It was the nurse from Our Lady of Visitation, our care facility for the elderly and chronically ill. "Mary P. appears to be dying. Can we get her spiritual director, Fr. Pelton, over to give her the last rites?"

"Yes, of course. I’ll pray in the meantime."

Sleep was at best fitful after that! But Mary P., who is 80 plus, recovered her strength afterwards and is still with us at this writing, 10 days later.

The next day or so came another report: "Our chief gardener at St. Ben’s Farm has shingles!" Yikes! Right at the key point in early summer when the gardens need the most attention!

Meetings were held. Discussions occurred. Possible changes of personnel were considered, then rejected. Somehow or other, we all pulled together, and it turned out that Chris is able to be present in the gardens to give directions.

At this writing, the summer vegetable gardens look very promising, although it is still too early to predict what kind of harvest it will be.

A few days later, I sat down for breakfast at the farm, right after celebrating the 8 a.m. Thursday morning Mass. The phone rang. "Fr. David, it’s for you."

It was Fr. Denis Lemieux: "My Dad just passed away. I think I need to go home for his funeral. I have quite a number of commitments this weekend that will need to be filled."

"God bless you, Denis. Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out at the priests’ meeting later this morning."

Which is what we did so that Vianney House, our priests’ guesthouse, would be covered, as well as the retreat weekend at neighboring Mother of Mercy Farm, which they were having in honor of Corpus Christi.

Of course, Vianney House is normally covered by two other MH priests, and Fr. Denis was generously covering for them as they were away! And so it goes…

Did you ever feel like your life, which you intended to be so well planned and so orderly, just got shot to smithereens by events out of your control?

How do you react when that happens? Are you thrilled by the adventure of it all? Do you at times get somewhat irritated or even mildly enraged? How are we supposed to look at life "on a shoestring"—especially when it seems to be God himself who is pulling that string and undoing all our tidy solutions to life’s challenges?

One thing consistent about Madonna House in the 32 years I’ve been a member of it, is that the Lord keeps insisting that we live on some kind of an "edge".

We honestly do not know, from day to day, just how we’re going to keep the place running, welcome our guests, keep our field houses staffed, and at the same time retain the spiritual vision of what our life is all about!

Oh, we have plans and programs for all of the above. Yet how often "our plans that day come to nothing," or almost nothing, and we are back at the drawing board and on our knees begging God for help.

Personally, I’ve come to expect life to be that way. When we made promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Lord sure took us at our word! And here, I am thinking mostly of poverty, and having to live very poor, very dependent, and not too differently from a child in the arms of his mother or father.

It’s a touching scene when you think of babies, but not so easy to swallow when you are 22 or 44 or 55, or like Mary P., past the 80 mark. (Her name is Mary Pennefather, but we call her "Mary P.") Actually, she seems quite peaceful at this point with the arrangement, and is teaching many of us invaluable lessons!

"Evangelical poverty" is a high-sounding phrase, but it seems that it is mostly about having to live like most of humanity has to live: dependent on God moment by moment for existence, sustenance, and light for the way.

I can’t help but think of a lady one of our houses knows so well. She works the streets selling her homemade salve, has two babies to care for, and little support for either. Yet when someone said in her presence, "God is good." her spontaneous response was, "Yes! He always is!"

Where did she learn such wisdom except in leaning on him moment by moment because there was precious little else to lean on?

In Madonna House, though we don’t live on the streets, we do live on the edge. God pushes us both individually and communally to be in that place which is uncomfortable enough to "make" us seek the face of God and his merciful help.

This, in turn, is foundational for another phrase that has been heard from Rome now for some years: "the New Evangelization."

I suppose that when some hear this phrase, they think of great meetings like the World Youth Days or the recent one in Rome of the "New Movements and Ecclesial Communities."

You might also think about seminars discussing the great issues of our day, or the inspired use of media to promote the gospel message, or clear teachings to refute the lies told about the Church and our Faith by The Da Vinci Code and such fare.

Madonna House is a part of all or at least some of the above. Our representatives to the meeting of The New Movements and Ecclesial Communities came back from Rome all fired up with the joy of encountering many other communities from throughout the world who share much in common with us in their spirit and makeup.

And yet, our locus on the continuum of the New Evangelization always seems to be that of the poor who are not in control of their destiny, and so are forced to go into some kind of depth of faith in order to see their destiny more with God’s eyes than with human calculations.

May I share with you a little secret? I love living this way!

I love it (at least deep down) when my plans are thrown up against the brick wall of God’s mystery, and I am back to square one, a "child" again, and somehow rediscovering a sympathy, an empathy, a compassion for so many of God’s little ones who simply must live that way, with few other options in the offing.

Such faith is at the heart of the New Evangelization, because in our day it is the crucial, the life-and-death battle: to believe or not to believe in the living presence of the living God.

And what a joy it is to speak that word of faith to a brother or sister seeking assurance as he or she negotiates the murky waters and winding ways of life’s twists and turns!

Oops! There goes that phone again! And there went my train of thought as to how I would bring this little reflection to a conclusion!

The Rest of My Day is about to take over.

There is only one thing sure about it: God is in it. And life, in the true sense, consists of finding him there, loving him there, serving him there, and praising him there: "God is indeed good. He is that all the time!"

No other word is more powerful or more needed to bring our times out of the tomb of disbelief and despair, and into the vast open spaces of faith, hope, and love. Yes, life on a shoestring is somehow at the very heart of the New Evangelization!