The three-day retreat for the promises people was a time of much pouring out of love in the form of lovely meals and decorations for the retreatants and of hospitality. For it was at that time that their families were starting to arrive.

And the families, like those making promises, came from as near as Barry’s Bay, just 14 km. away, and as far as Korea. Places in between included the U.S., Hungary, Ireland, England, and of course, other parts of Canada. (Plus the family of one of the first year applicants happened to come at this time, and they are from India.)

Promises were made in five languages—Korean, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, and of course English. Even those making them in English came from five different countries—including Singapore.

But who can, in any language, express the beauty of such commitment of lives to God?

As it turned out, Promises Day was, this year, the beginning of a what could be called "a long weekend" (something that doesn’t exist in Madonna House), a three-day period that taken together expressed our life.

Promises expressed the essence of it, "Because I desire with my whole heart to respond to the call of Jesus Christ to preach the Gospel with my life…."

Then the very next day, we had our annual Cana bee, the big push to clean and otherwise get Cana ready for the families who will be coming for a week of retreat and vacation.

It’s the biggest work-bee of the year, with everyone who possibly can, participating. It’s a day of ordinary work, of "doing little things well for the love of God," which is of the essence of our spirituality.

Most people agreed it was an enjoyable day of everyone working together, the sort of thing that is very community-building. And obviously, community is also of the essence of our life.

Then the next day, Sunday, was Corpus Christi. That, too, was a wonderful day. It is a day we celebrate with Canadian Martyrs, the parish of the village of Combermere.

Both the parish and Madonna House had exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the afternoon. In the parish it took the form of a holy hour. Then at four o’clock we of Madonna House processed to the parish church where an altar had been set up outside and we all—parishioners and Madonna House—prayed together.

We then prayed the rosary while processing on to Our Lady of Combermere and ended up with Benediction at the island chapel. Afterwards we all visited together in our front yard.

What is more at the heart of our Madonna House life than the Eucharist?

And still the "weekend" activities weren’t over.

There was still another visitor from far away that I haven’t mentioned yet—Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil from Assam in northeast India. He has known and loved Madonna House for over twenty years and came to Canada specifically to visit here.

He brought in another facet of the Madonna House vocation—missions.

The evening of Corpus Christi he gave us a talk about the evangelization of other cultures.

He told us about his phenomenally successful work of evangelization in the isolated tribal area which is now his diocese. His approach, which began with one person, is very person-to-person, and is filled with wisdom. One thing he stressed was that you have to begin by affirming what is good in the culture, value system, and beliefs of the culture you are entering.

Most of our life is obviously not quite as eventful as this past weekend, but there is still lots more news from this two-month period.

The first event in time was the funeral of Thérèse Richaud, which was at least our fourth Easter week funeral in the recent past. One striking thing about this funeral was the presence of so many of Thérèse’s nieces and nephews. They told us some good stories about her, and their love for her was palpable.

The next major event was the annual meeting of directors of all our houses. It is a very important time for our apostolate—a time when the directors share with one another, listen to the Spirit to discern how he wants the apostolate to move, and receive support from one another and from the directorate. As we did for those making promises, we supported them much in prayer.

Fr. Wild, the postulator for Catherine’s Cause, has been doing some traveling these days. He went to a place just outside New York City to give a talk about Catherine at a diocesan conference on the saints of New York City, and shortly after he returned, he traveled to Japan to "bring Catherine to Japan." (Did you know that there is a Japanese translation of Catherine’s book, Poustinia?)

This is a year for anniversaries in Madonna House: The fiftieth ones are the ones mainly being celebrated—Cana, the farm, and Winslow—but there are others as well: the 60th anniversary of MH Combermere and the 40th anniversary of the pioneer museum.

Among our numerous visitors these past couple of months, I will just mention one—newly ordained Fr. Zack Romanosky. In an article about him in the newspaper, The Catholic Register, he tells about hearing and discerning his call to priesthood while he was a longterm guest at Madonna House. Very shortly after his ordination, he came for a short visit and gave us his first blessing.

And finally, just two more items of news. Fr. David May had a book of his poetry published by the University of Steubenville—The Price of Sparrows. The last item? A few staff attended the annual March for Life in Ottawa.

And thus ends our news in this out-of-the-way spot in God’s world.