions of the seventeenth century, and even today many Irish Catholics undertake the pilgrimage in much the same way as Moslems go to Mecca.

My wife, Pat, and I knew that the faith of the Irish is strong and enduring, and we had heard that to truly understand Irish Catholicism, you have to go to Lough Derg. So we decided to go.

But I have to admit that it was hard, just as the veteran pilgrim had said it would be.

When we boarded the small boat which ferried us from the mainland to Lough Derg, we had a sense of foreboding. With its gray buildings, dominated by a large gray Romanesque basilica, it looked like a prison island. And, in fact, in its appearance, Lough Derg has been compared to Alcatraz.

Then when we arrived, Pat and I were separated. She was directed to the women’s dorm and I to the men’s. Each of the men’s dorms contained four bunk beds, and I had been assigned a bottom one.

I took off my shoes and socks for one "does Lough Derg" in bare feet. Then I made my bed for my second night. I knew that I would be awake the entire first night praying with my fellow pilgrims in an all-night vigil.

The next step was to begin praying "the stations." Not to be confused with the Stations of the Cross, the Lough Derg stations consist of circular beds of rocks, some of them sharp.

They are outdoors, and one does them even if it is cold and raining, as it often is in Ireland (even from mid-June through mid-August when the pilgrimages take place). One walks barefoot, first around the circumference of each bed, and then inside it, saying while doing so a specific number of Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Creeds, over and over, almost in mantra style.

Part of the difficulty in doing them is seeing the struggles of the other pilgrims all around you doing the same thing.

At one point, for example, an elderly woman struggled along beside me. She must have been in her mid-eighties and she was having obvious difficulty kneeling, getting up again, and keeping from falling. But even so, she clearly indicated that she wanted no help. This was obviously not her first trip to Lough Derg, and she would do what she had done before without assistance.

208 pilgrims had arrived in Lough Derg that day for the three-day pilgrimage, and at 10 p.m. we assembled in the basilica to witness the lighting of the candle which would symbolize our group’s effort. It would burn for 24 hours and at 10 p.m. on the next evening, it would be extinguished as we ended our vigil and went to our dorm for a well-earned sleep.

Throughout that first night we prayed three "stations" in the church as a group, walking around the pews while doing so.

There were half-hour breaks between stations during which time we were free to sit in the basilica or go out to a waiting room which overlooked the water.

We were also fasting. Cold and hot water were available and many put black pepper in their hot water to make what is called "Lough Derg tea." The taste is wretched, but it does help keep you awake.

And staying awake was a challenge, which became more difficult as the night progressed. Anyone sitting down with closed eyes was nudged and given a disapproving gesture. Dozing off was not accepted.

As I processed around the church and repeated prayers in a semi-dazed state, I could see why the place is called "St. Patrick’s Purgatory." There was a pervasive grayness about the experience which I will never forget and a feeling that it would never end.

Dawn comes early in Ireland in late June, and when it finally came, it was a relief to see the sky beginning to light up. I was uncomfortable, tired beyond what I had expected, and spiritually numb. I had to fight to stay awake at morning Mass, and the only thing I remember about the homily is that I found it terrible.

(At the next Mass, just 24 hours later, awakening from a deep sleep rested and alert, I found the same priest’s words profound and inspiring.)

There was, of course, no breakfastTnot even a cup of coffee or tea. We were allowed only one daily meal consisting of toast, oatcakes, and tea, a meal which we would not have until late in the afternoon.

Later in the morning, the Sacrament of Reconciliation was available as part of a penance service. After that, there was time to complete one more outside stations, to visit the basilica or the Blessed Sacrament chapel, or to read.

As the day progressed, I felt less tired, but if I tried to read, I would immediately begin to drift into a dreamlike state. To avoid this, I stopped reading.

Even though it was Tuesday, and except for dry toast and tea on Monday afternoon, I had had nothing to eat since Sunday dinner, the meal, when it finally came, had no appeal for me. I simply wasn’t hungry, and I ate it more as an opportunity to visit with the other pilgrims than to satisfy my hunger.

Some time in the afternoon, there was an optional meeting for those interested in discussing spirituality, especially the spirituality of Lough Derg. About forty of us attended and we were asked why we had come.

We were such a diverse group. I had expected "spiritual types," priest, nuns, seminarians, and serious students of spirituality, but most seemed to be "average" Irish people from different walks of lifeWsome educated, some not.

Some were in their eighties and some in their twenties. Some wore baseball caps, and others, grandmothers, wore plain dresses. Some had seemed to be constantly praying, while others had appeared to be trying to get their prayers in quickly so that they could sit outside the basilica, have a smoke, and watch the other pilgrims.

Why had they come? And why did they seem so determined and proud of their communal asceticism?

Without boasting, they shared their reasons for being there. Basically they had all come to get God’s attention in a special way. Some came asking God for somethingWgood health for themselves or a loved one, help for their marriage or children, success at school or job.

Some came to atone for past sins. Some came to thank God for his goodness to them or their families. Still others came in imitation of the Irish saints who were pilgrims before them at Lough Derg and other holy sites, simply to give honor and glory to God.

And why had I come? I have long discerned a call to be a pilgrim and have responded to this call over the years by traveling to such places as Lourdes, Rue de Bac, Paray le Monial, Taizé, and Knock. This time I had wanted to make a special pilgrimage for the jubilee year, Besides, for many reasons, my wife and I love Ireland, and had been eager to return there.

To be a pilgrim is to pray with one’s body as well as with one’s mind and heart. A true pilgrim is willing to endure uncomfortable travel conditions, long walks in forbidding weather, and the lack of opportunity to satisfy the basic human needs for food, drink, bathing, and sleep. The pilgrim accepts these privations as a gift to God, and it becomes a physical and visible prayer which the pilgrim offers him.

In fact in the Catholic tradition, the cross is an essential part of a pilgrimage. If it is completely lacking, one is not a pilgrim but a tourist. And while tourism is a good thing in itself, it doesn’t merit union with Jesus, the pre-eminent pilgrim, who pilgrimmed to earth to walk among us.

For the three years of his public ministry, Our Lord traveled across the land made holy by his forefathers. And as he walked over this land that we still call "holy," he had no place to lay his head (Mt. 8:20, Lk 9:58), and depended totally on the hospitality of others.

The pilgrim, on a journey to meet God, is also a symbol of the Church, always in motion, always seeking God.

When we go on pilgrimage, we benefit ourselves and help others, but most of all, we please God, and it is this and the knowledge that I was doing God’s will, that motivated me.

This is why the elderly gentleman in the bunk across from mine was wrong. Even though "it’s hard," I will be back.

Besides, there is a saying at Lough Derg that those who look back as they are being ferried to the mainland at the end of the pilgrimage are destined to return.

When my wife and I were on that boat, I looked back at St. Patrick’s Purgatory, vibrant in the sun. "Pat, look at that," I said. Knowing what I was about, she said, "Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not looking back!"

I laughed, but several weeks later, I was not really surprised to hear her say, "I have to go back, at least one more time."

I can’t explain it, but the call of Lough Derg is compelling.

More information about Lough Derg is available at their website: Info@loughderg.org

Combermere Diary

MORE THAT ‘YES’

By Denis Lemieux

This diary covers the period between March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, and June 8, Pentecost Sunday. This year, for the first time ever in MH, Pentecost coincided with the feast of Our Lady of Combermere, which is our Promises Day.

In these two and a half months, we have journeyed from Our Lady’s fiat (Let it be done to me according to thy word.) to her overshadowing by the Holy Spirit and the fiat made by 22 of our brothers and sisters who made or renewed their promises "with the help of Our Lady to live in poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to the Madonna House spirit and mandate."

On March 25, Fr. McNulty reminded us that "fiat is more than yes." It is more than just a formal assent of the will or the intellect to some external reality. Our Lady’s perfect fiat and our less than perfect ones are in fact surrenders of our whole being—body, soul, and spirit—to the loving plan of God, and a handing over of ourselves to this plan.

This diary, then, is a chronicle of our ongoing efforts to make our daily fiats here in Our Lady’s house tucked away in the backwoods of Canada. And that means more than just a general yes. It means, among other things, surrendering to our daily work.

Life in Combermere is busy at all times, but especially in spring. With "all hands on deck," we planted the onions and potatoes, and Chris Hanlon and helpers did the rest of the vegetables. Meanwhile, Mary Davis, Ruth Siebenaler, and crew are hard at work on the fruit and flower gardens. They planted 300 raspberry canes at the farm this year.

Spring also means an increase in donations, and Peter Anzlin and his team in what we call "the Shipping and Receiving Department" have had a full-time job keeping up with the steady flow of donated clothes, books, furniture, etc.

Spring is also the start of the carpentry season, and our carpenters have two major ongoing projects. We are replacing what we call "the green garage," where we have kept our donations for fifty years, with a larger building, where we will sort the donations as well as receive them.

The second job is the extension and renovation of our gift shop, which has received a new addition.

The shop is also getting a major refurbishing, with Veronica Wanchena and the gift shop crew working hard to give the place a new look and organization.

Our life, of course, is not made up entirely of work. Fiat also means giving ourselves to the many people who pass through our doors and rejoicing in the gift they are to us. One particularly joyful example of this was the first pastoral visit of Bishop Richard Smith, who was recently ordained bishop of our diocese of Pembroke.

He is travelling all over the diocese, listening to people’s needs and discerning a pastoral direction for the area. Here, he met with the MH priests, directors, and a cross-section of staff, applicants, and guests. Bishop Smith already has a love and understanding of our life.

At one point a guest asked him where his appreciation of community life comes from. "It comes from my time in front of the Blessed Sacrament," he said. "You can’t wear a mask when you are face to face with Jesus."

Other guests come from "all over the map," literally: Belgium, Brazil, England, Scotland, and Korea, and many stay for lengthy visits. Koreans have been a constant over the last few years. Why they are coming in such numbers is a mystery hidden in Our Lady’s heart—a beautiful mystery and one which is opening us up to a culture rich in tradition and faith.

During May, the directors of our 20 mission houses came to meet with the directors of Combermere. These meetings are an exercise in communal discernment: What has God done in us during this past year? Where is the Spirit leading us as a family?

As those attending the meetings, and indeed the whole of Madonna House, grapple with these questions, a tremendous amount of bowing to one another and to God is required.

Changes in staff assignments is one of the things that always results from these discussions. ‘Arising and going’ in obedience is perhaps one of the most profound expressions of the ‘more than yes’ fiat we are called to. (See Milestones for details of staff transfers).

Then, we immediately moved on to June 8, the feast of Our Lady of Combermere, and this year, as I mentioned before, also Pentecost Sunday. The juxtaposition of so many profound spiritual themes—the gift of the Spirit, Our Lady’s special presence in Combermere, the 22 men and women (plus two associate priests—Fr. James Finder, who made finals, and Fr. James Bozung, firsts) giving their lives to God through their promises—made for a day of extraordinary depth and beauty.

Appropriately to Pentecost, promises were made in several languages: Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese, as well as English. Plus the staff making promises in English come from many lands and ethnic backgrounds: Singaporean, Irish, French Canadian, Japanese, Mexican-American, and others.

Truly, as at the first Pentecost, we heard people in many languages speaking about God’s deeds of power. (Acts 2:11).

Another thread that linked Pentecost with our promises was the presence of a number of Oblate missionary priests including Bishop Rouleau of the diocese of Churchill-Hudson Bay. They came for the final promises of Joanne Dionne, who, prior to joining MH, had served as a lay missionary in the Canadian Arctic for several years.

The presence of these men, representatives of an order that has poured itself out in preaching the Gospel to the first nations of Canada, was a powerful reminder of the Spirit’s gift empowering every baptized person to be a missionary, to cry the Gospel with his or her life.

And so, as we move from this rich time of grace and joy into the heat of summer with its own rhythm and work, we know that the call to fiat, to the gift of our whole selves to the duty of the moment and to the movement of the Spirit, is one which we share with you our readers.

And we know too that we are united with you in this same Spirit, and that our individual and communal fiats bless and support yours, as each of your fiats bless us and the whole Church.

Pilgrimage

THE POWER OF THE BODY

By Martha Shepherd

Last September I found myself, along with Therese Fajardo, a fellow member of Madonna House, and two other people, following a Benedictine Sister down the damp, earthen stairs of the catacombs of St. Priscilla. I had never wanted to see the catacombs, but Therese always had. She had, in fact, come to Rome specifically for this purpose, and I was so happy to be with people I knew for five days of my month-long pilgrimage that I was simply tagging along.

Suddenly it hit me that we were in a cemetery! I happen to like cemeteries. But up until this point, all the ones I had known maintained a basic distinction between the living and the dead: we were up here and they were down there. Now I found myself down there—underground with a lot of dead bodies.

This may sound obvious, but the word "catacombs" had so many associations for me that I was completely unprepared for this bottom line reality.

Flickers of horror and fear started licking around the edges of my mind. I had unthinkingly trailed into what is literally the kingdom of the dead. It was not my idea of a tourist attraction.

Not wanting to run shrieking out of the tunnels, I tuned in with determination to the Sister’s lecture. "Early Christians," she said, "buried their dead in the same way pagan Romans did, in underground graveyards outside the city walls. But the difference is that, whereas the pagans called the place of their dead the "necropolis," meaning the "city of the dead," the Christians called it a "cemetery," which means "dormitory," a place of sleep. The Christians are sleeping here while waiting for the resurrection."

She then showed us how they dug the graves into the sides of the narrow passageways and in the rounded chambers opening off them. They were stacked one on top of the other like bunks in a concentration camp.

"And of course the wealthy could decorate the chambers where their dead slept," she continued. On one side was a fresco of a woman in the traditional Jewish prayer shawl"her arms and eyes raised in prayer.

And above her in the center of the ceiling stood the one in whom these Christians placed their hope—Christ as the Good Shepherd carrying one of his lambs. Then on another wall, we saw Christ again, this time calling Lazarus out of the tomb.

There were other figures, too, other stories, each one a reminder of resurrection. Within that context they shone with triumphant power.

Amidst the stark reality of death, those walls and ceilings bore witness to the (then still new) joy of these believers that death was not the end of the story. And the faith and joy on those walls continue to be timeless words of hope for every generation that has walked down those stairs ever since.

The catacombs of St. Priscilla lie under seven square miles of Rome and Roman suburbs. Above them, busses shake and cars roar. Above them, store windows offer the latest fashions and cafés offer wine and coffee, Above them, too, is a large park with its strolling lovers, baby carriages, and big, family picnics.

But beneath it all, like the bottom of a fraction, lie these stark common denominators: death, the message of resurrection, faith.

It’s hard to describe the impact of this place. Through this place of death, I was tuned in to the reality of life and infused with the joy of those primitive Christians.

Therese was right. The catacombs were well worth a trip to Rome.

Then two days later, I encountered more bones—once again unexpectedly. It happened when by chance I attended Mass in St. Clement’s chapel in a crypt in St. Peter’s Basilica.

My whole life experience had prepared me to expect that when I go down the stairs in a church, I will find coat racks, washrooms, and a hall where they have meetings and serve tea and coffee after Mass.

Not so in Italy. In at least some churches there, when you go down the stairs, you are in a crypt, a place where people, possibly holy people, are buried.

And in St. Peter’s basilica, the crypt opens upon the tomb of St. Peter!

Perhaps this comes as no surprise to you, but this was my first experience of the patron of a church actually being in the church. I mean, in the United States and Canada, churches are named after saints, but you never expect the saint to actually be there.

I’d assumed that the basilica was called St. Peter’s because it belonged to the Vatican, was associated with the pope, and so forth. But no, St. Peter’s Basilica is called "St. Peter’s" because St. Peter is there!

St. Peter’s Square started life as Nero’s circus, a place where many, many Christians were killed, among them St. Peter. Because he was crucified there, he was buried there. And because he was buried there, the basilica was built there.

So everything I saw there—the monumental buildings, the acres of marble, the obelisk and statues, the great art, the fountain and galleries, the Swiss Guards and English guides, the Korean nuns and the souvenir sellers—all were there because a man named Peter was crucified and buried here. It was all built on his bones!

Here in the chapel of St. Clement I was touching one of the very sources of the Church. This was the place where the man who had once denied Christ gave his life as a witness to the Resurrection and to the fact that the Resurrection had changed everything, including himself.

Peter was not just a character in stories, a name in the Bible. He was a physical person who had made choices. Here he had chosen to die for Christ, and his death proclaimed the power of the Spirit and the reality of the new life of forgiveness and repentance.

Here were the bones of the man the Lord called "Rock." And here was the literal, vivid image of the fact that Christ did build his Church on that rock.

Seeing his bones made it all real!

Finally I want to tell you about another stage of my pilgrimage—Compostella in Spain, the resting place of the relics of St. James. Though for years I had wanted to walk the Camino, the only medieval pilgrimage route that has remained in uninterrupted use, it had never been the idea of the relics that drew me. I didn’t even believe that what was there were really the bones of St. James.

No, it was the walk itself, the art and the architecture, the cathedral and the city which had grown from the pilgrimage that drew me.

However when I was there (having gone by train instead), I did what all pilgrims and visitors do: I walked up the steps behind the altar to place my hands on the gold statue of St. James, the teacher. Then I walked down the stairs into the crypt beneath the altar where a silver casket holds the (supposed) bones of St. James.

When I entered the crypt, a wave of what I can only describe as a sense of the holy took me entirely off guard and literally almost knocked me to my knees.

At the time I had had only an inchoate sense of spiritual power. To try to put that into words now, I’d say that what overpowered me was the sudden realization that it was these bones that had mobilized the Spanish to reclaim their land from the Muslims, thereby probably keeping all of Western Europe Christian.

And the sudden realization that ever since the ninth century, these bones have mobilized millions of pilgrims to walk across Europe. Hospitals and roads, monasteries and inns, were built, all because of these bones.

These bones have affected the course of history and the lives of millions! Talk about the power of the body!

And that’s not the end of the story. Shortly after I returned home, I read that when Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, he described the transition as moving from the tomb of St. Stanislaus to the tomb of St. Peter. And now I think I understand something of what he meant.

And I see with new eyes why, whenever the pope visits a country, he visits the principle shrines of that land. It is because he is visiting there the soul and sources of the people and their culture, the places where the Word became flesh, the places where Christ is present in his saints.

The more immediate the connection with the sources of our identity, our Christian culture and our spiritual life, the more vitally we live out of them and pass them on. So I am deeply grateful to have had the chance to touch some of these origins.

So there you have it: the bare bones of a trip that turned out to be about bones.

Sean O’Callaghan

FINDING A BROTHER

By Fr. Tom Zoeller

When Sean O’Callaghan died, at first only two memories of him came to mind. Both were from the l970s when he was in charge of maintenance and I was doing carpentry.

The first had occurred when I was building holding pens for the dairy cows at our farm. It was not the best time of my life. Sean, who was walking through the barnyard, came over to me and in his Irish voice asked, "How’s it goin’, ole man?" Though it was an encounter of ten seconds at the most, it lifted my spirits.

The second memory occurred when I was working on an aluminum storm door, taking out the screen and putting in the glass insert for the winter. I couldn’t figure out how to get the glass in and was getting more and more frustrated.

The job wasn’t the problem. During that time God was trying to teach me that I didn’t know everything, and I wasn’t ready to admit it. Not yet.

When Sean came over to see how I was doing, words of frustration came spewing out of my mouth. He didn’t say a word. Instead he calmly started pushing and probing and, lo and behold, the glass insert was in place.

"How did you do that?" I asked, but I got no answer. I don’t think Sean knew. His mechanical ability was in his fingers, not in his mind just as his love was in his heart, not in his words.

This was all that came to me about Sean and my relationship with him until his wake service two days after his death. During that service, it was as if a movie of Sean and me, scene after scene, was running through my mind unbidden.

One memory, for example, went back to 1966. After a hard year in the seminary, I went to our house, Marian Centre, Edmonton for the summer. The hope was that, by doing lots of manual work and serving the men on skid row, I would achieve inner peace and balance.

Sean, who was in charge of the our soup kitchen, which served lunch to 500 men, was about to go on holidays, and guess who was going to take his place while he was away.

So he "showed me the ropes." And instead of telling me that I had to do things a certain way, his approach was what I describe as: "Here’s the job. This is what we do, and it works." "This is the routine, just the routine," he said again and again. It was such a gentle, loving way of telling me what I didn’t know.

And this was from a man who, the first summer I visited Madonna House, before I ever met him, I had heard spoken of with awe. For Sean had driven a flatbed semi-truck to Toronto, four hours away, picked up the load of donated cement for pouring the floor of our hay barn, and driven back all on the same day!

As these and many more memories came to mind during the wake service, a word from Scripture also came to me: Our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3).

That described Sean’s life perfectly. There was so much more to him than met the eye—a depth that he kept hidden, as the Irish are wont to do. But he was a great gift to me and to many others. And now that he was dead, his inner life was being revealed to me.

I had thought that his death would be "no sweat,"—to use one of his favorite expressions. But as I prayed my way toward his Mass of Christian Burial, I realized I was more affected than I had expected to be.

For during the night of his wake service and in the hours before his burial, I discovered that Sean had been more a part of me and my life than I had realized.

In his death, I found a brother.

Pilgrimage

BACK TO MY ROOTS

by Mary Speicher

"Discover your Christian roots…. Deepen the knowledge of the spiritual heritage which has been passed on to you. Follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before you" (Pope John Paul II, July 25, 2001).

Perhaps God put these words into my heart as well, because last year, I knew that God was calling me to go back to visit the lands of my ancestors.

When I said this to my spiritual director, he suggested I go, and that I make the trip a pilgrimage to shrines of Mary, the Mother of God, the mother of my ancestors, and my mother.

So my preparations began. I searched for information about my family tree and read about the lands where my family originated—Alsace and western Germany. (Alsace is an area which has gone back and forth between Germany and France for centuries.) Then I planned my route and worked out the practical details of the trip.

My pilgrimage to picturesque Alsace began in Strasbourg, France, a city which is the heart and center of Alsace. A cathedral named "Notre Dame" stands in the center of it, and since this was to be a Marian pilgrimage, I decided to go there for Mass and a visit. It was a lovely cathedral built out of red stone from the nearby Vosges Mountains.

I expected nothing out of the ordinary, but when I explored it after Mass, something about it captivated me. It was so grand, and with its massive Romanesque pillars, it spoke of such power and strength! And with its incredible, wide nave filled with long, slender stained glass windows depicting German saints and kings and princes, it sang of such beauty!

Suddenly I was filled with a glory I had never known. Every cell, every fiber of my being came alive, and I wept tears of joy. This was where my Catholic faith came from!

My kin from this area were "kindred souls," the source of my faith. They had embraced their faith and passed it on to their descendants. And it was because of my faith that I had returned to thank them and God and Mary.

And now it’s up to me. Will I choose to be another Christ? Will I, like him, lay down my life for others? In my life in my Madonna House family, will I serve in any way I’m asked to? Will I follow in my ancestors’ footsteps and pass my faith on to others? Please pray for me that I can.

*Pope John Paul II, Message to the Youth of the World in Preparation for the Seventeenth World Youth Day, July 25, 2001.

The Pope’s Corner

WAITING FOR GOD

by Pope John Paul II

The following is excerpted from a catechesis at a General Assembly on July 26, 2000.

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O that you would rend the heavens and come down! Isaiah’s great cry (63:19), which well summarizes the longing for God present especially in the history of the biblical Israel, but also in every human heart, was not in vain.

God the Father crossed the threshold of his transcendence: Through his Son Jesus Christ, he set out on the paths of man, and his Spirit of life and love penetrated the hearts of his creatures. He does not leave us wandering far from his ways, nor does he let our hearts be hardened forever (cf. Is 63:17).

In Christ God draws near to us, particularly when our "face is sad." Then with the warmth of his word, as happened to his disciples at Emmaus, our hearts begin to burn within us (cf Lk 24:17, 32). God’s passage, though, is mysterious and requires pure eyes and attentive ears to be perceived.

In this perspective we want to focus today on two fundamental attitudes to be adopted towards God-Emmanuel, who decided to meet man both in time and space and in the depths of his hearts.

The first attitude is that of waiting. In the original Greek we find three imperatives that mark this waiting: "Take heed!" (literally "Look out, be careful, pay attention"), "Be alert," and "Watch."

"Attention," which means "to tend," "to be directed to something with all one’s soul," is the opposite of distraction which, unfortunately, is almost our habitual state, especially in a frenetic, superficial society such as ours today. We find it difficult to focus on a goal, on a value, and to pursue it with fidelity and consistency. We risk doing this even with God.

The next imperative, "be alert," in the original Greek is the same as "stay awake." There is a strong temptation for us to fall asleep, wound in the coils of the dark night, which in the Bible is the symbol of guilt, inertia, and rejection of the light. It is only by freeing ourselves from the obscure attraction of darkness and evil that we meet the Father of lights.

The third imperative is, "Watch!" It is the verb for the sentinel who must be on guard, while he waits patiently for nighttime to pass in order to see the light of dawn breaking on the horizon.

Christ’s three appeals, "Take heed, stay awake, and watch," sum up the Christian watchfulness necessary for meeting the Lord.

And this waiting must also be patient. As St. James urges us in his letter: Be patient until the coming of the Lord. Think of a farmer; how patiently he waits for the precious fruit of the ground until it has had the spring rains and the autumn rains. You too have to be patient. Do not lose heart because the Lord is coming soon (Jas 5:7).

If an ear of corn is to grow or a flower blossom, they cannot be forced; for the birth of a human being, nine months are required. To write a book or a worthy pieced of music, years must often be spent in patient searching. This is also the law of the spirit. To encounter the mystery takes patience, inner purification, silence, and waiting.

Besides waiting, the spiritual attitude needed for discovering the God who approaches us is wonder or awe. We must open our eyes to admire God, who both conceals and reveals himself in things, and leads us into the realms of mystery.

Technological culture, and, even more, the excessive absorption in material realities, often prevent us from discerning the hidden face of things. In reality, every thing, every event, for those who know how to read them in depth, bears a message, which, in the final analysis, leads to God.

Thus there are many signs that reveal God’s presence. But if they are not to escape us, we must be as pure and simple as children (cf. Mt 18:3-4), who can admire, wonder at, and be astonished and enchanted by God’s acts of love and closeness in our regard.

In a certain sense, we can apply to the fabric of daily life what the Second Vatican Council said about the fulfillment of God’s great plan through the revelation of his Word: "The invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into fellowship with him" (Dei Verbum, n. 2).

Thy Kingdom Come!

PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS

Lord Jesus, as you once called the first disciples to make them fishers of men, let your sweet invitation continue to resound: Come follow me!

Give young men and women the grace of responding quickly to your voice. Support our bishops, priests, and consecrated people in their apostolic labor.

Grant perseverance to our seminarians and to all those who are carrying out the ideal of a life totally consecrated to your service.

Awaken in our community a missionary eagerness. Lord, send workers to your harvest, and do not allow humanity to be lost for the lack of pastors, missionaries, and people dedicated to the cause of the Gospel.

Mary, Mother of the Church, the model of every vocation, help us to say "yes" to the Lord who calls us to cooperate in the divine play of salvation.

Pope John Paul II

NORTH AMERICAN SAINTS

by Fr. Bob Wild,

Postulator of Catherine’s Cause

One of the pleasant surprises I have had from surfing the Internet is discovering the number of Canadians and Americans up for canonization. All together there are about 60 of them.

"Under past pontiffs, American Catholics haven’t thought of saints as something among us," says Fr. Gabriel O’Donnell, a Dominican who is postulator (half chief researcher, half chief lobbyist) for the cause of Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus.

"Part of the problem is that Americans have long had an incorrect idea of the Church’s notion of sainthood," says Fr. Peter Grumpel, a member of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, the Vatican’s saint-making body.

Obviously the same thing could be said about Canadians.

"Rather than limiting its scope to prophets and stigmatics, the Church in the post-Second Vatican Council era is looking for those who had done their duty constantly and joyfully, people who prayed and who were charitable to others."

I think it’s also true to say that the Church is now recognizing heroic virtue among the laity as well as among bishops, priests, and religious.

Generally Catholics in Canada would be familiar with the famous "founders of the Canadian Church," such as Marguerite D’Youville and Marie of the Incarnation. But far fewer would have heard of those on the way, such as Eleonore Potvin, Theophanius-Leo, or Gerard Raymond.

In the States, whereas almost everyone knows of Mother Seton, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Katherine Drexel, Dorothy Day, Bishop Sheen, and Fr. Patrick Peyton, far fewer would know of Mother Mary Theresa Dudzik, Mother Maria Kaupas, Pierre Toussaint, and Angeline McCrory. But the children of today will probably see many of these people on the liturgical calendars.

Yes, like the older Churches, the relatively young Church of North America also has its holy people and saints,people we can learn holiness from. Let’s keep all their causes, known and unknown, in our prayers.