I thought about them some more. Really, there is nothing extraordinary about their life. In fact, it is very ordinary. And very much the Gospel. It is probably how the early Church lived, and how every Christian is called to live, in his or her particular place of service.

The Madonna House staff have, built into their lives, regular periods of prayer, liturgy, silence and solitude, manual labor, and celebration. They have agreed to live together as brothers and sisters. They live a sacramental life and have available to them regular spiritual direction. They live by faith and depend on the gifts of their benefactors and the fruits of the earth. And they welcome young and old to live with them and experience their life from the inside as a means of spiritual formation and practical training in life skills.

But why was the gospel life working at Madonna House, and not in my own life?

I first came to Madonna House in October 1993, to visit our daughter Laura, who was there as a working guest. I came back again that summer and returned nearly every year thereafter.

Always my question—and my struggle—was this: how to incorporate the spirit of Madonna House into my daily life? Though my desire was strong, my attempts were feeble and short-lived.

It took me years to discover the reason for my inability: My soil was shallow, my schedule was overly busy, and although I did not recognize it, my life was firmly entrenched in selfishness and pride.

Dying to self was a remote and intellectual concept. Everything in my life was about me—couched in terms of how I could best use my gifts, how I could work to bring about my vision, my goals.

I kept coming back to Madonna House though, because each time I came, something deep within me was called forth. A part of me I had ignored and silenced was ignited. A contemplative spark was fanned into flame.

As my projects in the world got more challenging, complicated, and time-consuming, my spiritual life had shrunk, squeezed into the occasional cracks of a once-a-week liturgy or a quick prayer before bed.

Madonna House kept beckoning me with a reality—a way of life I wanted, but could never achieve. I felt like Peter when he asked, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (Jn 6:68).

All this time I had kept in contact with one of the Madonna House priests. As my spiritual director, he helped me clarify the hidden longings I could hardly name, and gently led me to enter into the pain of facing myself and my life as I had chosen to shape it.

For most of my life I was more than active in teaching, community endeavors, and church work.

Not just active, I was driven to take on huge projects and accomplish them efficiently. I saw myself as a creative visionary, and I thought I could do it all.

Once I had the vision, I worked tirelessly to bring into being something that would make a lasting difference in people’s lives—whether it was a children’s choir, a parish library, a food co-op, or a citywide arts council.

My family and my relationship with my Savior, more often than not, got the leftovers of my time and energy.

Then last May came a crisis—suddenly and without warning. Overwhelmed with exhaustion and discouragement, I had reached the end of my rope. I had to make a choice.

I could continue at the frantic pace I was living—devoting 80-90 hours a week to my jobs and volunteer work—or I could resign and “come home,” both physically and spiritually, to my long-neglected role as wife and homemaker and child of God.

Within three days, in prayer and consultation with my husband and spiritual director, my course was decided. I was to resign from everything that fed my ego. This was the surgery necessary for my survival.

So I gave notice and left the organizations I had birthed and shepherded and turned them over to others to nurture to maturity.

For weeks after my resignations I felt like a fish out of water. Unused to free time, I didn’t know what to do with it. I sent a frantic e-mail to my spiritual director—”Help! I don’t want to fritter away this year, or fill it with non-essentials. Give me a structure, a rule.”

And so came the gentle directive: “Bookend your days with morning and evening prayer and attend daily Mass. That is your source of spiritual food. Take a walk every morning and pray the rosary as you walk. And avoid anything outside your home except what is absolutely necessary.”

I had made my consecration to Our Lady nearly three years previously, and now I came to recognize that I needed to pray to her and get to know her better. I suspected, and my spiritual director knew, that it was she who would bring me home to the hiddenness and simplicity of Nazareth. And it was she who would lead me ever deeper into prayer and submission to the Holy Spirit.

Little by little I began to re-discover the spirit of Nazareth in my daily life. I took time to try new recipes, I pared down my possessions, and I immersed myself in the writings of the Desert Fathers and in commentaries on the Rule of St. Benedict.

The most striking difference, however, was that I began to rest in the Lord and to feel secure in him. I began to let go of the drive to fix situations, to figure them out, to organize and direct and make more efficient my life and the lives of those around me.

I found myself turning down invitations to events so that I could have a quiet evening at home with my husband.

I began to move out from under the burden of perfectionism and performance orientation I had lived with since childhood.

I learned to sit quietly in prayer. I began to slow down in reading Scripture, to meditate on just one verse or word.

I began to learn boundaries— both mine and those of others. I found myself asking permission more often of those in authority and checking with my husband about his preferences before making decisions.

If I awoke in the middle of the night, I would go back to sleep praying as I inhaled and exhaled, “O my Jesus, I rest in your love.”

I read the Psalms and Canticles aloud each day, and they began permeating my spirit.
I started to sit quietly at the few meetings I still had to attend, and let others lead the discussions.

I found myself noticing my surroundings and wanting them to be orderly and beautiful. And I discovered that I was shedding tears a lot more, and that they were tears at grace-filled moments rather than tears of frustration and exhaustion.

I began making poustinias twice a month.

Holiness is not the prerogative of people in monasteries or religious communities, though the path may be more direct and the road signs clearer. It is available to all who have been baptized in Christ. But we do need models, people who have gone before us to point the way. The Madonna House community has been that for me.

I had to make some very hard choices to deny myself what the world touts as valuable, and to free myself from the structures I had created to feed my need for recognition and significance.

I had to learn to listen to the still, small voice within that was calling me to find my satisfaction and rest in God and in the hidden place of Nazareth.

I only have one life to live. I want to use it to become holy.