At Madonna House, we always have three days off for Christmas, and two or three for New Year’s, and those days are like no others in the year except for Eastertime.

These days of Christmas, which follow a glorious “midnight” Mass, are without a schedule except for Mass and supper. We take turns doing the absolute essentials (such as answering the phone and filling the supplies for making-your-own-breakfast) and outside of that, we sleep in, we sit around and visit with one another, we sing, we take walks, we ice skate, we ski, we read, we listen to music, and we do jigsaw puzzles, etc., etc., etc. And we have wonderful meals which end with the “live entertainment” of people singing carols, many of them from their varied countries and languages.

There are usually two or three videos shown, and this year, the favorite of most of us was The March of the Penguins.

On December 26th, the farm hosted, as always, an afternoon open house at which we had the option of a ride on the horse drawn sleigh that is usually used to haul wood.

Even when we got back to work during Christmas week, the atmosphere was festive. Decorations, of course, still abounded, the food was still festive, and we started the day half an hour later.

On New Year’s Eve, we had a holy hour from 11 till 12. It included the rosary, silent adoration, and ended, as is our tradition, with a “Litany of the Nations,” in which we prayed for every nation in the world by name. (It’s always a challenge for the priest leading it to make sure he includes any new ones.) This was followed by still another time of eating and visiting.

On New Year’s Day, we followed the French Canadian custom of getting a blessing from one’s father. In our case, we received it from our spiritual directors.

And in the afternoon, we dropped by St. Joseph’s House, which had its traditional New Year’s open house.

This year there was a new tradition—well, new to us. The Korean staff, applicants, and guests, and a Vietnamese-American guest (Vietnam has this custom, too)  did their traditional New Year’s ceremonial bow to elders.

Those who had Korean dress wore it, and those who didn’t borrowed from our costume supply.

First they bowed to our directors general. Then Susanne Stubbs, the director of women, blessed each of them with Catherine’s mother’s icon, and gave each one a word from Catherine. Fr. David May, the director of priests, gave each a word from St. Paul, and Mark Schlingerman, director of men, gave them each a shiny loony (a Canadian one-dollar coin.) For it is the tradition for the elders to give words of wisdom and money.

Then the Koreans bowed to other leaders of the community: the local directors, some of the priests, and a group of lay “elders.” Everyone involved was very moved by the ceremony.

The twelfth day of Christmas is, of course, Epiphany, and on that day we had a Byzantine liturgy, which celebrated the Baptism of Christ. The liturgy ended, as always on that day, with a beautiful blessing of the waters. Then according to the Byzantine custom, all processed to the river, where the priest, in a lovely ceremony, threw a cross into the river thereby blessing all the waters of the world.

Then it was on to breakfast where we partook of the traditional Epiphany bread which contains three coins. Whoever gets a coin spends an hour of prayer for the community.

At supper, we had the blessing of the lintels, a German custom, and each of us was given an Epiphany gift—a virtue written on a slip of paper.

With that, the twelve days of Christmas ended, and it was back to Ordinary Time. In fact, January is just about our quietest time of year.

The January talk in the monthly St. Mary’s Winter Lecture Series was “Wise as Serpents,” by Diane Bryhn, a friend who visits Madonna House both in Combermere in Washington D.C. She is one of the founders and the former executive director of Gegrapha, whose mission is to provide personal support and networking for Christian journalists throughout the world.

Christian journalists in the mainstream media, she told us, are a tiny minority, and she gave us a picture of the tremendous stress that all journalists are under, plus the stresses particular to Christians. It was obvious they need all the support they can get.

What can we do? Write an encouraging letter when they come out with something good, and perhaps “adopt” an editor or journalist by taking him or her on in prayer.

Now for a couple of brief news items: Donna Surprenant received an award of merit from the organization, American Women Artists for the painting, Unfinished Arrangement, which was on exhibit in Dallas, Texas. Cheryl Ann Smith, Gerard Lesage, and Karen Maskiew attended a workshop, Called and Gifted, a workshop that was developed for use in parishes to help people discover what their spiritual (rather than natural) gifts are and are not.

And thus ends our account of the news for this month.

We’ll let one of our young working guests have the last word. He came here because his three older siblings, all of whom are former long-term working guests, told him that a stay in Madonna House is “the experience of a lifetime.”

“So far,” he said after a week here, “they’ve been proved right!”