BUT IT’S JUST A POTATO!

by Denis Lemieux

A few years back I had an illuminating conversation with a newly arrived guest at MH.

We were standing around a large tub full of potatoes soaking in water, which it was our task to scrub, part of the nightly routine of ‘doing veggies’ which features prominently in the life of MH men.

I don’t remember anything about the young man standing across from me except that he was eager to please. He asked me to show him, to really show him, how to do potatoes properly.

The poor fellow didn’t know what he was unleashing on himself. I love to scrub potatoes, and I love teaching even more. I rejoiced inwardly at being asked to combine the two.

"Ahem, well, since you ask," and here I paused to take a deep breath, "first you use the ‘scrubby’ to thoroughly get the surface dirt off the potato. Then you rinse it thoroughly in the water for efficient cleaning.

"You see these little black specks? They’re a fungus that is a bit hard to remove with the scrubby, but a little elbow grease usually gets them. If not, don’t worry about it."

I paused for another breath. "Now, when the potato is clean, put it on the tray. Someone else will take it and cut out any bad bits. By bad, I mean the rotten, green, scabby parts, the remaining fungus, and the eyes.

"The key here is to be surgical – just cut the bad out and save the good. If it’s a small bad part, use the tip of the knife rather than the flat for greater accuracy. But if it’s a large rotten area, be ruthless so as not to waste time."

I took a breath. "Finally, cut the potatoes into roughly egg-sized pieces, so they will cook uniformly. And, oh yes, don’t forget to check for rotten parts inside. Any questions?"

The guest laughed a bit and said, "But it’s just a potato!" We had a good laugh over my perhaps excessive zeal, and continued with the job. His reply, though, stayed with me. It’s just a potato. Is it? And what exactly is a potato, anyhow?

It’s just a potato. Ah, but what goes into that potato! My brothers at the farm worked all year to bring me that potato. They did the hard work of preparing the soil and the seed potatoes. And then there was the planting bee, where we all pitched in.

Then there was the back-breaking work in the hot summer sun of battling weeds and potato bugs. Finally came harvest-time when they dug to find the potatoes, and then hauled them by the ton to the root cellar.

Just a potato? Or love poured out to feed the multitudes?

Do I waste their gift by cutting it carelessly, cutting out the good with the bad?

It’s just a potato. But what happens to it next? Someone has to cook this potato. My sisters in the kitchen, who turn out meal after meal every day for 70, 80, 100 people or more—what kind of help am I giving them?

Am I careless about the bad spots, the scabby bits, the green parts? Does my carelessness multiply their work the next day, when they have to fix up my poor workmanship?

Just a potato? Or is it my gift of love to them, my chance to lift a little bit the heavy workload they have of feeding the family.

It’s just a potato. Oh, really? Actually, it’s lunch for one of my brothers or sisters tomorrow. They will come in hungry and tired from whatever their workday entails, and sit down to feast on this very potato.

It may be eaten by the person I love most in this community, or by the person I love least.

Just a potato? Or my chance to express tangible personal love for my neighbor by filling one of his or her most elemental physical needs

It’s just a potato. And who made this potato? Not the farmers, who only tended it. This mere vegetable, humble as it is, is a creature of God. He presumably loves it as he does all his creation.

Yes, it is relatively low in the ranks of created beings, and in that sense it is indeed "just a potato," but it is still due the level of respect that is proper to its nature.

God made me in his image and likeness, made me to be a steward of his creation. The cosmic tenderness and care which God has for the whole of the earth and all that dwells within it should be mine as well.

Is this just a potato, or is it the little corner of God’s creation which at this moment I am asked to tend?

It’s just a potato. Well, yes, it is, but at this moment of my life, I’ve been asked to scrub it, and to do it to the best of my ability. Since I am baptized, and therefore live in Christ and he in me, at this moment my life in Christ is expressed in the love I bring to bear on this humble task.

Since the Spirit is given to me so that my whole life can be an offering of love to the Father through, with, and in Christ’s great offering of love on the cross, I can only fulfill this mission by uniting myself, moment by moment, to Christ’s redemptive work through my human actions.

Just a potato? But it is this tub, this cutting board, this countertop that is the altar on which I offer the "spiritual worship" St. Paul speaks of in Romans 12, offering my living body as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God (Rom 12:1).

Life is full of "justs"Ljust a dirty house to clean, just a sink full of dishes to wash, just a bunch of work, work, work that never gets done anyway. Or is it?

When Denis wrote this article a few months ago, he was a layman of Madonna House. Currently a deacon, he is due to be ordained a priest on September 4th.

Combermere Diary

A NICE SLICE OF THE ORDINARY

by Denis Lemieux

The previous installment of Combermere Diary described a time in Madonna House filled with incident, drama, and life-changing events. It began with the deaths of Jean Fox and Mary Ruth and ending with our Promises Day on June 8.

The Lord seems to have known that perhaps we’d had enough of drama and big events. So the six weeks since that date have brought us a nice slice of "ordinary time’’—busy, yes, as our life here always is.

Full of people, events, and work, but nonetheless ordinary, the days unfolding one upon another with their gentle rhythm of ora et labora, work, prayer, service, and love.

It’s been a time of, as Jim Guinan used to say, "just plugging along and doing the best we can" in our apostolate of hospitality, a time of building a house of love where many can seek refuge and refreshment.

These "many" have to be fed, and summer in Combermere is largely concerned with food—growing and preserving it.

Chris Hanlon and a steady crew of volunteers have planted, thinned, and weeded our six acres of vegetable gardens, while Diana Breeze and her helpers canned and froze a harvest of rhubarb and strawberries.

As I write this diary, the early summer vegetables (peas and green beans) are also being harvested and frozen. In this northern Canadian apostolate, we have only a few months to grow food for the entire year.

We don’t only grow food, though! Our foundress Catherine emphasized the importance of beauty in restoring the human heart to God, and so most of our buildings are surrounded with flowerbeds and gardens of various shapes and sizes.

Mary Davis, Ruth Siebenaler, and company pour their lives out in the flower gardens to make Madonna House a place of beauty and peace for our summer visitors.

Besides needing food for life, we also depend on the streams of donated goods that have flowed in from near and far ever since Catherine began this apostolate. Since the 1950s, these goods have been received in what we call "the green garage," a sturdy four-stall structure on the edge of our property.

For some years now, this garage has been too small for the volume of donations coming into it, necessitating constant hard-on-the-back moving of clothes, books, and you-name-it, down to a room at St. Mary’s, which itself was becoming over-crowded.

Clearly, something had to be done, and so Peter Gravelle and the carpenters got busy! Now, a large new building, under the patronage of the Infant of Prague, stands behind and back from the old green garage.

It is big enough to both store the donations and host the large work bees we have several times a month to sort different categories of donations.

The building was blessed on June 24th, the feast of John the Baptist, after which we celebrated, as is the French Canadian custom on this day, with a bonfire and square dance.

Summer in Combermere also means people! We are in cottage country here. Many vacation in this area from nearby cities, some coming from even further away, to soak in the natural beauty of river, lake, and forest that we are blessed with year-round.

In the summer our gift shop, bookshop, and pioneer museum are packed with these people, many of whom make their way across the road for a tour of Madonna House.

We have a rather large crew of MH staff in the summer available simply to receive these people in a spirit of love.

Other people whom we receive in summer are the families who come for a week of the combination of vacation and renewal that is our Cana Colony. This program has been going on for many, many years now.

Plus we typically have a lot of live-in guests in summer: young men and women coming to share in our communal life, to work, pray, and play alongside us.

The last few years, we have offered them a special summer program, which some have described as "our normal MH life, with more explanations given."

The overarching theme of this year’s program is the Eucharist, and the MH priests have given a weekly class based on last year’s encyclical on the subject. Incidentally, this theme was decided upon before the Pope declared October 2004-October 2005 the Year of the Eucharist!

As well, over a six-week period the lay staff teach our guests and one another in short presentations and witness talks, aspects of MH spirituality taken from the Little Mandate. We link this spirituality to broader issues such as prayer, vocation, work, art, Our Lady, social justice, men and women, Eastern Christianity, and so forth.

Life in Combermere, to say the least, is enough to keep us all occupied, but nonetheless this last month has seen us going out to encounter the larger Church.

In June, the dioceses of Peterborough and Toronto each held lay symposiums, one-day events in which the numerous lay groups involved in the mission of the Church came together to meet.

At such symposiums they listen to one another, run book tables, and listen to speakers reflecting on the mission of the laity in the world and on the phenomenon of the new ecclesial communities and movements.

Large groups from Combermere went to each of these events, while a smaller group of French-speaking staff went to a similar meeting of lay groups in Quebec.

The nature and mission of the groups attending varied widely: everything from the Knights of Columbus to Pro-Life groups to the Charismatic Renewal to, well, Madonna House and other "new" lay communities!

Both meetings were good opportunities to meet people, make connections with other groups in the Church, and deepen our understanding of our place in the Church.

The Holy Spirit is working mightily to stir up the hearts of the men and women in his service.

In the midst of the ordinary and the routine, Fr. David May officially assumed his role as director general of the MH priests, Fr. Bob Pelton ending his twenty years of service to God and us in that capacity.

The MH women continue the election process for a new director general. Susanne Stubbs, meanwhile, continues her role of acting director general of women, and Mark Schlingerman continues his transition time as the new director general of the laymen.

All involved in this time of transition of MH leadership would appreciate your prayers.

And such is the size of our little slice of ordinary time, the current parameters of our "pluggin’ along."

Ordinary as it is, it is not without its own measure of drama. For it contains within itself the usual ingredients of joy and sorrow, heartache and consolation, all embraced by the merciful heart of Christ, and always accompanied by his Mother in this her house.

After all, "doing the best we can" just means that whatever slice of life is dished out to us, ordinary or not, we place on the altar. There, through, with, and in Christ, it is given to our loving Father as an offering of love for the Church, for the world, and for you.

My Story

Part 2

JOURNEY TO PRIESTHOOD

by Fr. David May

In part 1, which appeared in the May-June issue of this paper, Fr. David told about his pre-Vatican II childhood and adolescence. In part 2 he begins by telling us about his search for God.

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In college, not a Catholic one, I studied all kinds of philosophies and social thinking. I could see that some of them were dead ends.

Certainly any kind of atheistic philosophy was a dead end. It was clear to me that the people proposing those philosophies had not disproved the existence of God. They had merely decided not to believe in him.

I decided that American materialism and consumerism were dead ends, too. They just left me empty. I also had the idealism of the times, and materialism had no attraction for me. There had to be something more to life than this. My options were narrowed down to something religious.

I started reading the Scriptures, and I started praying every day. Nobody told me to do that, and I don’t know why I did it.

Finally near the end of my fourth year of college, I reached a crisis: I still didn’t know if Jesus was real! Was Jesus real? It’s all I could think about.

If he isn’t real, I thought, I have to stop being a Christian. If he is real, then I have to commit myself more deeply.

And good Catholic that I was, I was still going to daily Mass!

Finally as I was praying in church one day, I felt a strong sense that I had to leave everything and follow Jesus. Then I wondered what to do next.

I know this sounds strange, but I had this strong sense that I should go north, not south. To me south of Maryland meant more of the same. North of Maryland meant something different. It was that simple, and it was very strong.

So, with that thought in mind I went to the rectory and talked to the priest who happened to answer the door. He said, "What’s happening to you is not unusual. It’s what’s called ‘a spiritual crisis.’ It happens in the Church all the time."

It does? I said, "What should I do?"

"People who have spiritual crises go to monasteries," he told me. "I know a great monastery in Virginia. Just go there."

"No, Father," I said. "I can’t go to Virginia." "Why not?" "I don’t want to go south. I want to go north."

So he told me about a monastery in Massachusetts. "You don’t have to write to these people. Just go. Live with them."

So I dropped out of school, quit my job, wrote letters all around the state of Maryland to an organization I was the president of, and hopped in my little Volkswagen and went to that monastery. There two people, one a Trappist monk and the other a former staff worker of MH, told me about Madonna House.

So I drove further north and spent a winter at Madonna House.

While I was there, I listened, especially to the priests. I wanted to know if any of them really knew that Jesus is real.

It sounded as if they knew it, and that helped me quite a bit. I began to sense that Jesus might be real.

One day I asked Catherine Doherty how I could know that Jesus is real And how could I get to know him.

"B," I said, (that’s what we called her), "Jesus says I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. I want to believe it but I can’t. What should I do?"

"You want to know about faith?" she said. "I’ll show you how you get faith." With that, she turned to an icon on the wall, an icon of Jesus. She bowed to it and lay down on her belly flat on the floor. (I had provoked a 75-year-old woman to lie on the floor!)

She lay there for a long time. Finally she got up and looked at me. She winked and said. "A couple of nights of that. Then leave the rest to God." That was my word from Madonna House.

By the time I had spent six months there, I was pretty sure I had a vocation to be a priest, and I also thought I might have a vocation to Madonna House.

Two things attracted me to Madonna House: One was the radicalism of the life, the poverty and simplicity, and especially the weakness of people. I thought, This place could sure use some help. I think I could help these people

The second thing was that since weak people have a chance here, maybe I could make it here, too.

I went home and prayed about it, and I had a dream. In that dream two different cars stopped with passengers in need, and I helped both groups. They drove off happy and I was quite pleased with myself.

Then a car with poor people in it stopped, and I went out to help them. They needed Epsom salts. (Why Epsom salts, I don’t know, but you know how dreams are.) So I got Epsom salts for them.

Then I saw a little boy in the back seat. He was so sickly that his face looked blue. They put him in a wheelchair. But when these people thanked me for the help I had given them, I felt completely different from what I had felt with the other two encounters. I was no longer proud, but humbled.

I woke up full of joy. I’d been praying about what to do. Now I knew. I’m going to go to Madonna House where they serve the poor.

I only realized some years later that that little boy with the blue face was me, and that the dream was telling me that only by acknowledging my own poverty, would I find true freedom and joy.

I joined Madonna House in 1974. My first years here I lived on the farm and worked as the cheese-maker. Those three or four years were probably the most important of my life. They were foundational.

Cheese-making is not difficult. After a short time, if you are capable of following instructions, you can learn it. Then the secret in making good cheese is to do it the same way every time. So when you are making cheese every day, you are doing the same thing every day.

So then what happens inside while you’re making the cheese? You begin the journey inward.

As I made cheese, I began to meet God within me. I began to learn to pray, and I wrote poetry as an expression of that.

So I’d say that my interior life developed at the farm. And part of that journey inward was "dealing with" no, putting it that way makes it sound too much like I was in charge.

But, call it what you will, the pain of my youth, those painful years at home, all surfaced, while I was stirring the vat of cheese and whey. I began to see my anger, my bitterness, my intense inner darkness. And my anguished cry was, Why did I suffer so much as a child, and why did my family have to go through so much pain? Then that question became, Why do the innocent suffer?

I was prayed with, and there came greater darkness.

Then one February morning as I was getting up to spend yet another day making cheese, Christ spoke to me in my heart. He said four words: "I too was innocent."

With those words Christ seared me and shattered the power of bitterness in my life. Not that I can’t be angry or bitter any more, but the power of it was shattered. Because through those words I knew God was with me. And not only that, I also knew that somehow he is with everybody in their struggle and suffering as well.

God gave me that word in 1976, and that word has guided me ever since.

I know Christ knows your suffering, too, and I know there’s a way for him to enter and shatter its power. I don’t know how he does it with each personIthat’s the mystery’but I do know that he does.

And in that experience I found the tenderness I had been seeking all my life. When I saw Christ’s eyes when he said those wordsAin my imagination, not as a visionithey were filled with peace. In my imagination, he spoke to me from the cross and I was on his right-hand side. I was the good thief. But a thief is a thief. He didn’t get crucified for nothing.

When Christ looked at me with such tenderness and said "I too was innocent," he knew that, like the good thief, I wasn’t really innocent.

But that look was a look of complete peace in suffering and of compassion for the suffering of everyone. It was a look of resurrection shining from the cross.

Although it doesn’t mean I don’t go into darkness sometimes, this image, those words, are with me constantly.

It is this that moved me to the priesthood. It’s what guides my life as a priest, and it is this Face I long to see when my journey ends.

In April, Fr. David May was elected director general of the priests of Madonna House.

The End

A DAY IN MARYHOUSE - 1958

by Mary Ruth

Until a few years ago the staff at Maryhouse ran a hostel where native people coming to the hospital (the only one in the Yukon Territory, ,men coming North to find work, and people needing emergency short-term housing for any number of reasons, could stay.

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Pete is basically a good boy, but he is confused as are many teenagers today. Some trouble sent him into juvenile court. His mother did not appear with him; she could not be found.

Today was his birthday. He spent it with his friends, swimming. There was no family to make him a cake.

"If he doesn’t show up, or if he gets into trouble," the social worker told me, "phone the Mounties."

Pete appeared at supper, polite and friendly. We wished him a happy birthday and said that we would surely have baked a cake had we known he would be back. He smiled.

"It’s OK," he said in a tone of voice that implied, My birthdays have never meant anything anyhow.

We have with us Jimmy, Paul, and Tommyethree little boys coming home from boarding school. They were left with us because their house was empty and their mother could not be found. They know Maryhouse and us, and so, with the wonderful abandon children have, they settled down to play.

They seem to be running a race to see who can absorb the most dirt the fastest. They eat well, sleep well, and entertain themselves.

Except for our having to take pointed sticks away from them once in a while, getting them down off the roof, and breaking up small squabbles, they are little trouble.

Their mother was found in jail. Three happy little lads play horseshoes outside, oblivious of this fact.

Bill, who came yesterday for a bed and had to be turned away because of lack of space (even the floor was taken) came back today to make a phone call.

"I’ve got to try and get money some place," he said. "I have eight cents left and no sign of a job yet. May I call a doctor? I am in great pain. I think my ulcer is acting up again.

"Thank you for inviting me to supper, but I think I will be put in the hospital. I’m pretty sick!"

Throughout the day I made frequent trips to the women’s hostel where Maggie lies in bed, still laid up with a knee that was the target of a bullet two years ago. She is pretty, patient, and pleasant.

"It’s great to be going home," she said. "This time they kept me at the hospital three months. It will sure be nice to see my kids!"

She has two children. Both have suffered serious accidents this year. The boy, who broke a leg while skiing, also spent some time at Maryhouse.

A nice-looking young man with a big brown beard sat down to supper with the rest. His face looked tired and sad. He looked at me pleasantly and asked, "Do you think I will find work? Where I come from there is none."

I didn’t ask where that was. We don’t ask personal questions. Neither could I promise him work here.

He ate silently, occupied with his own thoughts. St. Joseph the Worker might have looked like him. He finished supper, thanked me, and went out and sat with his head between his hands.

Supper over, we started the dishes. Mamie soon appeared with Mrs. Jones from Teslin (a village in northern British Columbia) and her little daughter, who is ill and in great pain. They had just arrived and were tired and hungry. We fed them and the daughter was put to bed. Tomorrow the doctor will see her.

Mrs. Jones’ life has little in it but trouble and worry, but when we dried the dishes together she spoke of the fishing and told me how she smokes and salts the whitefish.

She also spoke of people in Teslin whom we both know, and she brought greetings from many who have been here. She is always a joy to have here.

Night is falling over Whitehorse, that is, as much of night as we know at this time of year. It’s really a glorified twilight.

We must get Jimmy, Paul, and Tommy in from play and see that at least the first layer of dirt is scrubbed off and their prayers said. We must see that as many as we can accommodate on the floor get beds.

Maggie must have a cup of cocoa and a little cheer-up visit before she retires for the night, perhaps to lie awake in pain. The little Jones girl must be made as comfortable as possible. Pete must have a word or two to make him feel that here he is loved, not rejected. He will be with us only a week but hopefully it will be one bright week in his difficult life.

Mike (the man staff worker) will visit the men in the hostel and have a smoke with them and talk—man fashion—before saying good night.

I need to get breakfast started a bit and set up for tomorrow morning’s Mass, the time when we shall go to receive Him who stooped to our littleness, stooped to give us the tremendous vocation of bringing His light and love to all those whom we serve.

From Restoration August 1958. The names have been changed.

My Dear Family

THOSE ENDLESS DISHES

by Catherine Doherty

Recently my prayer has been spearheaded by a remark of one of our members who said that she wished that she had something "to sink her teeth into." Upon discussion I found that this was a general feeling in a small group that was chatting together. They felt that Madonna House life, or part of it, had become unchallenging and monotonous.

They spoke of the office and its constant routine: writing endless letters, changing addresses, answering the telephone, doing the bookkeeping, and so forth.

Then they spoke of the sameness of the kitchen: preparing endless meals and getting them to the table, and washing dishes that seem to pile up like an enormous fortress to which there is no entrance.

Then there are the literally tons of clothing to sort. (They didn’t mention the laundry or the work of the men at the farm or other constant repetitive "chores" that need to be done over and over by other members of Madonna House.)

Yes, we are forever surrounded by tasks that appear to be dull, monotonous, routine, unchallenging. I listened to all of this chitchat and to the tremendous desires which seemed to animate the people who were talking.

They were not just idly talking; neither were they at all upset. They were simply "presenting their ideas." But as they continued to talk, their voices suddenly did not reach me any more. Somehow I was lost in Palestine. I saw a hammer, a chisel, a hand-plane. Somehow I was utterly astounded—as if I had never thought of it before—by a carpenter’s shop.

The challenge it presented was beyond my ability to absorb.

The Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity—someone who could have been a rabbi, a king, an emperor, a philosopher, a man of tremendous renown, someone at whose feet the whole world would come to sit and listen—this awesome Person was right there, bent over a work bench in that shop, chiseling and planing pieces of wood.

He was doing little "unimportant" tasks: building a table for someone, making a cradle for someone else, crafting a chair for another.

I saw his calloused hands (for he did have calloused hands!) and I asked myself: Why did he choose such humble, uninspiring, unchallenging tasks?

Once you knew how to do them, they could never be called things "to sink your teeth into." On some side street in an unimportant village, he did the work of an ordinary carpenter, just as his foster father did.

And what did his mother do? She washed and scrubbed and took the laundry to the river, and she milled the kernels of wheat manually between two stones. She wove cloth; it is said that she wove the cloak that the Romans threw dice for because it was so beautiful.

I began to hear again the evening discussion about the mounds of dishes, the eternal sorting of donations, the answering of phones, the filing of cards, the dulling rhythm of seemingly unimportant tasks.

It all became filled with a strange glow and I understood the fantastic, incredible, holy words contained in that sentence: the duty of the moment is the duty of God.

I also understood that anything done for him is glamorous, exciting, wondrous if only we can see it for what it truly is!

But we are human. And it takes a long time, my dearly beloved ones, to see reality through God’s eyes. Unless we pray exceedingly hard, it takes a long time to "make straight the ways of the Lord" in our souls.

When we experience this pain in our lives, this pain of making straight the paths of the Lord, it would be a good idea to remind ourselves that this pain is everywhere in every vocation, in every kind of work. It is part of the human condition.

The answer to that pain, in Madonna House or anywhere else, is prayer. Nothing else will do it; nothing else.

But—with prayer—we see an entirely different world around us. Sorting clothes becomes a joy. Washing dishes becomes an exciting challenge. The careful repetitious tasks of creating beauty (as in embroidery, weaving, painting, or carpentry) take on a new meaning.

Yes, I came back from wherever I was, watching Jesus doing carpentry work, and I thanked God that he became a manual laborer to show us the way to the Father. There is much more that I could say, but this will suffice for today.

Adapted from a letter to the staff, Oct. 1976, in Dearly Beloved, Vol. 3, available from MH Publications.

St. Benedict’s Acres

MY SURREAL FILM FESTIVAL

by Tom Kluger

As a new staff worker, I knew that one of my challenges would be to accept being moved from one place to another with very little notice ahead of time. But I was soon to learn that the real challenge lay elsewhere.

Last September, just three months after my first promises, I was enjoying a picnic supper. Suddenly I was tapped on the shoulder and told that next week I would be moving to our farm, St. Benedict’s Acres, to work in the cheese house.

At the farm, which is located about eight kilometres (five miles) from the main house in Combermere, I would make colby and cheddar cheese, yogurt and butter, and pasteurize the milk. For special occasions I would also make ice cream and sour cream.

I was surprised, but pleasantly so. I was looking forward to a break from the hustle and bustle of the main house, where anywhere from sixty to more than 130 staff and guests gather together for meals, prayers, and Mass.

At the cheese house I would be working mostly alone, and I pictured to myself the peace and quiet. I would enjoy, I thought, a life that would be so contemplative.

I should have known better.

The work itself was not too difficult to learn. David Williams, a well-experienced cheese maker, spent a month showing me how to make the different dairy products and the other things I needed to know about running the cheese house.

And there was and is great satisfaction both in the process and in looking at a block of cheese and seeing the fruit of my labour.

And there are other pleasures at the farm as well. The farm is surrounded by beautiful hillside scenery. Even more than that, I find great enjoyment when the work is over, in being with my brother staff workers.

But the challenge comes every day. I try to start work no later than 6:45 a.m.. I begin by saying a prayer and blessing the building with holy water. If it is a cheese-making day, I drain the milk from the holding tank into the cheese vat where it is heated.

I have a cup of coffee and rub my eyes. I try to wake up, for I am not, and I doubt I ever will be, a morning person.

But it is once I am awake enough for my morning grumpiness to start fading and for my higher brain functions to start kicking in that my problems begin.

Sometimes what happens next could be described as a surrealist film festival of the mind—a crazy montage where everything from arguments with ex-girlfriends and humiliating incidents in my life to revenge fantasies and the 1980s music and video clips I watched as a teenager drift through my mind in no apparent order.

At other times, instead of a deranged film festival, I seem to experience what might be described as an imaginary dialogue, whereupon I debate an imaginary opponent, and of course, always win. These "debates" usually focus on what is going on in the world, and how I am going to set it straight.

Sometimes my opponent is me, and I verge on having arguments with myself—like Gollum in Lord of the Rings.

Perhaps it is because cheese-making is such a solitary job that I quickly learned the truth of what one of our priests said: as the exterior noise decreases, the interior noise increases.

For in my job I am not really alone. And of all the people I have ever had to work with, Tom Kluger is the best at driving me nuts. Short of having a lobotomy, there is just no easy way to get him to be quiet.

It is while all this inner noise is going on that I am challenged with the awesome task of living what we at Madonna House call the "duty of the moment" or "the sacrament of the moment."

The duty of the moment means much more than just getting the work done and doing it well, though it does mean that. It also means being focussed on the here and now.

It means acknowledging my littleness before God and trusting him to handle the "big picture." It means placing my whole being, all my faculties, into what God wants me to do at the present moment.

It is a great paradox at Madonna House that while we make the effort to do a job well, just as Jesus, Mary and Joseph did in Nazareth, at the same time we know that the job is not the most important thing.

Our real "work" is to do everything for love and to meet Jesus everywhere and in all things.

One night as I lay in bed I realized that in all my "dialogues" with imaginary opponents, I was not talking to someone who was really there.

But somebody really is always there, no matter what, and that somebody is the Lord.

Unlike St. John the beloved disciple, I was not resting my head on Christ’s breast. In fact, though I was alone with him all day in the cheese house, I was not speaking with him very much. In my "dialogues" and "film festivals" I am definitely not meeting the Lord.

That night it was as if the Lord was saying to me, You can confront yourself by yourself, or you can face yourself with my help, my love, my mercy. If I look at myself, not alone, but ask for God’s infinite help, it is a chance for his mercy to be poured on my wounds.

My time alone in the cheese house is a time for me to discover again the power of the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

For it is in the struggle to live the duty of the moment and in my failures to do so that I discover how badly I need the mercy of God.

And being the merciful Savior that he is, his mercy and help are always forthcoming whenever I ask him.

My time in the cheese house is also a time for me to pray for others. Whereas God doesn’t want me to fume about the state of the world and about others, he certainly wants me to pray for them.

This occurred to me one evening while I was praying in the chapel at St. Ben’s and preoccupied with a problem of mine.

The Holy Spirit nudged me to start praying for others. Then, as I began to pray for friends and relatives, peace came over me. That prayer had led me out of myself and back into communion with others and with God.

Another time, during a particularly spiritually intense day, I picked up the Bible and asked the Lord if there was anything he wanted to show me. I opened it at random and looked at the first passage I saw—Isaiah 43:1–3:

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine… For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your saviour.

Amen.

SHE GAVE ME A CHANCE

by Mary Ruth

From the time she had been a little girl, Mary Ruth knew that she wanted to be just two things: a missionary and a teacher. But it took her a while to find her vocation. By the time she arrived in Combermere she was 37 and had been rejected by two or three communities of nuns.

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After I’d been a guest at MH for a little while, I was so impressed. I saw faith being lived as I’d never seen it lived in my whole life. Catherine bowled me over with the faith and trust she had, and with her personal interest in everyone, including me, mess that I was in many ways.

I was nobody’s prize, let me tell you, but Catherine was willing to give me a chance at this vocation. So I became an applicant. I loved everything here, though I don’t say it was easy.

Many times I went upstairs to visit Fr. Eddie Doherty. He was a loving father to all the staff, and we needed it. The problem was the whole idea of being willing to face ourselves. Catherine was trying hard to make us whole people, and she wanted us to face our emotions.

A lot of us didn’t want to face the fact that we had emotional problems. After all, I’d been a successful schoolteacher in Connecticut. How many problems could I have?

But Catherine was willing to help me. We talked often, and she helped me do what I hadn’t been able to do since both my parents died when I was a teenager. I learned to say what I was really feeling inside. Before that I had stuffed everything down.

Through Catherine I was able to face my problems, and I am eternally grateful to her for giving me a chance at this vocation.

Catherine made you believe you could do almost anything. For example, she once asked me to upholster some chairs. I had never done much sewing, and I was "shaking in my boots." She showed me the chairs and the materials I needed and left me to do it. I looked at one chair and decided to try it. I ended up doing a very nice job!

I spent 21 years in the Yukon. The climate was one of the harshest imaginable—50 degrees below zero F. for a month at a time. But my years there were among the most wonderful of my life.

I’ve learned that the Holy Spirit has a plan for everyone and, if you don’t stand in the way, it will happen, no matter what obstacles there are.

I’ve had to plow out a lot of obstacles in my life, and at this age (83), I’m still plowing. But I’ve had a full and wonderful life.

Excerpted from an article in Restoration, December 1999.

A Prayer Bulletin Board

One of the most graced promptings I ever received and followed was to ask Mary Ruth to be my "prayer friend." I certainly struck gold in that partnership. Not only did she remain faithful in her prayer support (much more so than I), but she’s even closer to the ear of God now that she’s in heaven!

In 1984, when Mary Ruth returned to Combermere from the Yukon, I had never met her. So I was delighted when the women of my dormitory invited her to speak with us.

Mary Ruth had been a poustinik (a person who lives a certain type of contemplative life) for twelve years, and I imagined her to be a somewhat shy, mysterious figure, wrapped in the silence of God. Imagine my surprise when a down-to-earth woman blew into the dorm and talked up a storm, telling stories and jokes all the while.

But despite her exuberance that evening, Mary Ruth was not at all well, and I didn’t see much of her until December 7th, 1986. That evening, I was praying in Catherine Doherty’s cabin, when Mary Ruth arrived with her spiritual director, Fr. Wild. She was planning to renew a special prayer, she said, but since it was too cold to wait outside, I could stay in the back of the cabin.

Although Mary Ruth whispered her prayer, I couldn’t help but hear. Though I don’t remember the words, I do remember that the depth of that prayer stunned me.

Then several years later, when I was visiting Madonna House from one of our field houses, I was about to make a 30-day retreat. I remember praying in the chapel in the evenings and seeing Mary there.

The day before I began my retreat, I happened to pass Mary Ruth on the road, and felt inspired to ask her to be my "prayer friend," and to pray for me especially during my retreat.

"Oh, I’d love to!" she exclaimed. I’ve seen you praying at night, and I’ve been wanting to get to know you better and to be your friend."

Mary Ruth and I kept up a spiritual friendship over the years, and I treasured the poems and letters she sent me and our visits when I returned to Combermere every year for the directors’ meetings.

But it was after I was reassigned to Combermere that I really understood just how blessed I had been in this unequal partnership.

For over her bed Mary Ruth had a "prayer bulletin board" with photographs of those she prayed for in a special way. Most of the photos were of babies with medical problems, and there were a few photos of her spiritual director. And there was a photo of me!

In the final weeks of her life, as she lay on her right side keeping her eyes fixed on that prayer board, I was humbled by the realization that Mary Ruth was offering all her sufferings and prayers for others including me! She was faithful to the end.

My unequal prayer partnership with Mary Ruth continues, and I am very grateful. For though she doesn’t need my prayers, I certainly need hers.

Cheryl Ann Smith

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I got to know Mary Ruth when I became one of her nurses at Our Lady of the Visitation where we care for our frail elderly. She always had a smile and was quite delightful with her witty tales and jokes. And I loved to hear her talk about the early days of Madonna House.

I also discovered her tremendous capacity for intercessory prayer. She had been a poustinik for twelve years and it really showed.

Mary Ruth loved children and infants. When my niece, Sidney, was born three months prematurely, I told Mary Ruth about her and asked her to pray for her. Mary immediately took Sidney into her heart and prayed both for her and for her parents. She was always asking for an update of her condition.

She asked me for a photo of Sidney and her parents and when I gave it to her, she put it on her prayer bulletin board, which was right next to her bed and which contained the photos of the people she had taken on in prayer.

Often when I visited her, I would find her lying in bed, rosary in hand, looking at her bulletin board and praying for the people whose pictures were there. It was such a comfort for me to see her do this.

It always amazed me that she was constantly praying for others. Once I asked her how that came about.

"Ever since I was ten years old," she said, "I have had a desire to pray for others. Then I came across a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that expressed so well what I wanted."

This is the poem:

——-

"Lord, help me live from day to day

In such a self-forgetful way

That even as I kneel to pray,

My prayers may be for others.

Help me in all the work I do

To ever be sincere and true

That all the work I do for you

Must needs be done for others.

Others, Lord, yes others,

Let this my motto be.

Help me to live for others.

That I may live for Thee."

———

Mary Ruth certainly incarnated this poem. She inspired me and showed me that it is possible to live for others, including taking them into my heart and praying for them.

She wrote out that poem for me, and I have kept it ever since.

Mary Speicher

OUR APPROACH TO FOOD

by Mary Ellen Kocunik

Over the years, though neither our farm nor our food is completely organic, Madonna House has come to have what’s usually called in North America, a "health food diet."

People have asked us many questions about it. So here’s an attempt by a former head cook of the Combermere kitchen to give a bit of an explanation.

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In the 1960s and ‘70s our foundress, Catherine Doherty, foresaw what we have today—grocery stores and supermarkets stocked with foods that are so highly processed and denatured that they can do little to nourish our bodies and so full of herbicides, pesticides, and preservatives that they are slowly poisoning both our bodies and our land.

One of the calls of Madonna House is to "restore all things in Christ," first of all in our own lives. So we have made and are making an effort to eat food that is produced and prepared according to the laws of nature—food that is both grown and preserved without chemicals.

This has been a gradual process.

Almost from the beginning we have had a farm on which we grow vegetables and fruit and raise animals. This food we freeze, can, dry or otherwise preserve for the winter.

But our soil is poor and has required years of the hard work of composting and manuring, and even after this, is still far from being rich in nutrients. Plus because of the short growing season in this climate, there are many foods that we cannot grow abundantly or at all.

This is particularly true of fruit. (The only fruits we have been able to produce in the quantity that we need are rhubarb and apples.)

So we have always depended on donated fruits and vegetables as well. When we are given a large amount of these, we preserve them to be used throughout the year as well.

In the 1990s we made further steps in the direction of a more natural and healthy way of eating.

Since then we have been buying and using unrefined and organic products as much as possible and have eliminated refined sugars and flours from our diet.

So in order for the foods to taste familiar or even just good, the cooks have had to learn new cooking techniques and experiment with new recipes.

What do we eat? First of all, we depend greatly on our harvest of vegetables, most of which can be kept well over the winter in their raw state in our root cellars. (We also preserve them in other ways, such as making sauerkraut.)

Our grains include brown rice, oats, and whole wheat flour and pastas. Our fats include butter, olive oil, our homemade cheese, and fat from our animals. Our sugars are honey and maple syrup, which we produce ourselves, and sucane (dehydrated sugar cane) which we buy.

Although our land is best suited to meat products, we cannot provide adequate protein from our animals for our community of 140 or so. So at this point in time we rely almost equally on animal and vegetable sources for protein.

The animal proteins include our own beef, lamb, eggs and dairy products (such as cheese, milk and yogurt), and occasionally trout which we raise in a pond.

Except on Sundays and feastdays meat is used as an ingredient rather than plain, which stretches it.

The vegetable proteins—or what are called "complementary proteins," (a grain with a legume)—include lentils, kidney beans, chick peas, navy beans, rice, millet, and barley.

But eating is not just about nourishment. What we ate when we were growing up is often experienced as "soul food." It nourishes our psyches and social life as well as our bodies.

In this new diet the breads and desserts often have a heavier texture and taste than those made with white sugar and white flour. Very few of us grew up with brown rice, unrefined sugars, and beans. Most of us had more meat than we have now.

The new food wasn’t feeding our psyches. So one of the challenges for the cooks was to learn how to prepare the healthy foods in such a way that they are simple, satisfy the psyche, and create a mealtime atmosphere of togetherness. This has taken and continues to take much studying and experimenting.

We do a lot with seasoning and with recipes from many lands.

The challenge for the whole community has been to have patience with the process of re-educating our taste buds and adjusting our expectations. It can take a long time and a certain openness for this process to happen.

For example, if we think of and expect bread to be soft, white and fluffy, it’s hard to think of heavy homemade brown bread as satisfying.

But there are successes. The first time I made a "healthy dessert," it was greeted with acceptance (a step above resignation). A year later, when I repeated the same recipe, someone said, "that was almost too rich." This was the same person who the year before had said, "Not bad for a healthy dessert."

Yes, our taste buds and expectations, over time, can change.

And some of us, to our great surprise, have discovered that we don’t feel as well when we go on vacation and eat the refined, highly processed food that our taste buds still crave.

To anyone who is interested in learning more and/or in moving in the direction of more natural and healthier eating, I would recommend three books:

1. for an overall perspective: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (Pro Motion Publ. Co., San Diego, CA)

2. for great recipes: American Wholefoods Cuisine by Nikki and David Goldbeck (Penguin Books)

3. for stretching meat, great recipes, and the connection of food with simple living and world poverty: More With Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre (Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, PA)

Memories

MY PASSPORT TO HEAVEN

(Mary Ruth was learning to play the guitar.) I now know one chord, and my joy over it is only equaled by my joy at having gotten my Oregon driver’s license. What fun small things can be!

Mary Ruth, 1966

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I never knew anyone who could chit-chat with people for so long. They would leave her feeling so loved.

Jan Hills

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Mary Ruth was a magnificent teacher. When I was in the Yukon in the mid-‘70s, many people said, "Mary Ruth is the best teacher I ever had."

We have in archives a letter from one of her supervisors, "Mary Ruth is a born teacher. She looks at each child to see what he or she needs and then works with that."

Mary Kay Rowland

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I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone more filled with joy than Mary Ruth when she returned to the Yukon to become a poustinik.

A staff worker

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Mary Ruth wasn’t afraid of her weakness. When I was working in the laundry not too long ago, she handed me some clothes saying, "I spilled food all over the front of my clothes." Then she thanked me for cleaning up after her. It didn’t bother me to clean up after her. And I learned that maybe it doesn’t bother someone else to "clean up" after me in my weaknesses.

Renée Sylvain

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In 1984 when Mary Ruth came home ill from the Yukon age 68, it seemed that her apostolic life was over. But she went on to learn the computer, in fact two very different computer programs, and worked on Catherine Doherty’s cause for canonization.

Bonnie Staib

———————-

Mary Ruth and I were together for twelve years in the Yukon. She was at Coudert House and I was at Maryhouse.

She was full of joy in all the things she did—such as gardening, giving talks, and socializing with Women Aglow and the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association.

I especially remember her joy in going to the jail the times when the priest couldn’t go and playing the guitar and singing praises to God with the men there. She always talked to them about God’s love and mercy and quoted Corrie ten Boom’s line to them that "they are the apple of God’s eye."

Laurette Patenaude

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For a long time, Mary Ruth had a strong desire to die so that she could be with God. A number of years ago, one of our MH priests, who was quite healthy and considerably younger than Mary Ruth, died suddenly of an aneurysm. Mary Ruth, who had suffered from illness much of her life, said wistfully, "He stole heaven."

A staff worker

———————-

Mary Ruth was very alive. She loved and delighted in people, and she often saw the humor in the countless "challenging" situations missionary work confronted her with. At least she did after it was over!

She was a great storyteller, and I often asked her for stories about the early days when Whitehorse was a frontier town.

She also loved telling jokes, but more than that, her very presence seemed to lighten the atmosphere. This was a gift to those of us who lived with her through those long, cold, dark Yukon winters.

Paulette Curran

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I am from the Yukon and had met Mary Ruth. One day when I was twenty, I helped her plant her garden. While working, I told her a lot of things such as I didn’t know what I wanted to do for the summer, I didn’t really believe in Our Lady, and I was restless. I went on and on.

She invited me to supper, told me about Madonna House in Combermere, and suggested I go there for the summer.

So I quit my job and went. That was almost 25 years ago.

As I sat with her during her final days, it occurred to me that I had never thanked her for sending me to Madonna House where I found my vocation. So I leaned over and whispered, "Thank you." Though she appeared unconscious, I know she heard me.

Janine Gobeil

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When I visited Mary Ruth at the hospital about a week before she died, she waved a yellow piece of paper at me—her doctor’s diagnosis. "I have acute leukemia," she told me joyfully. "This is my passport to heaven. I’ll see Jesus soon!"

Karen Maskiew

The Pope’s Corner

THE CHURCH AND WORK

by Pope John Paul II

Faithful to her Divine Founder, the Church has always respected and promoted the dignity of labor. And she has done this by insisting on the fundamental role played by human work in God’s designs.

She has done this by applauding the goals which human intelligence has managed to reach, especially in the field of science and technology.

She has done this by showing her preference for all workers and particularly for those whose work is especially tiring, such as those who work in factories or on farms.

She has done this by granting and protecting their petitions, their interests, and their legitimate aspirations.

She has done this by drawing near to the world of labor, in the "shanty towns," in their humble hovels or in their comfortable housing, to help them materially and spiritually, to save them from all kinds of danger, to protect their moral and social sense, and to improve their living conditions.

From an address to workers, Buenos Aires, April 10, 1987.

Mary Ruth
("Ruth" is last name)
1916 - 2004

Born: April 18, 1916, Dillon, Colorado
Childhood & Adolescence: a farm, Canaan, Maine
Teachers’ College: Lowell, Massachusetts
Employment: Elementary school teacher (for the most part), Moodus & Harford, Connecticut

Key Events in Madonna House:

1953 Sept. came to MH
1954 Jan began applicancy
July first promises
1956 Aug. Maryhouse, Whitehorse, Yukon
1957 Sept. 8th grade teacher, Christ the King School, Whitehorse
1960 May O.L. of Whitehorse Hostel Asst. Director
1962 Aug. MH Combermere
1963 Sept. Stella Maris House Portland, Oregon
1966 Dec. MH Combermere
1967 Jan Principal, Adult Night School Palmer Rapids, Ontario
1968 Sept. St. Joseph’s House, Combermere
1969 Feb. Adult Ed. Program Golden Lake, Ontario
Apr. Local Director, Maryhouse
1972 Oct. MH Combermere
Dec. poustinik, downtown Whitehorse
1978 Mar. director of Coudert House
(poustinia)
1984 Dec. MH Combermere worked on Catherine’s cause
2000 Nov. MH annex for the elderly
2004 April 8 died on Holy Thursday.