My Dear Family

ONLY BY THE POWER OF GOD

By Catherine Doherty

The world is crying out in agony. It cries out for salvation. Humanity may not know to whom it is praying, for whence help will come, but still it cries out.

Jesus is the one who saves, and Christians are called to love mankind and to assuage its pain. How can they help? How can they bring justice and mercy to a twisted, needy world? Only by the power of God.

Christ has said, Without me, you can do nothing (Jn 15:5). But if we are one with him in prayer, we can do everything.

The real answer to our modern problems, whatever they may be, is to turn toward God with lifted hands, moved by love and trusting in God’s promises and mercy. There is no other answer.

If one stands in intercession with uplifted hands, as Moses did, then the miracle of God’s action will take place.

It seems strange, but the prostration of prayer, the dance of prayer, the rock-stillness of prayer, or whatever form prayer may take, floods the whole world with action. He who turns his face to God in prayer is in the eye of the hurricane, the eye of action.

Somehow the miracle takes place. One remains on the mountain before God, but at the same time, by the power of prayer, it is as if he walks the earth with his towel and his water. Prayer changes things.

When we pray, we have indeed accepted Christ’s invitation. Not only did he say, Without me you can do nothing, but he went on to add, If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you may ask for what you will and you will get it. (Jn 15:7).

We must lead each other to the top of the mountain to pray, because prayer is dynamic and prayer is holy. It is contact with God and union with him.

As we grow in union with God, we come to know that prayer includes all righteousness, and that from prayer stems all the goodness that God wants to bestow on humankind.

What is prayer? What is this union with God? I cannot write a dissertation, but I can share impressions with you. Prayer moves a person’s total being to communicate with the loving God, to respond to his great love.

Prayer is the response that takes a thousand postures, from standing with arms uplifted in supplication to full prostration. Prayer is the fantastic movement of a dancer, and prayer is the stonelike stillness of a person utterly immobile, lost in regions that many desire to reach but which few really enter.

Prayer is the bubbling brook of the words of children and it is the quivering words of the lips of old people. Prayer is the words of men, women, and children who know God and easily talk to him. These words change into beautiful songs when they reach God.

People recite the rosary. They pray for all their relatives and all the needs of the world, vocally, simply, in a childlike way. Even when they sleep, their hearts watch for the Lord.

When they pray, when they worship God, they are caught up in something greater than themselves, something that indeed is cosmic. The whole universe bows in adoration to God, and those who love him join that adoration.

God is the only way. He is the only answer. And the only way to lead people to God is to teach them prayer and to pray for them.

Excerpted from Soul of My Soul, pp. 82-84, available from MH Publications.

———-

The following has already appeared in Restoration, in October 1999. We are putting it in again because it is so apt for these troubled times.

Our world remains poised on the edge of an abyss of darkness. Yet the answer is at hand. The solution is close by. Gently, softly, the thread that will lead us out of the labyrinth of our fears, doubts, and turmoil is placed into our sinful hands. It will close the abyss. The answer, the solution, is the rosary.

The rosary: so tiny, so seemingly weak, is the weapon to be used against the deadly powers. The rosary: so foolish a weapon against the tremendous darkness.

The rosary: a prayer of babies, youth, men, and women, is so simple that even the illiterate can pray it, so profound that the geniuses have not begun to probe its depths. The rosary, a simple vocal prayer, can lead us into the realm of the highest mental and contemplative prayer.

The rosary is an answer to all our fears, to all our unrest, to all our dangers. It finds us everywhere and leads us back from the desert of darkness where forever and ever the prince of darkness tempts us to fall down and adore him. Yes, it is the answer. Our Lady in her many apparitions has said so. Especially at Fatima.

Why, then, are we not listening? Why do so many Catholics leave the rosary unsaid? Why aren’t our days filled with endless rosaries forming a chain to hold our hearts anchored to the heart of God through Mary, his Mother?

It is time to begin to pray the rosary daily. We must understand that if we do not, our world will perish, and we with it. And those who are left will dwell in the catacombs, perhaps using only the rosary, perhaps even only their ten fingers, over and over again, and weep because they know why they are underground.

Oh, let us pray the rosary now, so that the children of light may continue to dwell in the light of God’s sun, so that the world may be restored to Christ, the Son of God.

Excerpted from Bogoroditza, pp.28-29, available from MH Publications.

St. Joseph’s House, Combermere

MY WAY OF PRAYING

by Sandra Wood

I’d like to begin this article by sharing my morning walk with you. That’s what I do every morning when I can. Our parish church is just down the road, and I walk there to Mass, but instead of taking the road I walk through the woods.

I take my rosary with me, and it’s wonderful. If you live in the country as I do, you can get out and walk and pray. And the beauty of God’s surroundings always, always, takes me by surprise.

As soon as I get into the woods, I see the light coming through the trees and the dew sparkling like jewels. And the birds are singing all around me, and I listen to them.

I find it hard to sit and pray, but when I walk it’s easier. And as I walk and pray, of course, I have intentions. I pray for our house and for the staff, and people I deal with every day or know about come to mind, such as Mrs. So-and-So whose husband left her. And then I think about this family or that family or one of the staff and eventually what’s in my own heart comes to light.

Why was I harsh with this person? Why did I do that to that person?

And as I walk, I often end up saying the Psalms because here at Madonna House we sing them every day, and so I know them by heart, at least certain ones and certain parts of them. O God, you are my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. My heart pines for you like a dry, weary land without water (Ps 63:1). Have mercy on me God, have mercy. (A number of psalms contain this line.)

And so these walks are a prayer time. But then of course every morning I have to come down off that "mountain." I have to enter into "the marketplace," that is, the everyday life of St Joseph’s House, where we serve peoplerpeople coming for clothing, for goods, for money, for food, for friendship, and for a listening ear.

That’s when I especially have to struggle to live the line of our MH Little Mandate*—"Go into the marketplace and stay with me. Pray, fast, pray always, fast."

I get caught up in the rush and my prayer is "on the run." Every now and then I think, I can’t do this; God help me. Or often when I’m in the throes of something, I glance up at the picture of Our Lady in our kitchen, and say, Mother of God, help me!

But sometimes I go through the whole day and don’t even think about praying. I just don’t think about beseeching the Lord at all.

One of the hardest things for me happens when our shops are open and people park their cars all over the place. Inevitably, somebody parks in the driveway.

That’s where my fasting comes in—fasting from harsh words. I try not to rush around to all the buildings yelling, "Whose car is that parked in the driveway!!" I try to say it softly and gently. I don’t always. When I think about it, I do, but when I don’t think about it, I just react.

That kind of fasting also comes in when I’m with the staff, because in our mission house we live so closely together. Sometimes that means I have to take myself "by the scruff of the neck," so to speak, and say to myself, Be kind; be gentle.

This kind of fasting comes up too with the people who come to our house. Sometimes they are demanding, and then I have to fast again from being critical and judgmental.

Yes, one of my struggles is to fast from the harshness that’s within me.

I also need to fast from some of my automatic responses even in the most normal flow of the day. I know I’m serving Christ in the person who comes to the door, but sometimes when someone comes when I’m in the middle of doing something, the laundry for instance, I have resistance inside. The person needs to talk, but all I want to do is to get the laundry done.

I know that we don’t "run our own show," that God does, but it’s very hard for me to get that through my head.

Sometimes at the end of the day, when I sit before the Lord, I realize that I was trying "to run the show." I was trying to accomplish this and that, but at the same time I was struggling against God’s will for me in some small thing. Even though I know that God’s will for me is in the little events of every day, still I struggle.

For though I enjoy "going up to the mountaintop and praying," I’m also called to live out another kind of prayer, the prayer "in the marketplace"—O God, help me— no matter how that prayer comes out.

I kind of like to have it all together, and I like to have things very neat and packaged, but life just isn’t like that.

So often at the end of the day I think, Why didn’t I pray for that? Why didn’t I ask Our Lady for help? There are times when I do pray and I do ask, and it works out, and I think, why can’t I learn from that?

But hopefully God will give me a long life in order to finally be at peace with what is, and with who I am—a sinner and deeply beloved by God. I do want to pray and fast, but I have to do it in God’s way, not mine.

So at the end of the day, I end up by just sitting there and thanking God for the day. And then I prepare for the next one.

*Little Mandate: A 3x5 card containing God’s words to our foundress, Catherine, a card which contains the essence of Madonna House spirituality.

St. Joseph’s House, Combermere

VOTING WITH MY FEET

By Toni Austin

It all began when our parish organized a bus trip to Ottawa for the Right to Life march on May 14th. I prayed about whether or not to go, and came to the conclusion that this year I needed to vote with my feet. I decided I would use the time to pray and intercede for Canada during these trying times.

The morning of the march was windy and overcast, and the bus stopped at St. Hedwig’s parish in nearby Barry’s Bay to pick up people from there. There were nearly fifty of us, and we ranged in age from Rosemary, who is eighty, to Madeline, who is two months old.

There was an air of joy and expectancy in the bus. There were lots of young people, who jabbered delightedly in the back and sang World Youth Day songs. We prayed the rosary and sang a song to the Mother of God, and of course we stopped along the way—at Tim Horton’s for coffee and donuts.

When we arrived in Ottawa, we passed lots and lots of buses parked along the roads leading to Parliament Hill, the center of government, where the rally was to take place and the march would begin. The clouds began to disperse, and a warm sun began to shine. And there was a feeling of life in the air.

There were people from all over the country—many of them young. Many carried World Youth Day backpacks and I felt as if I were back in Toronto at that event. But there was a light and transparency that I hadn’t seen then, and there were more priests visible this time.

A group was playing music on the front steps, and it was wonderful to hear them ask, "Do you believe in the sanctity of life right from the very first moment of conception?" And to hear the answer resounding from the crowd: "Yes!" "Do you believe in life?" "Yes!" "Do you believe in the sanctity of marriage?" "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

People were talking with one another. Some ran into friends they hadn’t seen in years; others were making new ones. Wendy Z., a woman from our group, and I went over to a Muslim woman who seemed to be alone.

Her son had driven her all the way from Montreal to be there. She was Palestinian and dressed in the most gorgeous dove blue dress. She and her husband had come to Canada eighteen years ago, and they now had seven children. I could feel her peace.

Maria Henry, one of the women in our group, had made a poster the night before. "I’m not really the kind of person to carry a sign," she said, but she carried it aloft. It read, "Hurting?" and in smaller letters below, "from an abortion? Call Second Chance* (416) 261-7135.

A woman from the milling crowd came up to her. With tears in her eyes, she inquired, "Do you think they might be able to help me? I had an abortion forty years ago." Others also came over and copied the phone number for a friend or for themselves.

At about 1:30, after a few speeches by pro-life Members of Parliament, the march began.

Represented by a huge banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Mother of God marched with us. Other banners and posters read "Physicians for Life," "Nurses for Life," "Priests for Life," "Second Chance." There were many banners representing French and English councils of the Knights of Columbus as well.

Some young people distributed free copies of the pope’s latest encyclical on the rosary, and others distributed colorful pamphlets on how to pray it.

There were elderly people, children on their father’s shoulders, teenagers, women pushing strollers, and people in wheel chairs. Jim Hughes, the national head of the Campaign for Life Coalition, counted people as they filed past. He counted 3500, about a thousand more than the year before.

What did I see and experience at that march? Abundant life, youth, joy, enthusiasm, hope. I saw the Church on the move—a Church that is youthful, vibrant, a Church with a sense of purpose and empowerment. I saw the New Evangelization!

*Second Chance is a post-abortion ministry whose headquarters are in Scarborough, Ontario. This organization offers a weekly support group, personal prayer ministry, and gives talks by invitation. For more information, phone (416) 261-7135, and ask for Fr. Vince Heffernan or Angelina Steenstra.

Word Made Flesh

THE POWER OF THE NAME OF JESUS

by Fr. Pat McNulty

The following reflection is in connection with the story of the curing of the blind man on the road near Jericho (Mk 10:46-52), the Gospel for October 26th, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

—————————-

In 1968 the only Christian prayer I could truthfully say was, "Jesus, mercy," and I have been saying it in one form or other for the 35 years since then.

In 1968 I was in the process of going blind spiritually, and had pretty much detoured to the side of the Christian road to faith. Though I had not given up completely, I was beginning to look elsewhere for spiritual sustenance and vision.

Among other things I went to a conference led by a famous swami from India. At one point during that conference, we were all ohm-ing (a kind of spiritual humming) with the intent of hearing a word, our own personal "life-giving" mantra, in the depths of our being.

For we were told that if we could discover and embrace this personal mantra, then one day we would have a whole new sense of our spiritual identity.

And indeed, from the early ‘60’s well into the late ‘70s, the faith of many of us was all about "our identity," mostly our identity, not God’s.

Anyhow at this particular conference, while everyone else went into a comfortable lotus position and began ohm-ing into their new mantra, I just couldn’t get into it. I wasn’t comfortable with what was going on there, and I left the conference feeling a bit unspiritual and inadequate.

Then within the year I was at another "conference" of a different kind: I was all alone in a poustinia in Combermere, Ontario in a conference with God. By now I was totally blind spiritually and ready to leave everything Catholic or even Christian.

And, if weeping can be considered a form of mantra, then I was ohming with the best of them. Because one evening quite late I found myself, very much like Bartimeus in this Sunday’s gospel, weeping and shouting out over and over and over, "Jesus, have mercy on me! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, have mercy on me."

Little did I realize that I had stumbled into one of the most mysterious and awesome dimensions of prayer of the Christian tradition, namely, the Jesus Prayer. (In its simplest form it is a prayer which includes the name of Jesus, and the sinner’s cry for mercy.)

That was almost 35 years ago and when I read today’s gospel account about the blind man along the road to Jericho crying out, "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me," suddenly I understood what has been happening in my prayer life for these last 35 years.

However noble and true the tradition of the mantra is, the Jesus Prayer is not a mantra. It is not something we "ohm" our way into. Nor is it merely or primarily a part of centering prayer. If we treat it in these ways, it cannot be what it is and cannot do in our hearts what it is able and meant to do.

For when we say the word, "Jesus," when we pray that word, we are not saying or praying a word but the Word of God. And the Word of God is not a word at all but a living Person. And so when we say and pray the word, "Jesus," we are already in a personal relationship with God.

The Jesus Prayer is not about us—about our spiritual identity and our need to center and pray. It is about someone who exists outside of us, outside of our personal history, outside all of human history, and who existed before we ever decided to ohm or to center or to pray or to cry out at all.

It is terribly important for us in these days to be very clear about why one would say and pray the name of Jesus without ceasing.

It is important to be clear, not because we want to demean other traditions of prayer or even certain Christian centering methods which seem to serve us well. Rather, it is important to be clear because it is time for us Christians to not only re-discover the power of the name of Jesus, but to proclaim this Name as an essential part of the healing of whatever blindness we may have.

Our Christian faith is not about issues and morality. Our faith is about a living Person, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. And it is only when we are relating to that Person as a living person, that we will understand what the true issues are and be able to at least make the morality behind them clear to the world in which we live, even if that world does not accept that moral witness.

If we are not relating to Jesus Christ, then we will be merely people of pertinent issues and moral distinctions, but people who are dead to real Christian life and hope and love.

I pray (breathe) the word, Jesus, about twice every five seconds, and have been doing so for many years. At first it was about me and my sin and my the need for mercy and so forth. Then for a while it was a kind of mantra of spiritual identity, and eventually it became a bit of centering prayer. Now I realize that it is all of these things and none of them.

It is indeed about spiritual identity, but it is about an identity which has already been given to us when we were baptized and not one we must go searching for, or ohm-ing for. The Kingdom is indeed within us, and if the Kingdom is within us, so, too, is the King.

Repeating the name of Jesus is indeed about a deep centering into our own hearts, but not in order to get focused more fully. It is rather about realizing how focused God has always been on us because of our baptism.

Perhaps the clincher for me about this mysterious and wonderful Jesus Prayer came when Jesus didn’t seem to be answering my cry. In fact, the louder I cried the further away he seemed to move.

And then one day when I needed him desperately, he was gone, and I was still blind.

It was then that I really cried out. I was in a cave in the desert and I was there because I had hoped that by sheer asceticism I would finally get God’s full attention. But what happened instead was that he finally got mine!

In a flash I knew in my deepest heart that the very ability to say the name of Jesus is the primary sign of his presence at that moment.

It is not us who are crying out to him, us who are searching for him. He is crying out to us and reaching out to us from our own hearts through our very saying of the Name. That is the power of the Jesus Prayer.

The Jesus Prayer is about the Person who lives and "hums" at the center of our being Jesus, Son of the living God. And he always looks upon us with mercy.

I even like to say that it is not we who are saying the name of Jesus, but it is Jesus himself whispering his own name to us over and over and over from the depths of our heart, thereby giving us perfect proof that, no matter how sinful we are or sorrowful we are not, he has not left us since our baptism.

In fact, as long as I can say the word, "Jesus," I have all the proof I need that he and I are still one through baptism.

To embrace the Jesus Prayer is to embrace the person of Jesus and to proclaim, even if we have no sign of it for ourselves or give sign of it very poorly to others, that he really lives in me, just as he lives in you. And this is why whatever we do to each other, we do to him.

Jesus gave us this prayer so that we would never forget this. And that is why it should be on our breath all day, every day, and why it is the most powerful Word to accompany us as we breathe our last.

It is not a cry which comes out of fear or guilt but rather a breath of fresh faith air proclaiming for all to hear, "You are Jesus. You are Christ. You are mercy. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus."

And if we are faithful to this awesome prayer, in good times and bad, we will finally hear him say to us, as he said to the blind man in today’s Gospel, Go. Your faith has saved you (Mk 10:52).

The Pope’s Corner

HELP FOR FAMILIES

by Pope John Paul II

The following is excerpted from the apostolic letter on the rosary written on October 16, 2002.

——————————

The rosary is and has always been a prayer of and for the family. At one time this prayer was particularly dear to Christian families, and it certainly brought them closer together. It is important not to lose this precious inheritance. We need to return to the practice of family prayer and prayer for families.

The family that prays together stays together. Individual family members, in turning their eyes towards Jesus, also regain the ability to look one another in the eye, to communicate, to show solidarity, to forgive one another, and to see their covenant of love renewed in the Spirit of God.

Many of the problems facing contemporary families, especially in economically developed societies, result from their increasing difficulty in communicating. Families seldom manage to come together, and the rare occasions when they do are often taken up with watching television.

To return to the recitation of the family rosary means filling daily life with very different images, images of the mystery of salvation: the image of the Redeemer, the image of his most Blessed Mother.

The family that recites the rosary together reproduces something of the atmosphere of the household of Nazareth. Its members place Jesus at the center. They share his joys and sorrows, they place their needs and their plans in his hands, and they draw from him the hope and the strength to go on.

It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this prayer the growth and development of children. Does the rosary not follow the life of Christ, from his conception to his death, and then to his resurrection and his glory?

Parents are finding it ever more difficult to follow the lives of their children as they grow to maturity. In a society of advanced technology, of mass communications and globalization, everything has become hurried, and the cultural distance between generations is growing ever greater.

The most diverse messages and the most unpredictable experiences rapidly make their way into the lives of children, and adolescents, and parents suffer acute disappointment at the failure of their children to resist the seductions of the drug culture, the lure of an unbridled hedonism, the temptation to violence, and the manifold expressions of meaninglessness and despair.

To pray the rosary for children, and even more, with children, training them from their earliest years to experience this daily pause for prayer with the family, is admittedly not the solution to every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated.

It could be objected that the rosary seems hardly suited to the taste of children and young people of today. But perhaps the objection is directed to an impoverished method of praying it.

Furthermore without prejudice to the rosary’s basic structure, there is nothing to stop children and young people from praying itFeither within the family or in groupsewith appropriate symbols and practical aids to understanding and appreciation. Why not try it?

With God’s help, a pastoral approach to youth which is positive, impassioned, and creativeWas shown by the World Youth Days!ais capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the rosary is well-presented, I am sure that young people will once more surprise adults by the way they make this prayer their own and recite it with the enthusiasm typical of their age group.

Combermere Diary

RECENT HAPPENINGS

by Rochelle Greenwood

Foundations are important. But here we are at Madonna House building on sand! Not because we prefer to do it that way, but because the earth on our property is sand.

Peter Gravelle (who made the blueprints) and Patrick McConville, are overseeing the construction, and our neighbors, Lornie Marquardt and son John have recently poured the concrete foundations, for a building in which we will receive and sort the donations we receive.

This 54’ by 60’ building, unlike the old "green garage," where we have been receiving donations since the late 1950s, will be big enough for us to sort the donations in. This is a huge advantage, since we have always had to haul everything elsewhere for sorting. The new building is due for completion next fall.

Our summer school program, "Called to be Saints: The Luminous Road to Sanctity," ended in mid-August. The series of mini-talks—fifteen and twenty minutes long—which mainly took place after meals, was for the most part given by staff. A few examples follow:

Peter Anzlin helped us to experience some of the differences between Eastern and Western Christianity by playing tapes of liturgical music from each. Mary Speicher, wearing a Carmelite habit, talked about St. Teresa of Avila, telling us, among other things, that she had lived a mediocre religious life for twenty years before beginning serious reform of the Carmelite Order.

An applicant, Melanie Murphy, talked about her pro-life work and about Pope John Paul II’s teaching about the theology of the body and about how this teaching changed her life.

Mark Schlingerman spoke about "ecclesial communities," the new kind of community within the Church, of which Madonna House was one of the first. There are several characteristics which many of these diverse communities have in common: origins within the lay apostolate, a love for the poor, the spirit of Nazareth, and a Marian character.

Since these communities include among their members clergy and laity, men and women, and the married and single, they reflect the whole Church. The are Church.

Mark quoted the Holy Father as saying that they are a response given by the Holy Spirit to the critical challenges of these times.

Staff members also told the story of their vocations, and . however haltingly or eloquently they did so, these stories went straight to the heart. One woman talked about her vocational journey as a "Jonah syndrome," that is, the running away mode. Another said that she had searched for God in all the wrong places.

One of the men talked about MH’s living stewardship as the gel holding his vocation together. Another who had once been an atheist, read Solzhenitzyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, recognized true evil, and eventually reasoned his way to the existence of God.

Another part of the summer school included Wednesday evening talks—each one given by one priest, one layman and one lay woman of MH. The subject of each talk was connected with the summer school’s theme of the week and with one luminous mystery of the rosary.

And, since it is difficult for them to understand the talks in English, Joanne Weisbeck gave classes on the same subjects to our Korean guests.

Also throughout the summer there was our usual Saturday Evening Seminar, an open forum in which our three directors general answered questions from our guests. The questions covered a broad range of topics, which often included sexuality. Why, for example, do members of Madonna House make promises of chastity?

Throughout the summer, there were many tours and visitors.. Margaret MacDonald, for example, was a volunteer at Friendship House Harlem fifty years ago. Another visitor, Lynn Malley remembers both Catherine and Dorothy Day visiting in her parents’ home. Another woman came from Loveland, Ohio, where she is a member of the Grail, and Tatiana Kononova came all the way from Magadan, Russia.

Fr. Stephan Pouliot, who has made retreats here, visited us just after his ordination to the priesthood, and gave us his first blessing.

Bishop Richard Smith, the ordinary of our Pembroke diocese, came for lunch with some friends for whom he requested a visit to one of our art studios. The summer school teaching for that day was about discernment, and the bishop answered questions in a clear, orthodox manner. He is a blessing, not only to Madonna House, but to the entire diocese.

Finally, many friends of Fr. Brière have been coming, sometimes in tears, to visit his gravesite.

Those of us who live here also go out. Kathleen Janet Thompson, who is the vice postulator for Catherine’s Cause, for example, went to Detroit to visit the postulator for the cause of Solanus Casey. (His Capuchin community has a life-size statue of Catherine Doherty!)

Fr. David May, Echo Lewis of MH Raleigh, North Carolina, and Patrick Stewart of Marian Center Edmonton, met in Fargo, North Dakota, where the Bethlehem Community, had organized a meeting of representatives from 35 lay communities. It was called, "Creating a Culture of Cooperation."

Two of our pioneer staff were recently honored. Mamie Legris, who taught school before joining Madonna House, was given a luncheon and a bouquet of roses at the reunion of one of her former classes, the class of ’45, from nearby Golden Lake. And Kathleen O’Herin celebrated her fiftieth anniversary as a member of MH.

One summer event was what is becoming our annual baseball game. (Everyone can play. If you can’t run or even bat, someone will do it for you.) Teams, named for their captains, had such names as "Peter’s Pebbles," and "Wanchena’s Warriors."

Our celebration of August 15th was, as always, a celebration of several events. Foremost, of course, is Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven, but the day is also the ordination anniversary of a few of our priests, the foundation day of one of our houses, the anniversary of promises of a number of the staff, and Archbishop Raya’s birthday.

Plus Archbishop Raya has made it into a day for the celebration of women. One custom is that, as the women arrive for Mass, the men give them corsages.

When he was a pastor in Birmingham Archbishop Raya had introduced this custom to his parish in a different form. The young men went downtown and gave each woman they saw a rose.

This year, he received a phone call from that parish saying that they had reinstated the custom!

So ends this account of our recent happenings.

Yesterday

WHEN GOD WAS ABSENT

By Cheryl Ann Smith

Yesterday, (well, it’s really a few months ago by now.) three of us staff gave a day of recollection to women in the area. The theme was "Repent and Believe the Good News." We had decided that Mary Lynn and I would talk about the first two words, and Fr. David would end with "the Good News" ringing out in his homily at the closing liturgy.

Simple enough, I thought, expecting that I would talk about repentance. (I’m fairly well-practiced in it, and God knows, there’s plenty of material for it in my heart!) However, with a bit of a sinking feeling, I soon realized that God wanted me to talk about believing the Good News.

What’s wrong with that, you might ask. Isn’t that a delightful topic and much easier? Well, not for me. I struggle with belief. Oh, not with belief in God, but with belief in the power of love. Perhaps it is because I want so much to believe that I am loved, forgiven, and cherished, even in my sinfulness.

And because that unconditional love hasn’t always been bestowed on me by others or by myself, I’ve secretly feared that God hasn’t given it to me either. Also disappointment and fear have closed inner doors, and to open myself to hope and to trust renders me vulnerable. Sometimes, it’s just been too much.

The apostle Thomas was like this after the death of Jesus. He had loved Jesus, believed in Jesus, and hoped for the dawn of a new kingdom, which would free his people. Now Jesus was dead and buried, and Thomas’ hopes were shattered.

I can wholeheartedly identify with Thomas’ doubt when the other disciples exulted that they had seen Jesus alive. I suspect he doubted because he so desperately wanted it to be true. I think he couldn’t dare to hope, because if it was untrue, the disappointment would be too devastating.

Thomas’ opening for faith was a narrow slit with many conditions, but it was enough. Jesus met him there, and when he made it, Thomas’ profession of faith, "my Lord and my God" burst forth from the bottom of his heart.

Like Thomas, I once hit a point in my life when I could barely profess my belief in God, let alone in a God who was alive, present, and loving. And it’s that story that I used in my talk yesterday.

After seventeen years in Madonna House, I hit my mid-life crisis. All my unresolved pain and yearnings seemed to explode from the depths. And even though I felt as if I was screaming loud enough to be heard in the farthest reaches of the cosmos, God was nowhere to be seen or felt or heard.

At the absolute nadir of this descent into hell (or so it felt), I was on a 30 day Ignatian retreat, and I was straining to hear even a whisper from God. As the days and weeks crawled with nary a peep, I became desperate.

My retreat director said, "Tell God that you need something—even a tiny word of love. Stay in the chapel until you hear something."

It took the last remaining shred of faith I possessed to open myself up one more time. I sat before the Blessed Sacrament at 8 PM, and at midnight, when nothing had happened, I gave up. I couldn’t believe it! God wouldn’t even give me a scrap!

The next morning I awoke with unbearable dread. Before I could get out of bed, I said to God, "This is it. I’m serious. I’m going to open the Bible. If you don’t give me a word of love or hope, I don’t know what I’ll do."

And I meant it. There was nothing left inside. I was hanging by the tiniest thread of faith. If he didn’t answer me, that little thread might well snap.

I took up the Bible and could not believe my eyes. I read, "Israel, you louse. You worse than worthless worm." At least, that’s what I thought I read.

I slammed the Bible shut and inwardly screamed, "I hate you!"

Time seemed to stop. I was filled with terror. I was at the end. No pretenses or fine words or false hopes were left to me. Only a stark choice: to leave him (because this was absolutely intolerable) or to continue to follow him (in what seemed like death).

As I wrestled mightily in this place of desolation, I heard in my heart Peter’s words, Lord, to whom shall we go? (Jn 6:68). And I knew that my answer had to be the same.

I knew that if I closed the door to the depths of my heart where I now stood, something in me would die.

At that point, even as I railed against the darkness, I chose God from the most hidden recess of my heart. And because, like Peter, I could not conceive of life without God, I did it without condition.

I think that that’s the moment when belief penetrated to the bottom of my spirit. And I realized at that moment that I wanted God more than life, more than my will, more than reason.

My emotions and intellect took a while to catch up. And it was a long time before I felt life and joy again. But slowly that peace which surpasses all understanding, a peace that the world cannot give (Jn 14:27) began to pour into that shattered place within, knitting the fragments into a solid foundation.

Now I must tell you about an astounding discovery that I made recently. I was scouring the Book of Isaiah for a particular quote and I came across the passage I had opened to on that fateful morning of my retreat. It was the first time I had read it since that day, and I was stunned.

For what I had remembered as harsh and condemning, was in fact a tender reassurance of God’s help: Do not be afraid, Jacob, poor worm, Israel, puny mite. I will help you—it is the Lord who speaks. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer (Is 41:14)"

Tears sprang to my eyes as I realized that when I had cried out for help, it was tenderly offered. But because my heart was deafened by pain, I did not hear.

But perhaps a greater gift had been offered even as I was being crucified by seeming abandonment: faith and fiat, which resounded in the depths of my heart.

All is grace. What I had thought was the tiniest thread of belief holding me to God, I now understood, was the strongest possible cord of God’s love and pity. He would never let me go. Now I know that.

MH Washington

GAZING ON THE FACE OF JESUS

by Chuck Sharp

A while back in a homily in our chapel, a priest-friend called us to, "Gaze on the face of the Beloved." What a good word for our house!

In spite of, or maybe because of, all the busyness, tension, noise, hubris, and greed we are surrounded by in this great city, there is a tremendous, deep, almost compelling pull in each one of us to spend time gazing on the face of the Lord.

Certainly the chapel is a great place of quiet and peace. And time for adoration, prayer both personal and communal, Mass here and in the parish are great opportunities to do this. But if we have eyes to see, every day the Lord shows us his face in so many other ways as well.

Some of these fill us with delight, some with simple gratitude, and some with pain. It is such a varied mixture, and I would like to share with you a few of the ways in which the Lord shows his face to us.

He showed it to us in the great tenderness with which our parish priest pronounced the words, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," and in the beautiful smiles on his face and the face of the small child he held up to show us.

He shows it to us in the beautiful Chinese maple tree in our front yard, a tree whose leaves in autumn are so crimson that people stop and admire it as they walk along the street.

He shows it to us in the many young families who are beginning to come to our parish, and in the so very many faithful good, holy people we meet in so many different places, people who are so hungry to know the Lord and follow him.

He shows it to us in the old friends of the house who, after so many years, stop by for a few minutes to ask for Mary Kay, Bonnie, and other staff who used to be here, and tell us what a profound effect this house and poustinia have had on their lives.

He shows it to us, too, in the many men and women who are begging on the street and in those who knock at our door asking for help. And when we drive through the poorer neighborhoods, he shows it to us in the many people we see who are far from "the American Dream."

The Lord showed us his face when we talked with the little old "bag lady" who, in her search for order, decided that our petunias trailed a little too far on the sidewalk and pulled them out. He showed it to us in the Sisters in the Spirit Group Angela is involved with.

He shows it to us when we listen to someone’s joy or pain—even on the phone—and when we pray with them.

He shows it to us in Cézanne’s "White Lilies" in the National Gallery of Art, and in one another when we talk and laugh around the kitchen table, something which we do a lot. (I’m getting a bit pudgy.)

He shows it to us in the wonderful priests in our parish when we listen to their Gospel-oriented homilies at Mass, and when one of them walks around the courtyard between our houses in the evening, rosary in hand. And he shows it to us in people’s eyes when they leave the poustinia.

There are so many ways in which the Lord reveals himself every day. There are so many wonderful surprises. We just have to keep "gazing on his face."

MH Roanoke & Raleigh

IN THE MIDST OF THE HILLS

by Kathy McVady

Last year in the summer, I began a time of restoration at our house in Roanoke, Virginia. Part of the rhythm of life there was an almost daily walk to one of the nearby churches for Mass.

The route wound through old city neighborhoods, past old corner gas stations, and over the railroad tracks. Though some parts of the downtown area were in the process of renovation, other parts were worn down, still in need of restoration. What I was seeing was not unlike what I was experiencing interiorly.

Yet on these same walks, I could lift my eyes and behold the hills surrounding the city. The words of the psalm would come to me: As the mountains are ’round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is ’round about his people, both now and forever more (Ps 124/125:2).

As I gazed on those hills, joy and hope trickled into my heart. Those hills became for me a symbol and an experience of God’s loving care and protection.

Then the time came for me to move on to another of our houses, the one in Raleigh, North Carolina, a city where I saw new images and my inner pilgrimage with the Lord assumed new rhythms. But the memory of those hills and the consolation and peace they had offered, remained tangibly within me as a living presence.

Then this past spring I received permission to take some time of quiet to ponder for a bit what the Lord seemed to have been working out in my heart and soul. My mind immediately turned to the hills though I had no idea what dwelling place I would find in their midst that would give me some degree of solitude.

Even when the one place that came to mind proved to be unavailable, the conviction remained deep in my heart that I was to "head for the hills."

Finally a place to stay came from a completely unexpected source, and I ended up, first, in a restored farmhouse in Paint Bank, a little town in the hills of western Virginia and later in another place where I "house-sat" in the hills above a town named "Floyd."

In each of these places I awoke in the morning to the sight of the hills as the morning sun began to dissipate the darkness. Each evening I would gaze on them as the coverlet of dusk and shadow edged up on them for the night. Shadows of clouds drifted over them by day, and winds ushered in mists and rains that muted and veiled their presence. Yet silently, persistently, the protective presence of the hills surrounded me.

My mind went back to an after-lunch spiritual reading in Combermere a few years ago. One of the newer guests had presented us with a heartfelt plea: "But where can I find God after I leave Madonna House?"

Several of us offered suggestions and words of encouragement, and then we turned to our visiting associate priest, Archbishop Donat Chiasson and asked him.

"These days, if we want to get in touch with a friend," he replied, "we have many different ways of doing so. We have his street address, his telephone number, and his Fax and e-mail numbers. I propose that God also has several ‘addresses’ where we can find him.

"One place is in nature, in his creation; another is in his Word. A third is in his sacramental presence, especially the Eucharist. Another is in his people, especially those who are in any way poor. And finally, through our baptism, the Trinitarian God resides in us."

Through God’s graciousness, I have found him at each of these "addresses." But often when my spirit is weary and worn, it is in good part through the works of his hands (Ps 8) that I have been restored.

MY PORTABLE ‘POUSTINIA’

by Dawn Willson

(friend of MH England)

Removal vans* have always been a part of my life. Even before I was married, there never seemed to be a place for putting down roots. Then, when I left university, my life was inextricably set in its nomadic way when I married a diplomat.

Many times have I watched as our pots and pans, cups and saucers, pictures and ornaments, and finally our suitcases, were loaded into capacious vans. Many times have they disappeared into these monsters and gone down the road on their way to yet another strange destination.

This used to be such an unsettling and uncertain time for me until a friend introduced me to the concept of "poustinia." She explained that wherever one goes a prayer-space can be set aside, a place wherein one can find the peace and consolation of meditative prayer.

This discovery set me wondering where the inspiration for poustinia came from. Thus did I come to read about the life of Catherine Doherty and the work she had undertaken, both in her own lifetime (in the United States and Canada) and now in her foundations throughout the world (including in my home country, England).

I knew at once that this revelation was the answer to my feelings of insecurity and uprootedness. So I set about designing my own "traveler’s poustinia," to establish upon arrival at a new post.

We had just come from South Africa and were on our way to Romania. The object I decided should be my centerpiece was—and still is—a picture of Our Lady of Soweto, a signed print of the big painting by Larry Scully which hangs over the altar of Regina Mundi Cathedral.

(Soweto is the shortening of "South–West–Town, which adjoins the city of Johannesburg. At the time we were in South Africa, it was out-of-bounds to whites). Needless to say, Our Lady of Soweto is black and is holding a black baby Christ.

Beneath this picture I have a portable bookshelf in which I place the spiritual reading in use at the moment, on either side of a Bible, which was given to me at my Confirmation.

This collection also includes my New Testament in French and my Chipangano Chatsopano—the same "Good News" in Chichewa (a Bantu language). My "poustinia-space" now also includes a Romanian painted Easter egg and an icon given to me by a saintly Orthodox bishop. Plus there is a rosary given to me directly from the hands of Pope John Paul II.

If, when we have moved to still another place, there is no room to install my "poustinia," I usually try to create something on a landing, as I have done presently, halfway up our stairs.

This means that I can pray as I pass. It also means that Our Lady looks down at everyone who enters or leaves by the front door. I am eternally grateful to Catherine and think fondly and often of the blessing she has brought to me and to my family.

*Moving vans

DRINKING FROM LIVING WATER

By Jean Fox

The liturgy is work. But I recall that one day, when the liturgy began, we were all tired and out of sorts and in no mood to really take part in this work of love. Then during the liturgy, in an unexpected and mysterious way, somehow we were all caught up in the prayers. All of us felt the same energy filling us.

When the priest was leaving after the final blessing, I looked at this face. It was radiant with a supernatural light.

Amid the multiplying tensions in our life, this memory flitted in and out of my mind. The painful feelings and experiences we cause each other to have—the pain of the cross—is absolutely unavoidable, especially when we live so closely together.

I turned to the Lord saying, What grace are you giving us at this time when we are so needy?

This morning I prayed to Catherine and said to her, You are our mother in the faith. Give me a hint as to what is transpiring.

I waited. Nothing happened. Without thinking, I picked up the book, Poustinia, opened it, and began reading:

"To reach the beatific vision, you must reach union with each other. In forming a family, a community of love, you have to accept the cross—mbrace it gloriously and willingly.

"Your cross is composed of little things and of the acceptance of each other as you are. You must develop the ability to see the positive in each other, to see each other’s beauty, to see each other’s talents, and to rejoice in them and be glad about them.

" As you grow in love, you help each other gently, peacefully, constantly, accepting the weaknesses of each other with deep love and great patience.

"This is how the Lord has treated you. Your first goal, which alone will lead you to the final goal, will be to establish a community of love, accepting all the pain, the problems, the difficulty that every family must go through if it is going to be a community of love."

This brought peace to my heart. That’s what this tension was about.

Gradually, gently, the Eucharist penetrates the pain we carry in our inner beings. It may be our own pain, our neighbor’s pain, or even the pain of someone in Sudan, India, or the parched, arid land of California. We don’t know. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that through our joy and pain we see that we are one with Jesus Christ, because he is one with all humanity.

This is our life. This is how he heals us of our sin and wounding. He only asks us to trust him more, and to accept everything with childlike faith and sureness that our pain will be transformed into good.

We’re learning to do this as a family. We’re beginning to see that we cannot live in the isolation of our own kingdoms. Our baptism unified us with Jesus, as does every Eucharist, every blessing, and every sacramental.

And the word of Scripture keeps bringing us back into the crucible of transforming divine love.

So I say to those who are weary: stand straight and ask for relief from the living water which God provides.

From Inflamed by Love, pp. 70-72, available from MH Publications.