ONE FREE AND SECURE LADY

by Martha Shepherd

Nearly 28 years ago now, I lived in Portland, Oregon. Rumor reached me that there was a great Mass at St. Andrew’s, the church in the "scary," "dangerous" neighborhood I’d been warned to stay out of.

But, I figured, how dangerous can it be at 11 a.m. Sunday morning, and drove there the very next week.

Right away I could tell this was going to be different. The piano started with a bang and a beat, and not just the celebrant and servers, but the whole blue-robed, African-American gospel choir processed in during the opening hymn.

I say "processed," but they didn’t just walk. They came in dancing and clapping. In those days there was a saying, "I’m black and I’m proud." Well, the way these men and women came in, they seemed to be saying just that. They were black and they were proud, and they were also very powerful.

They were clearly not "messing around," and clearly, there would be no messing around with them! And they were singing a song I knew, a song I had learned in Sunday school when I was four years old. They were singing "Jesus Loves Me."

For those of you who did not learn this song in Sunday school these are the words:

"Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to him belong,

We are weak, but he is strong.

Yes! Jesus loves me (3x).

The Bible tells me so."

Needless to say, they did not sing it the way we did when I was four! They sang it as I would never have imagined it could be sung. They sang it as a declaration, both free and serious.

When they got to the "Yes!" it came with a shout and a clap that defied all the demons of hell to prove otherwise. Right from the start of Mass they were making it perfectly clear: They were committed. Jesus loved them. They knew it. And no one was going to shake that certainty.

I didn’t put it together at the time, but these were people who had chosen faith as the truth in the midst of adversity.

Not the poverty, not the fear of violence, not all the suffering that life and racism had imposed upon them, none of these things or anything else had stopped them or was going to stop them from trusting in God’s love. That was what gave them and their song such power.

It hit me like a punch to the solar plexus, leaving me winded and with tears in my eyes.

And dancing and singing and clapping their way in, with all these powerful African-Americans of faith, were two white women, one of them very white indeed. Pink Irish skin, snow white hair. It was Jean Fox.

I didn’t know that at the time, of course, because I didn’t know Jean, but I definitely noticed her. And I wondered why she was there.

Was it some kind of statement of solidarity, or did she just like the music? And I remember thinking that, whatever the reason, that is one free and secure lady.

Four years later when I met Jean in Combermere, I discovered I’d been right on all counts. She loved the music and would sometimes entertain us by belting out a few choruses. Sometimes she would dance at the same time, remarkably well for a white woman!

She was also, indeed, one free and secure lady. And since unity was one of Jean’s passions, there are few things she ever did which were not a gesture of solidarity with someone.

Over the next three years she was very involved with guests and applicants, so I had many exchanges with her. These almost invariably followed the same pattern.

I would come to her with some problem or question. For five to ten minutes I would rant and rave about whatever it was until I ran out of steam.

Then Jean would look at me, smile, nod, and say something like, "God knows the truth." or "You’ll be fine." or "Just love." And I would look back at her, discover that I now had absolutely nothing more to say, and nod and smile in return. Complete inner silence reigned in me.

Then she’d hug me and we’d go our separate ways. End of discussion. Was there a discussion?

As time went on we skipped the first part. It was a relationship of nods, hugs, and a few words or directions and a blessing. I tend to think the same could be said by many of the women staff.

Few of us really knew Jean. I certainly didn’t. After she died it surprised me to realize both how little I knew her and how deeply I had counted on her.

It seems to me that Jean really lived the line of the Madonna House Little Mandate that says, "Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor’s feet."

You don’t look at a flashlight. You look at the path ahead where its light is shining. In the same way, although Jean was very visible, I seldom thought about her. But I very much relied on her to keep all of us on the path ahead. Who she was, where she came from, and so forth, this was not my business.

No, what I knew of Jean Fox I learned four years before we met, that morning she came dancing and singing and clapping her way in with the gospel choir—indifferent to being one of only two white women, too busy singing, shouting, proclaiming the truth with a simplicity any four-year-old could understand, and a profundity that only the total gift of one’s life can achieve.

It was all there that day, including her sense of the urgent need to stand and fight, and to remain people of joy, simplicity, and faith in the face of whatever the world, the flesh, and the devil might throw at her and us.

Years ago Jean reached a state she described as "permanent exhaustion". She hasn’t had much energy for singing and dancing for a long time; everything went to service.

And so, much as I feel her loss, I can’t begrudge her heaven now. I can see her laughing that high whooping laugh of hers, shaking her hand with an "Oh, baby cakes!" and yes, singing and dancing and clapping her way to God with people of every race and language, all one in the glad knowledge of his love.

COMBERMERE DIARY

by Paulette Curran

"Holy Week this year will be different (for Madonna House) from all other Holy Weeks," Jean Fox wrote on April 3rd in her last letter to the staff.

She was referring to our having seen the movie, The Passion of the Christ. Had she had any intuition of just how true her words would prove to be?

It all began, as Holy Week everywhere began, with the Palm Sunday liturgy. Just at the very beginning, Susanne Stubbs, the local director of the main house, noticed that Jean Fox was not in her usual spot.

A snowstorm was raging, so Susanne, wondering if Jean was having car trouble, left the chapel and went to check and see. As she left the chapel we were singing, "Father, I put my life into your hands."

Outside Jean’s cabin Susanne found Jean’s car running, and inside, Jean collapsed on the floor, unconscious but breathing.

In response to Susanne’s phone calls, Fr. David May left Mass to anoint Jean, and an ambulance came to bring Jean to the hospital in Barry’s Bay sixteen km. away. She had had a massive stroke.

At breakfast we were told the news, and Fr. Pelton announced that he and Mark Schlingerman (the other two director generals) had appointed Susanne as acting director general of women "for now."

Meanwhile Jean was being taken by ambulance to Ottawa, approximately 200 km. away.

We received various bits of news during the day, and at suppertime, when Susanne said, "This is Catherine’s chance for a miracle," we prayed the rosary for that miracle. It didn’t happen.

At 9 p.m. everyone gathered in the dining room for a further update. Jean, who never regained consciousness, was on a ventilator, and the neurosurgeon said that there was "no hope for recovery."

Monday afternoon Jean was taken off the ventilator and continued to breathe on her own though shallowly. She was brought to the Barry’s Bay hospital where we could go and be with her.

St. Francis Memorial Hospital in Barry’s Bay is a small hospital, whose staff are very personal and caring. They also know us well. They put Jean in a large private room and allowed us to fill their emergency waiting room as we waited to go in, a few at a time, to pray with Jean, express our love, and say our good-byes.

Two staff, Helen Schreiner and Doug Guss, were to be with her overnight, but several others ended up staying as well.

The atmosphere throughout the night and morning was holy. Though Jean remained unconscious to the end, people there seemed to connect with her in a very deep way. And though there weren’t a lot of vocal prayers, the room was filled with prayer.

"There was a gentle sea of grief," said one person, "but much greater than that, a tidal wave of praise and thanksgiving for this amazing and valiant woman."

In the morning several more staff came in to see Jean one last time. She had been fairly stable throughout the night, but in the morning her breathing started to fade.

Veronica Christine Wanchena described the last moments: "We gathered, surrounding her, touching her, cheering her on with gratitude, love, good-byes, and not a few tears. We said, ‘Thank you, Jean.’ ‘We love you.’ ‘Good job!’ ‘Bravo!’ ‘It’s okay for you to go home.’ ‘Our Lady is waiting.’ ‘Catherine is waiting." "We’ll be all right."

As she breathed her last, those with her sang a song to Our Lady, an Easter hymn, and the song to Our Lady of Combermere. Then Fr. Sharkey said the prayers for the dead and led all in the rosary.

Back at the house, there was, in the midst of our shock and grief, lots of work to do. Holy Week, is already a very busy time, and now we were to have a funeral as well perhaps a double one.

For Mary Ruth, too, was dying. (Her last name is "Ruth," but we always called her "Mary Ruth.")

Having been diagnosed with acute leukemia and given "two weeks to two months" to live just a week ago, she had been rapidly failing.

The kitchen, to mention just one area, went into high gear, and the archivists stayed up late putting together two of what we call "memorial books," albums of photos, facts, and writings of the deceased. And there was lots and lots of phoning people to notify them of the death of Jean, and lots of making of arrangements of many kinds.

On Holy Thursday Mary Ruth died, and for much of the day our attention was focused on her. (We will share with you some of our memories of Mary Ruth in our next issue.)

But nothing takes precedence over the Triduum, the holiest time of the Church year. The wakes and funeral were scheduled for after Easter, and suddenly the focus was the Triduum.

The guests who were coming for Easter had been arriving as usual, and we celebrated Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the beginning of Easter Sunday as we always do.

It is impossible to convey the atmosphere and experience of those very holy days.

By Holy Saturday, those coming for the funeral also began to arrive. All beds had already been filled with Easter guests, and those who came for the funeral made arrangements as best they could to stay elsewhere or to just come for the day. Many others sent faxes and e-mails, and our bulletin boards were overflowing with them.

Then there was the Easter Vigil Mass, the holiest and most joyful Mass of the year. "Christ is risen!" we sang and proclaimed over and over in song and celebration. Yes, Christ is risen, and Jean and Mary Ruth are risen with him. Life, not death, is the reality.

Then on Easter Sunday afternoon, we had the reception of the bodies, and the time of wake-keeping began.

On Easter Monday we were back at work, for an incredible amount of organizing and work are needed to make all these events happen.

Crews of people, for example, set up tables and chairs for the reception and raked the yard. And in the kitchen at least 15 people made sandwiches, put cookies and squares on platters, rolled up pounds and pounds of sliced meat, and chopped vegetables. A few of the men staff finished digging the graves.

The double funeral was on Easter Tuesday, with Bishop Richard Smith, the bishop of our diocese, presiding. The chapel overflowed with well over 300 people, including approximately 35 priests. The last time there were this many people here was for Catherine Doherty’s funeral in 1985.

The burial itself took longer than usual for there were two of them. The reception afterwards, which included wonderful baked goods made by our generous neighbors, was overflowing with people, and the atmosphere was joyous.

On Wednesday many of the guests left, and on Thursday and Friday we had the days off and "collapsed"!

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Shortly after this, the women staff began the process of electing the next director general of women. Whoever it will be, we will have a completely new directorate. Only a few months ago, Mark Schlingerman was elected director .general of men, and just on the day before Jean’s stroke, it was announced that Fr. David May had been elected director general of priests.

But we still couldn’t settle into "ordinary life." For just one week after Easter week we were into another major event—the annual meetings of all the directors of our mission houses.

Actually a number of the directors were already with us. Since funeral was only two weeks earlier than the meetings, many simply came earlier. It was God’s gift both to them and to us to be together at this time.

The meeting began with a week’s retreat given to the directors by Fr. Pat McNulty on the theme of Our Lady of Combermere, the Mother of our house.

Then the meetings themselves began—a time every year for the directors to share with one another and to be strengthened, a time for them to grow deeper in the spirit of our apostolate and of the Gospel, a time to look at the past year and ask what God has done in Madonna House, a time to ask him where he is leading us. What a gift that this year the meetings occurred so shortly after Jean’s death!

And this year, as an added gift, Bishop Richard Smith, wanting to meet the directors from around the world, visited all of us and spent an evening with them.

I said a while back that we had no time to settle into "ordinary time," but in one way, our ordinary life never stops. All the time, as in every family, no matter what is happening, the usual life and work must continue.

And through it all, no matter what is happening, Madonna House continues to grow as well as deepen. As some of our members get older and enter into unimaginable unity with the God they served for so many years, God continues to call young people to our life, and they continue to respond.

The next event, a prelude to Promises Day, was the retreat for all those making or renewing promises. The theme this year was "Children of our Lady of Combermere," and a number of the participants said that it was a particularly joyous retreat. (Could this have been a gift from Jean?)

Then on June 8th, fifteen of our members made promises either here or in our mission houses. Of that number, nine renewed, two made final promises, and four made them for the first time. This latter four thus formally become members of our community.

The ceremony this year was blessed to have the presence of Bishop Richard Smith, who said the Mass, gave the homily, and received the promises. At the same Mass he also presided over the simple ceremony of formally accepting Kieran Kilcommons, a Madonna House seminarian, as a candidate for the deaconate.

And this year, reflecting the increasing international character of our membership, promises were made in four languages—English, Polish, Spanish, and Korean.

The promises ceremony is a simple one, but very beautiful, for who could fail to be moved at the sight of such fresh-eyed, beautiful young people giving their whole lives to God?

Yes, as Jean said, Holy Week, and also the time afterwards, was certainly different this year! It was a profound time of death, resurrection, of grieving, of thanksgiving, and of joy, of discerning God’s will together, and, in the form of our new members, new life.

A PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST

by Réjeanne George

(Interview by the Editor)

Réjeanne has been a close friend of Jean Fox since the late 1960s.

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How did you get to know Jean?

We worked together in the library when she was a guest just returned from her time as a lay missionary with PAVLA in Peru.

She asked so many questions. She was so hungry to penetrate the spirit of Madonna House.

Then a couple years later, you and she and Doreen opened the house in Honduras.

That’s where our friendship solidified. There was an inner meeting that doesn’t often happen in this life.

What was it like in MH Honduras?

We were in a very poor area where there had been a war the year before. We didn’t know what our work would be, but it soon became obvious. Things started happening, and we just tried to move with them.

Three or four days after we arrived, a couple came to us asking for medicine for their sick baby. We were staying at the parish rectory until our house was ready, and the priests hardly had any medicines. But Jean gave the parents something.

Then next day five sick people came. The day after that, fifteen. By the third day, it was thirty. Before we realized it, we were in fact running a clinic.

Jean was a nurse, but all we had to work with were some medical supplies that Caritas (an international Catholic relief service) had given to our parish priests—things like band-aids, vitamins, thermometers. Only the most basic things, and people had terrible medical problems.

I said, "We have nothing," but Jean said, "We can love them, and we can pray for them." And the amazing thing was that some people would come back saying that they were better!

Jean had the most Third World experience of any of us, and though she didn’t say much, I learned a lot just by living and working along side of her.

She had reverence for each person. She didn’t talk about seeing Christ in the poor. She just lived it.

She didn’t get overwhelmed by the pain of people, but she had incredible compassion. She could live with the pain, and never lost hope.

Do you have any stories of her from that time?

Jean had inner freedom. All of us were smokers at the time. As director of the house, I had decided that since we were living among people who barely had enough money for food, we should quit smoking.

In the capital city there were lots of little boys earning a little money selling cigarettes one by one.

One day when we were spending a day there, Jean knelt down right in the middle of the road, put her hands together in a pleading gesture, and said, "Mother Superior, can I please have a cigarette?"

I was embarrassed! It was her joking way of saying, "Loosen up!"

The fact was that even the poorest of the poor were smoking while they were waiting at the clinic. So I let go.

Another time we ran into a group of priests one of whom was a big name in liberation theology. They were obviously feeling us out as to what side we were on, and since only Jean spoke Spanish well, it was she who talked with them.

I could understand a bit of what she was saying, and she seemed to be saying some really stupid things. I couldn’t believe it! And the look on the face of one of the priests confirmed that I was hearing right!

Afterwards when I asked her why she was responding that way, she said, "I don’t think we should get caught up in their stuff."

She was quite willing to look like a fool when she thought the occasion warranted it.

Another time, our house was broken into. I wanted to just let it go, but Jean said, "We have to report them because if they do it to us they’ll do it to someone else."

Then later when one of the robbers was apprehended, we visited him in prison. Jean told him, "We have forgiven you, but don’t do it to anyone else."

You spent a lot of time with Jean in more recent years in the advisory capacity of "elder." What struck you about her?

Several things. One of the staff once called Jean "a pathological optimist." Though she was aware of the weaknesses and sinfulness of people, she chose to focus on what was good in each one, to honor that, and to bring it forth. So people felt respected and understood by her.

As director, there were times when she chose not to confront someone out of the faith she had in the goodness that she knew was in that person. That was probably not always the right decision.

She had great inner freedom and perhaps some of it came about through her conversion. When she was living in New York as a young adult and was away from the Church, she had a profound experience of God.

So she went to confession and expected that the priest would listen to her and give her direction. But he was abrupt and he gave her nothing of what she had been hoping for. But he did give her absolution, and she left the confessional in a state of profound joy.

I think that experience taught her that it doesn’t matter what people say or do, that the only thing that matters is to be at rights with God.

Jean was very intelligent and had a big mind, a mind open to many things, but she didn’t live and move out of her mind. Her bigness of mind fed her heart. She moved mainly by faith and intuition.

Jean never wanted to be a director, and she didn’t act like one. She certainly never gave the impression she was superior to anyone. The Scripture line that comes to me about her is, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Mt 5:5).

Jean laid down her life for us, the women staff. For she was incredibly available to us.

And finally, Jean was very hidden. We know almost nothing of her inner life with God.

IF YOU SEEK LOVE

by Jean Fox

Who is this woman? Who is the young Jewess who heard the thunder and whisper of the Creator in the depths of her being? Patriarchs, prophets, holy men of God, who knew and lived the Jewish tradition, longed for what she heard.

Who is this woman who heard through the Angel Gabriel, "Will you become the Mother of God?" The whole world entered into silence and hiddenness when that "yes" went forth, and the pregnancy of God himself entered into her being. The Incarnation began a revolution of love that continues even now—in you and me.

Are our hearts silent? Are our ears attuned to creation all around us?

Are we silent and listening to the heartbeats of our brothers and sisters? Are we standing still, listening to the all-consuming love that enters into us during the liturgy, receiving again and again this great outpouring of love into every cell of our bodies?

This great prophetess is alive and well. Her Son comes to us over and over again. The Sanctifier is piercing and penetrating every corner of our beings so that we can be transformed, transfigured, and restored.

All we need to do is simply know that Almighty God arranges every minute of our days, whether we are in joy or in pain, to bring forth in us what is humanly impossible—Jesus Christ.

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The Mother of God is all love. So, if you seek love, you must go to her as children and drink from her tenderness and wisdom. Take your fears and hatreds, in all their various negative forms, to her. Talk to her. Let her love you so that your broken nature can be filled and restored with her tender love.

Only then will you be able to absorb the heights and depths of the words of her Son. Without her, you will not know what his words mean in their profundity, in their interior life-giving power.

Who will bring forth the new creation in us? Call upon the Holy Spirit with verve and confidence. Allow the Holy Spirit to penetrate, to reveal all the untruths in your mind and heart. Step by step, take your maladies of hatred, fear, anger, and resentment to the Mother of God, and she will gently and quietly give you the security and safety that you desire.

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There are hidden and silent signs of our Lady moving quietly and relentlessly across the face of the earth. Certainly our own love for Our Lady has grown over the years. It is seldom that anyone coming to Madonna House doesn’t make a point of going to the shrine of Our Lady of Combermere, leaving with her whatever burdens, petitions, or thanksgiving they have.

She is our mother, and we are becoming more and more like little children as we approach her with all of the things that are unsolvable in our own hearts.

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All of history changed at the Annunciation, at the moment Our Lady said, "Fiat!" At that moment, the cross and the crib were wed. The inevitable outcome of the history of the universe began. No matter what tomorrow brings, the end of the story is resurrection for all of us.

From Inflamed by Love, pp. 22, 23, 30-32, available from, MH Publications.

My Vocation

A RELENTLESS CALL

by Jean Fox

When someone is accepted as an applicant to begin formation to become a member of Madonna House, he or she is asked to write how they came here. Here is what Jean wrote.

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Coming to Madonna House was the result of a long chain of events all stemming from a strong desire to live a totally dedicated life.

This motion of this commitment led me to contact Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Africa in order to nurse the people there. After I had made all the preliminary preparations—with an interview scheduled with his secretary in Paris and a year of language study and work in France waiting, a call came saying that both my parents were critically ill and needed immediate help.

So I went home and took on their care until the crisis was over, which involved another year.

During that time I learned of the Lay Propagation group in Los Angeles which was under the jurisdiction of the Church and which gave preliminary training to lay people interested in mission work. So once more I made arrangements for acceptance.

By this time I didn’t care if I had to swim to Africa. All I knew was a strong relentless call to be more deeply absorbed in the heart of Christ through some external action.

Once more my bags were packed, but a week before I was to leave for California, a phone call came from the doctor saying that my mother was to have emergency surgery the following morning.

The bags were unpacked and once more I was detoured while I experienced in the following year the death of my mother, the prolonged illness and eventual death of my father, the failure of the family business, and the death of six aunts and uncles. All of this placed me in the position of assuming financial, legal, and physical care of the family.

These entanglements went on for seven years during which time my apostolic energies were put into a terminal cancer floor (where I was head nurse) and where physical death was a daily challenge, and a slow transformation came to be where light, hope, and peace animated the floor.

Faith deepened in these years through the overtly hopeless situation both at home and at work only by listening to the heart of Christ.

Simple truths were learned through living: that out of death comes life, and that from sorrow, joy flows. Those seven years ended with an inner sureness that the more we are stripped, the more we are filled.

When my responsibilities lifted, I immediately contacted the local director of Pavla (Papal Volunteers for Latin America) and asked if I could join this group.

By this time the vehicle of service did not seem important, but the voice within calling me to a total giving of my life was like a roaring sea. Pavla sent their acceptance, and ( since Madonna House was part of their training program at the time), they asked if I would spend a month there.

I knew nothing about the place but moving whenever and wherever circumstances dictated, I said, "fine."

En route to Combermere I prayed to Our Lady and reminded her of the seven-year wait wherein patience had been well tested and asked her to take me home. And she did.

But first to Peru with Pavla to be sure that this immediate desire to stay at Madonna House was not mine but God’s.

While in Peru, the knowledge became ever surer that I was to return to Madonna House, and circumstances rapidly fell into order to permit an early departure from Pavla for Combermere.

THIS WEEK WILL BE DIFFERENT

by Jean Fox

For several years now, every Saturday afternoon Jean wrote a letter to the staff. This one was written on April 3rd, the day before her stroke.

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Holy Week has finally arrived. Holy Week this year will be different from other years because almost everyone in Combermere has seen The Passion of the Christ.

The impact of that experience, for it’s hard to call it a movie, varies from person to person. As yet I have not heard anyone say that it had no effect upon them. For most of us, it had an incredible interior and seemingly lasting influence on our mind and heart.

So we know that the words we will hear this week are going to boom and enter our consciousness in a very different fashion.

The important thing is that our love for Jesus grow, that our closeness and savoring of the Word will reach new heights, depths, and nuances. And certainly we pray that the life-giving gift of the Eucharist will be enveloped in a way that will have lasting and permanent changes in our souls.

This particular week is also the anniversary of Fr. Callahan’s entry into heaven. (He was the first Madonna House priest.) What a gentleness of God to take him home as he did! He was in the hospital and was jubilant because the doctor had just left saying, "You can go home today."

Marian Heiberger was with him, and she turned her back, and before she knew it, he was slumped over and dead with hardly a warning.

What a marvelous way to leave the earth! Ever since that day, I myself have prayed the prayer to Our Lady of Combermere because there is a line in it that prays for a happy death.

(Then referring to the fact that Fr. David May had just been elected director general of priests, Jean said:) We don’t know what is in God’s mind and heart for this next era, but we know he will unfold that day by day through people, events, and situations. What we do know is that in the days ahead, the priests are going to need our prayers and our love as never before.

The enemies of the Church have found clever ways of speaking and thwarting God’s will. Fortunately, in the last few years there has been a growing light and awareness coming to Christians everywhere. We truly believe that the roots of wisdom and the tradition of the church have been re-opened and are nourishing, feeding, and filling many, many Christians, not just locally, but all over the world.

If we do not learn to love one another, the globe will perish. If we do not learn how to take into our hearts the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the young, the old, people from different cultures and ways of life, we will perish.

If we do not plunge ourselves into the Word of God and into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we will not be apostles for the coming days. We must be ready to die. We must be ready to lay down our lives for the sake of the Gospel.

This globe has become very, very small. The human knowledge acquired has reached an unprecedented point. Unfortunately, knowledge doesn’t always bring wisdom, and knowledge can destroy as well as give life. For this reason, we must safeguard the faith, safeguard the presence of Jesus in our midst, and especially pray for the priests.

We the laity can demand one thing always of our priests: lead us to sanctity; lead us to holiness, lead us to total emptiness so that we can be extensions of the Body and Blood of Jesus on the highways and byways of the world.

We beg you priests to speak with boldness, simplicity, and truth, but mostly we look to you to lead us into every facet of gospel life as we stay in the marketplace, setting tables, chopping wood, ironing, offering hospitality, laboring in the fields under the hot sun.

In order for this to happen, you must give your whole self, forfeiting comfort, human preferences, your own ideas, and live and feed us only with the truth of Jesus Christ.

What a great gift for little Madonna House during this coming Holy Week to have a new director general of priests!

The Pope’s Corner

LOVE IS NOT INSTINCTIVE

by Pope John Paul II

Without genuine mutual love, the family (and the community) cannot live, cannot thrive, cannot develop. Such love demands a great spirit of sacrifice and a generous willingness to understand, to forgive, to be reconciled, so preventing selfishness, discord and tensions from striking root within the family circle.

Loving is essentially a giving of oneself to others. Far from being an instinctive inclination, love is a conscious decision of the will to go out to others.

To be able to love properly, one must detach oneself from many things and above all from self. One must give freely, one must love to the end. This stripping away of selfTa long jobais laborious and exciting. It is the source of equilibrium. It is the secret of happiness.

From an address to families, May 1987.

IN THE CRUCIBLE

by Cheryl Ann Smith

Undoubtedly, the pages of this issue of Restoration will be filled with stories of Jean Fox’s maternal tenderness, her prophetic cry, her call to be Veronica wiping the Face of the suffering Christ in all she met. I could add my own stories of these facets of the "Jean Fox diamond."

But I have another facet to highlight: the unrelenting mistress of training, who threw us into the crucible of love and would not let us escape until we emerged as tried, tested and purified gold!

I began visiting Madonna House in the early 1970s, and after a stay of several months in 1976, I sensed this was my vocation. I left for a couple of years, but when I returned in 1978, my spiritual director encouraged me to ask Jean if I could return for a longer stay.

This was the first time I had ever talked with her, as she had just returned to Combermere to be Catherine’s assistant.

To say that Jean was not all that encouraging would be an understatement. In fact, she seemed to not want me to come. I had already planned to do some travelling, so I extended that trip for several months, thinking that the Madonna House door might be closed.

But the following year I was back again. Jean was even more adamant: "Don’t you even be thinking of applicancy," she said. "You can just come for a week-to-week stay!"

I have always wondered why Jean was initially so unwelcoming. Perhaps she was tired by the end of a packed summer. She didn’t know me, and maybe she had been deluged by similar requests. But perhaps she was moved (consciously or unconsciously) by the same impulse as in the old monastic tradition: throw up obstacles, and the one who perseveres does indeed have a vocation.

By the time she threw open the door to me, I knew I belonged. And so did Jean!

From early on, Jean thrust me into responsibility. At one point, I was put in charge of the women guests, of hospitality and of cleaning—all at the same time.

I wanted to give everything I had, and was grateful to be stretched. However, one summer day, I had had it! There was no break! People, people, people all day and all night. After I directed the noon dish-washing, I was to give a tour to a busload of people. I just couldn’t face it.

I burst into tears, and was sent to Jean. But instead of looking into warm, sympathetic eyes, I was met by cool, green eyes that wouldn’t even flicker. My words and my tears instantly dried up. I beat a hasty retreat, washed my face, and gave the tour.

The next day, the interior storm was over, and Jean gave me a teaching about the spiritual battle, a teaching that was burned into my being.

"When you’re hit suddenly with a violent reaction "whether it’s despair or anger or rebellion", she explained, "and it seems to come out of the blue, that’s a pretty strong indication that it’s an attack from the evil one. When that happens, get a priestly blessing, do the duty of the moment, and keep holding on to your cross, praying the Name of Jesus."

That teaching was one of the clearest and most powerful tools of discernment I ever received, and I have used it constantly.

One other time, Jean was uncharacteristically severe. It was when our three director generals were on a visitation to our house. Jean had no kind words for me; in fact, she seemed to want nothing to do with me!

I cried out to the other two director generals. "Why is she doing this?" Both offered the same hunch: "That was the way Catherine trained her. Perhaps she’s training you the same way." Believe it or not, that gave me some consolation.

On the other hand, it may not have been deliberate. She could have been unconsciously following Biblical wisdom: The Lord trains the ones that He loves…suffering is part of your training…that (you) may share his holiness (Heb 12:6-7,10).

Although I loved Jean, and trusted her with my life, I felt she sometimes put me in humiliating situations (although if I were humble, they would not feel humiliating), challenging me to be converted to a gospel, "gold-in-the-crucible" response.

I never knew that Jean was aware of the pain it caused until she once said, "Cheryl Ann is like the kind of doll that springs up when it’s knocked over. She has been knocked down so many times—mostly by me—but, by the grace of God, she keeps getting up."

So she knew! So it truly was a training in love. Jean herself would never say "no" to God or to love. And her teachers had been Catherine Doherty, who had allowed herself to be crucified time and again, and the Holy Spirit, who had inflamed Jean, by Love, in that same crucible.

And that was what she wanted for me, for all of us. Nothing less than perfect surrender, perfect love. As she once wrote, "We are becoming God’s fiery furnace, prepared for love by pain (Inflamed by Love p. 85)."

LIFE-GIVING LEGACIES

I arrived in Madonna House at age 35, a pilgrim with a questing soul. Though my heart belonged to Jesus and Mary and I had long prayed to know and do God’s will, I still hadn’t found my place in life.

But Combermere seemed so remote and after two weeks, I was ready to leave and continue the pilgrimage I had begun to the shrines of Canada. I looked for a word from the Holy Spirit to direct me as to what to do next.

Jean was Catherine Doherty’s assistant at the time, and the person to see about leaving. So I went to her.

"You are serious about God and he is serious about you," she said after she had listened to my tale. "This is no time to be roaming around the country. You should stay for a month—or at least a week."

These words quickened my heart, and I realized that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me through Jean. I stayed on.

Six weeks later I had an invitation from my parents to travel with them to the Grand Canyon, and at the same time, several guests were leaving by car and were offering me a free ride all the way home. Should I leave now?

Praying fervently to Our Lady for the grace to accept whatever Jean said, I explained my dilemma to her. Her response burned in my heart. "For you to go to Arizona at this time would be frivolous. Don’t worry about a ride home. Stay a few weeks longer."

On September 8th I awoke with joy. Suddenly I realized that God was calling me to Madonna House! The search for my place to serve God was over.

When I made my first promises in 1985, the word Jean gave me was, "Go into the depths of men’s hearts quietly and silently and serve them all."

Since then I’ve been serving in Madonna House Toronto. It hasn’t been easy for me, a country girl used to space and freedom, to put down the roots necessary for God to work on my heart. But this word of the Holy Spirit speaking through Jean on the day of my promises has helped me stand still in the hurly burly of this metropolis.

There have been other words over the years. One time, for example, when I was struggling particularly hard, Jean, after listening to my woes, looked hard at me and said," Jesus lives in you. Jesus lives in you!" This assurance that we are never alone, no matter what the difficulty, has transformed my life.

I received a blessing and advice from Jean in mid-March. The Holy Spirit speaking through her gave me such encouragement and consolation. "I see your heart," she said. "You have been faithful and you are crucified. Be not afraid. Go to frequent confession and ask God to show you the truth in all things."

These words will be my guiding light for the rest of my life.

Carol Ann Gieske

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Three years ago my father died of a fast-growing cancer. Three months later my grief counselor and confessor was murdered. A few months after that, an aunt who had been like a grandmother to me died. Then a year after my father died, my mother died of a massive heart attack.

Last fall Archbishop Donat Chiasson, the former bishop of my home diocese and a MH associate bishop with whom I was close, was killed instantly in a car accident.

Both spiritually and psychologically, these have been the hardest three years of my life.

Finally at the beginning of Holy Week, Jean Fox had a massive stroke. Even as she was dying, I thought, I am beyond shock now. Then when she died, the only thing I felt was relief for her that she had been released from all the responsibilities she had been carrying for so many years.

And something new happened in me. Her death was a healing for me. Why? Because unlike all the other deaths, with Jean I got to say goodbye. No, I didn’t get to the hospital in Barry’s Bay. It happened in spirit and through a letter from her.

The last time I saw Jean was two summers ago. As we talked about all the recent losses in my life, including a loss of faith, I asked her the question I never got to ask the others: "What do you want me to think about the day I hear that you have died?"

I will be forever grateful that she answered that question as she has tried to answer all the questions I have had over the 23 years that I have known her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, "That I will be closer to you than I am right now." This is the greatest gift she could have given me because now I really believe it.

Jean believed in life after death; she believed in the resurrected Jesus. I know that because she lived as if he were alive. She laid down her life for someone she expected to share life with after she died.

And unlike with the others who died, I have some words from her "from the grave" to read over and over. Several days after her funeral, I received a letter from her, a letter she had written just days before she died.

In it she said, "In the end the only thing that can never ever be destroyed is love. All those relatives in your natural family and supernatural family are alive and well. The resurrection is the deepest hope and everlasting truth of our faith."

Her hope has given me much peace. The example of her life has given me the reason not to be afraid to give all, whatever form that may take. And her words are giving me a way to hold her and let go of her at the same time.

Anne Marie Murphy

Memories

SLEEPING IN THE BASEMENT

In 1975, I was assigned to MH Portland, the first poustinia house, with Jean Fox. The house was in the inner city, a half a block from Union Avenue, a main city artery with two lanes going in one direction and two in the other, with just a painted double line to divide them.

Jean burned with the love of God. One day she and I were discussing obedience, and she said, "If the Lord asked me to crawl down the middle of Union Avenue pushing a peanut with my nose, I would do it without hesitation."

Sushi Horwitz

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Jean was my director in Honduras where we ran a medical clinic. Someone said to me that some of the people coming were "taking advantage" of us. When I told Jean, she said, "When we go before the judgment seat of God, he won’t ask us what other people did. He’ll ask us how much we loved."

Doreen Rousseau

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When I was a guest in 1978 Jean came to our dormitory one evening and told us her life story. One thing she told us was that she had prayed for a year of silence and peace with the Lord, and that God had answered her prayer when she was assigned to a poustinia house, MH Portland.

While she was there, one day when she was shelling walnuts, she got an image of a river of peace coming out of her, flowing across the floor, out the door, down the steps, down the street, and around the corner. She asked God where it was going, and he said in her heart, "It’s not for you to know."

But I knew. That river came to me! I was living in Portland, and one day while I was at Mass, a woman I didn’t know walked by my pew, turned and looked at me, and it was as if a current of electricity passed from her through me. I knew that this woman with the extraordinary green eyes had something major to do with my life. And I knew that if I got to know her, my life would never be the same again.

I later found out that she was from Madonna House. One Sunday I took my courage in my hands and went there to meet her. It all ended with me becoming a Madonna House staff worker.

I’m so grateful that God gave Jean that year of peace and silence with himself.

Pat Probst

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The day before her stroke I talked with Foxy for half an hour. One thing I told her was that I’m so grateful for my vocation. Her face lit up and she said, "Me, too. I wake up every morning so happy to be here."

Anne McQuillan

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When I was in one of our field houses, I was having trouble getting along with my director. I talked on and on in great detail about the difficulties and finally concluded by saying, "Jean, we’re so different." Jean said, "There are no compatible people."

A staff worker

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I never talked with Jean, but from the way she looked at me I knew she loved me and I felt close to her.

A guest

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At one point in time, it was either Catherine Doherty or Jean Fox from whom women staff asked any needed permissions. I slept in the bed next to Jean in the women staff dormitory, and people would often come to Jean near bedtime.

One woman, for example, would say, "So-and-so asked me out for supper. Is it all right if I go?" Jean would say "yes." Then on the same night, someone else would ask the same thing, and she would say, "no." And then a third would ask, and she’d say, "Let’s think and pray about it."

This sort of thing happened over and over, and finally my curiosity got the best of me. "I can’t help overhearing your giving permissions to people," I told her. "Why do you tell one yes and another no? How do you decide?"

"It’s love," she said. "If going out to supper will help someone to love, I say yes. If not, I say no. And sometimes the person needs to think about why she wants to go. So I wait before answering."

Karen van De Loop

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Whenever I got distracted saying Mass, I could look at Jean. She was so totally focused that it would bring me back immediately.

Fr. Pat McNulty

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After I was in Liberia for a year and a half, when I was ready to quit, Jean came on visitation.

Through her presence, her affirmation, her ability to be peace to each of us, I persevered.

Her ability to move with the people was superb, and her spontaneity in responding to situations taught me much.

One day as we were driving home we came across a young man who was obviously in difficulty. When we stopped and asked him what was the matter, he told us there was something wrong with his eyes. Jean immediately invited him into the car. Then when we got home, she checked out our medicine supply and ministered to him herself.

But that was not the end of the story. When Jean returned to Canada, she followed up the relationship. Although she never returned to Liberia, she was always "mother" to Isaac.

Genevieve Enoe

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Jean had some wonderful ways of saying things. These are two of my favorites:

1. Put that in the back of your pipe until you’re ready to smoke it.

2. When we all start living the Gospel, we’ll make Times Square look like a blackout. (Times Square in New York City is a place that is so lit up at night that it seems as bright as day.)

Susanne Stubbs

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Jean would from time to time invite the women applicants to her cabin so that she and they could get to know each other. On one such occasion when I was an applicant, she told us, "I love you very much. I would do anything for you." There was a pause. "Well, maybe I wouldn’t give you ice cream sundaes."

"Why wouldn’t you give us sundaes?" one of us asked wistfully.

A couple of weeks later, she invited us over to her cabin again. And gave us ice cream sundaes!

A staff worker

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Jean taught me to see daily life with the eyes of faith. Our street in Portland was on an ordinary street in a poor inner city neighborhood. Ordinary people lived there, but Jean saw the heroism of their daily lives. She saw their struggles to love and their selflessness.

Across the street was Mrs. P. She was in her 70s, in a wheelchair, and she lived with and cared for her alcoholic son.

I saw an ordinary, kind, uncomplaining woman. Jean saw greatness of soul.

"There are many people who are not noticed," she would say, "who are living extraordinary lives."

Sushi Horwitz

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When we were in the mission houses away from Combermere, we were under obedience to write to Jean once a month.

For me, this correspondence gradually grew into a source of love, acceptance, understanding, support, and advice in all my difficulties and sufferings.

After Jean died, I re-read her letters to me. They said such simple things—things like, "Love so and so (a staff worker with whom I was having difficulty)," or "Simply do whatever is asked of you."

Such simple words, but at the time, they seemed to leap from the page.

A staff worker

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When I was a guest at MH in the summer of 1971, the two-floor women guest dormitory was continually full. And we had only one housemother, who slept on the main floor.

I suppose Catherine Doherty figured that the other floor needed some "presence," so she asked Jean Fox, not to be a housemother or to do anything specific, but just to "sleep in the basement."

So Jean moved in. She had just returned from Honduras, and we didn’t know her. Every evening she would walk quietly in, wash up, and then sit on her bed and read. As far as I could see, she didn’t even say hello to anyone.

But after a few days I noticed someone sitting on Jean’s bed talking to her. The next day the same thing happened. Actually, after the first few days, there was almost always someone sitting on her bed. And sometimes that person ended up crying in Jean’s arms.

Then before long an amazing thing happened. The whole atmosphere of the basement had changed. Our floor full of high spirited, hungry-for-God, rebellious young women was deeply peaceful.

That’s when I knew what Catherine meant when she said, "It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is who you are."

Paulette Curran

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Describe Jean Fox? How can you explain love?

Helen Schreiner,

Jean’s secretary for 23 years

THE FACES OF HOPE

by Jean Fox

Like Catherine Doherty before her and like Pope John Paul II, Jean Fox had a special love for young people, especially our young guests.

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Two young men who were here for our pre-seminarian program endeared themselves to us. One has rosy cheeks and bright, sparkling eyes. He has always been a model of youthful maturity, to put it simply.

The other one arrived more of a challenge to the entire family. He had a tendency to try to skip out of common chores. For a time, it looked a though he might not make it here, but with a little encouragement and a wee bit of correction here and there, he settled down. He became a sterling, prayerful, and ardent young man.

The two of them returned for a visit. They were like the face of hope arriving because they had just spent four months pilgrimaging to holy places in Europe.

They did not go as bourgeois tourists go. They went as pilgrims, knocking at monastery doors for lodging, seeking their meals from whoever would feed them, carrying with them sleeping bags in the event that there was no bed for them.

These two young men prayed their way through Europe and walked or hitchhiked from place to place. They had story after story of how exceedingly well cared for they were throughout the entire trip.

Pray for all these young people who carry within them the future of the Church and the future of the world, whether they live out their lives as married people, as lay people in the marketplace, or as priests and nuns.

Whatever path they take, they will be the hands, hearts, and instruments whereby restoration will come for future generations. We thank them for coming.

These two young men are symbols of this surge of life all around us. What an honor it is to receive them into our home and our hearts. What an incredible grace it is for us to pass on to them whatever incarnation of the Gospel is placed in our hands, in whatever corner of the apostolate we are living and serving.

I pray that we pass it on with fire in our hearts, because love is the only thing that can never be extinguished from the face of the earth.

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There is a different breed of young people coming here. They are post-Vatican II children. Many of them have been raised by "charismatic" parents. Many have converted in spite of parents who do not practice the faith.

Many have had quite unusual experiences of God. They are being touched directly by God in one way or another. They are bright, alert, hungry, and a joy to have in this house. They are the future, and it is obvious that something is unfolding in a most positive fashion.

We must enter into their hearts and listen to them and listen to the heartbeat of God in them, because they are the ones who will have to do the reconstruction and the restoration. We have a certain wisdom of experience from living in community life. They have a freshness and an expression of life.

Both generations must come together and harmonize in a new way. They are a magnificent challenge and it bodes well, not only for future vocations, but also for the restoration of Christendom wherever they may be. Nothing, nothing can stop the ongoing incarnation of the Gospel.

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All anyone has to do is listen to the young people who are coming through our doors. They know that their choices are clear.

They have a mysterious inner strength and a conviction about the Gospel. After years of seeing hippies and youth who rebelled, today we are seeing youth who somehow have leapt over all kinds of fences and know that there is nothing left for them but faith in Jesus Christ. Will God honor our little family with their presence more and more? I think so.

They do not complain about the food, or the long hours, or even the monotony. They have a strange familiarity with our Madonna House way of life because they recognize without being told, that love and peace are here.

You and I have to lay down our lives for them, for the seminarians, for the priesthood, for the poor, for those who do not know God, for the lonely, and for the forgotten.

From Inflamed by Love, pp. 195-197, and 205, available from MH Publications, and a letter to the staff, February 23, 2004.

THE NEW SPRINGTIME

by Jean Fox

We have entered a new era. The world as we knew it before September 11, 2001, is finished. Only God knows what is coming. But we can trust that God’s mercy is on its way, even if pockets of uncertainty, challenge, fear, and disruption flow for a period of time. We know in faith that God is reclaiming his earth and all of his children.

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We need to keep our Christian perspective. When the barbarian hordes cascaded across Europe at the time of St. Augustine, he calmly wrote his famous work, City of God. Nations rise and fall, civilizations come and go, but Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, has been given to us. Eventually he will draw all men to himself.

When you feel threatened, go and find your hope in the Word. More than anything, remember that Jesus Christ, through your baptism, has entered into your pain, and nothing can ever overcome his love.

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As little, poor, humble, and simple as we are, we can join hands with the Holy Father and with the whole universal Church and give a resounding yes, so that we can live in love and in truth, so that we can live and spend our lives bringing love truth, peace, and joy to everyone we meet.

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This is the time for us to stop, look and listen. Receive everything as a sheer gift from God, whether it be joy or sorrow, a chastisement or a consolation. It doesn’t matter as long as we, like little children, take everything as being a free gift of God for each of us personally, and for the whole family.

We must keep our eyes on the civilization of love. We must keep our eyes on creating a great human and spiritual way of life.

We must be one with his Mother in creating little corners of new life, of beauty, of tenderness. We must let our hands touch all the material things that come through our houses with reverence and respect. We must see them as tools and gifts of restoration.

All things are being passed through the mind and heart of God so that we, his children, can be restored for the birth into a new civilization of love, into something far more beautiful than we can hope for or imagine, for the whole world.

Pass it on, whatever you have that brings goodness, truth, beauty, and love for others. Pass it on.

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The new Springtime is already taking root in the midst of the tottering and crumbling old order of Western civilization, of Russia, and of the entire globe. Every nation is being challenged spiritually and materially, for we have to become brothers and sisters walking hand in hand or we will not survive.

From Inflamed by Lord, pp. 201, 202, 204-5, 209, available from MH Publications.

My Dear Family

THE KEY

by Catherine Doherty

There is only one way that I shall restore the world. The key is this intangible reality—which is as strong as death, as strong as everlasting life—and it is called love.

Nothing can destroy it, unless we destroy it ourselves. It is the only motive, the only reason, for being in Madonna House. Everything else is senseless unless you are here for loving—utterly, passionately, completely.

If people ask you, "What is the apostolate of Madonna House," the answer is simple: It is an apostolate to love. And where love is, God is.

We desire to be the presence of God in the midst of the world. We are dedicated to the restoration of the world—man and his institutions—to God. The only way we can restore them is by loving, by having God within ourselves, a living flame. The rest will follow. That’s all there is to it.

From a letter to the staff, March 22, 1956.