These last months, the months between May and October when we closed the house, were a time of rich experience, a time filled to overflowing with hard work, grieving, prayer, surrender, and deep, deep rejoicing in all that has been lived and all that God has given during the sixteen years that we have been in the city of Natal in Brazil.

During these months, Dom Nivaldo, retired archbishop of Natal, who was instrumental in the opening of our house and a father to us all these years, often said one version or another of the following: “When one is faced with a mystery, the only true response is silence.”

Over and over, Dom Nivaldo, who was himself suffering with all of this, told us that what he desired for his own heart, and for ours, was deep docility to God’s will.

What we heard also from other friends, both near and far, was a voiced acceptance of what God was asking and an acknowledgement that his ways are beyond our understanding.

We almost never experienced from anyone rancor or anger about our leaving. On the contrary, what our leaving triggered was an at times unbelievable outpouring of gratitude for our having been there.

Person after person expressed in deep and heartfelt words what our presence had meant to them personally.

For us to have been bathed in these words and this love, over and over, and to hear what our lives and our presence have meant, to hear it expressed in words, letters, songs, skits, and other ways that could only be deeply sincere and of the Spirit, was an incredible experience.

It was an unexpected blessing of God, something he obviously wanted us to hear and hear well.

I had never, ever expected to hear about the fruits of our lives in this way, but listening to it, I realized that deep in my heart, I was not truly surprised.

In reflecting about it, I came to this: from day one until the end, during each of the successive “generations” of staff workers who have been in MH Brazil, the work of forming a “community of love” among ourselves, a work that is at the heart of our apostolate, has been extraordinarily difficult. It has been, at every stage, what I would call, an immolation.

I know that each of us has tried, for better or for worse, to be faithful to standing in that immolation and letting God do what he does in that fire and darkness. And we have tried, for better or for worse, to be faithful to living our days according to the Madonna House spirit. One never knows, of course, but one tries.

Now if God is who he says he is, and if he is faithful to his promises, then a life of standing still, a life of trying, simply has to bear fruits.

These fruits might not necessarily have been in Natal. We might never have even heard about the fruits, but they simply have to be there, somewhere.

And God, it seems, wanted us to know that, in a very real way.

It was a truly humbling and holy experience to touch “in the flesh,” to experience, what one had accepted in faith.

Will we ever return to Brazil? This is hidden in the mysterious working of God’s holy will, which will unfold in time, if, and in the way that he desires.

I would like to end this article with a quote from Catherine Doherty:

“Unless surrender is total, it is not surrender at all, because I am keeping something to myself. I should give God all of myself for I belong to him…. I belong to him because he created me. I rest on the palm of his hand as it were. He has full dominion over me—over my life and over my death.

“But it is not out of fear that I should surrender. Oh, no! I should surrender out of a passionate love of him who surrendered himself so passionately for me.”

(from Dearly Beloved, Vol. III, pp. 106, 107, MH Publications).