"Madonna House is a very simple thing. It can be said in a few sentences. It is an open door. It is a cup of tea or coffee.

"Madonna House is a house of hospitality. It is a place where people are received, not according to their education, not according to how wonderful they are as painters or whatever else they can do. They are received simply as people.

"They come and they go, and the memory of Madonna House lingers on. Something happens. What happens, nobody knows. But something happens."

This quote is from a letter by Catherine Doherty to the staff in 1980.

The very first house Catherine opened in the 1930s she simply called, "Friendship House." She wanted to create a place where everyone would feel welcome, where people could meet as fellow pilgrims over a cup of tea.

And the basis for this, she says in the same letter, is an acceptance of the fact that we ourselves are sinners: "God feels at home with us just because we are sinners, and because he came to save sinners. That is why God feels at home here. I want you to understand that."

Madonna House, in other words, is built on God’s mercy, and on our acknowledging of our own sinfulness and utter need for God.

Jesus loves sinners; he often came to eat with them. "Christ was very fond of sinners, of prostitutes, of unpleasant people, of all kinds of strange people. We are just that kind of people."

When we acknowledge our own need for Christ, he comes to visit us and feels comfortable in our homes. Then we can invite others and make them feel welcome also.

To the degree that we have been emptied of our pride and recognize our need for mercy, our hearts are open to receive others who are in need.

And hiddenness, too, helps to make Christ feel at home: "It is your simplicity (the staff), your ordinariness, your duty of the moment, your non-desire to shine before men," she says, "that makes Christ at home in Madonna House. And where Christ is at home, others also feel at home."

— Adapted from Journey to the Heart of Christ, Book 3, pp. 79-80, available from MH Publications.