I was an applicant, that is, I was in formation to become a staff worker of Madonna House. One blistering hot summer day another applicant, Judy, and I had the afternoon off and we decided to take a boat ride down the Madawaska, the river that flows by Madonna House.

Wearing only shorts and T-shirts over swimsuits, we set off in a rowboat with an outboard motor. After we’d gone about four miles, the skies suddenly clouded over and the water became rough. Then the rain poured down. We were caught in a freak storm—thunder, lightning, the works!

We were just a little perturbed! We got the boat ashore, and cold, wet, and miserable, we huddled together under our one towel. We decided that we might as well say a rosary.
Around the third decade we momentarily stopped. I had a strong sense of Our Lady’s presence, and Judy did too. But for me, it wasn’t just Our Lady. It was Our Lady of Combermere.

I felt that Our Lady was standing behind us, rather as the statue stands, but her hands were holding out her mantle protecting us from the storm.

By the time we finished the fifth decade, the sky had started to clear and soon it was as if there had never been any storm.

We were left with just one problem. Like ourselves, the outboard motor was waterlogged. We rowed for a while till we reached “civilization.” There someone helped us to get the motor going.

Then we headed home, there to be greeted by Theresa Marsey, our somewhat worried director of training. She was the only one who knew we were out in the storm.

She told us that Catherine had had a meeting with some of the women and had stopped it suddenly to pray for Our Lady’s protection for anyone caught on the Madawaska in the storm. Theresa hadn’t liked to tell her that that was exactly where two of her applicants were!

Later that night, as I watched the news, I discovered that there had been a canoeing accident in Quebec. A freak storm had caused the deaths of most of the people on a school outward-bound course.

When I heard that, I knew that Our Lady of Combermere had really been with us and had protected us.