Catastrophe

Our own foundress, Catherine Doherty, spoke publicly on numerous occasions of the coming catastrophe and our need to be “ready” for it.

I’ll never forget her ringing words to a group of couples at Cana Colony in the summer of 1981, the year I was ordained a priest. She came down from the Madonna House specifically to show me, the new priest, “how to speak to families.” Once everyone had had the thrill of greeting her, they sat down to listen to what she had to say. “Prepare your children for the catacombs!” she boomed.

I thought to myself, “That may be the way you start off talking to families, but I’m not so sure about me!”

We in MH have prayed and thought a lot about what “readiness” for the catastrophe should entail. For example, we have made efforts here and there on the material plane to have certain alternative means of production (such as a windmill for pumping water at the farm) in place.

Lately one hears some members of the community speculating that the catastrophe is already here in the form of our society losing its moral moorings. The terrible slide from contraception to abortion to euthanasia to the condoning of same-sex unions to using embryos for stem-cell research to cloning is given as evidence.

There seems to be no end to the rejection of Christian values in our world today. Add to that the immense problems in relations between nations, peoples, religions.

I was praying in poustinia on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when the planes struck the Twin Towers in New York City. Shortly after the news hit, someone came over to the poustinia to let me know what had happened.

As the building I was in had electricity, I turned on a radio and listened for a while to the horror of it. Then I joined the community for a time, before returning later to pray and fast.
For a long time afterward, I found myself checking the news on poustinia days, at least once or twice, just to make sure nothing similar had happened again.

In my own mind, the terms “Resurrection” and “readiness” have a lot in common. Unless we rise with the Lord’s strength, how shall we ever be ready to face the challenges of our day?

To be ready, we must live by his power. To live by his power, we must “rise from the tomb” of the culture of death into which we are all immersed to one degree or another.

Each day that we rise with Christ in this way, the new Springtime will begin to put forth its shoots of life. And this, I believe, will be God’s “mighty intervention,” “not to be missed.” I say this, even if the catastrophe should entail a major cataclysm such as the disintegration of modern societies or some other dreadful, unimaginable event.

The question is, how do we effectively “rise with Christ”? It seems to me we must look at the Risen Lord with faith and see what we can learn.

According to the Holy Father, a key point immediately becomes clear: the Resurrection was the fruit of an obedience that embraced suffering for the sake of humanity’s redemption:

“The Resurrection was the Father’s response to Christ’s obedience, as we learn from the letter to the Hebrews: In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Son though he was, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:7-9).” (Novo Millennio Inuente, #28)

I learned a tiny but important lesson about this mystery later on in that first year of being a priest.

A Bilingual Parish

A couple of months after that incident at Cana, I was assigned by our local bishop to a bilingual (French and English-speaking) parish in the diocese. My French at the time was limited at best, but it was considered good enough to build upon by the patient members of St. Anne’s parish!

One day I was called to the hospital next door, a case of cardiac arrest. After saying the appropriate prayers for the deceased, I was left by the nun on duty with the bereaved widow, who was in a state of terrible shock.

“Console her, Father” said the good sister in French. Then she walked out of the room and shut the door.

My French deserted me. I could not think of a single phrase to utter, consoling or otherwise. Some vague memory of stories told by Catherine Doherty about the presence of the priest making a difference flitted briefly through my mind.

I sat down next to the lady and shyly took her hand. She started to speak, in French, in short, pain-filled sentences:

“It’s not fair.”

“I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“What am I going to do now?”

I held my breath. Here and there I said a timid oui in sympathy. She became a little calmer, and continued to speak.

“Well, he is in a good place now.”

“His suffering is over, thank God.”

“The good God will take care of me. He always has.”

She paused again, looked at me, and smiled. “Thank you, Father. I must go now. There is much to do. Thank you.”

Since that somewhat amusing encounter, I have meditated often on how in the Gospels the Lord Jesus brought a divine assurance of love and victory over death in all its forms to the most hopeless of circumstances. Sometimes I can almost “see” the blend of compassion, empathy, and yes, laughter in his eyes as he carried out his mission, even unto the Cross.
I presume the Lord—the same yesterday, today, and forever—is at work in our day as well, if we but seek him out.

Just Doing It

What I am trying to say is that if we Christians have the courage to bring Christ’s presence to the suffering of our brothers and sisters, this will be a manifestation of God’s saving power at work in our times. In many ways, it is a matter of “just doing it,” praying and using common sense as we go.

However, I am also painfully aware of a big gap in this approach and in this article so far. That missing element has to do with an evil and determined resistance to God, which seems to be at the very heart of our world today.

Offering to “take someone’s hand” just won’t do it, when that hand is clenched in hatred, or is grabbing on to worldly dominion and pleasure for all its worth.

How do we enter into the pain of Christ to bring the Good News when a person rejects the Lord—his teaching, his Church’s authority, even his mercy, spiced as it is with the medicine of truth? How do we find the way to Resurrection when the door of a person’s heart is sealed shut in arrogance or anger or even anguish?

The only convincing answer I have ever heard on this subject I also learned from Catherine Doherty. She used to tell us to pray for “the gift of tears.”

In her book Poustinia she insists that these tears have nothing to do with one’s emotions. They come directly as a gift from God: “Afterwards I don’t know why I cried or what started or stopped it. But I know that it came from God. Something happened in the world that made God cry and he invited me to cry… All the tears wash away my sins and the sins of the world.”

So often we despair of our enemies, or harbor resentments against them. But when we can “weep” for those who reject Christ (or us), something invisibly begins to change.

God’s compassion for the sinner enters the world anew. And what force of darkness or death can withstand this mighty entry in silence of the One who suffered for all, that all might taste the gift of his new life?