Most important of all, of course, is God’s life. As in any place in which people are striving to make him the center, this is everywhere evident to those who have eyes to see.

Our summer program for young people is in full swing, though actually, the word "program" is a misnomer. All we are doing is providing additions to what we always offer our visitors—the opportunity to live and experience our Madonna House way of life with us.

Each week there is a different theme including The Dignity of the Human Person, Marriage (during that week local couples were guest speakers), Apostolic Farming, Current Issues, and Vocation.

Around these themes are centered our daily after-lunch spiritual readings, short talks by staff (both teachings and witness), and a weekly class by one of our priests. A Saturday evening questions and answer period also offers our guests the opportunity to ask our three directors general questions about the faith, the spiritual life, the Church, Madonna House, or any other related topic.

Other activities are quite varied. They range from evening weeding bees to a day of recollection and from bonfires to square dances.

As with the families who come to Cana, in some mysterious way, God does something in the hearts of our visitors through all these activities and through the nitty-gritty of the day-to-day work and the community life.

Speaking of Cana, which is fifty years old, it too is in full swing these days—seven to ten families each week. We’ll be celebrating its jubilee with a big picnic on August 12th, which we’ll be telling you about next month.

Meanwhile, of course, various staff members are serving in other works and outreaches. The gift shop, book house, flea market, and museum bring us into contact with countless people, many of them vacationers. In the shops and museum, they touch beauty, much of it the beauty of the past, and God works through this, too.

Some of the people who come to this area are interested in learning about Madonna House or maybe they are just curious. To these we offer a tour and explanations. Most of them are individuals or families, but we are also asked to give tours to groups. One that came recently consisted of 62 Polish-Canadian Boy Scouts.

As Fr. David May told you in his article, this is a year of jubilees: the fiftieth anniversary of the farm, Cana Colony, and our house in Winslow, Arizona. It is also, as I think we mentioned before, the 40th anniversary of the museum and the 60th anniversary of Madonna House in Combermere.

The jubilee of the farm was celebrated with great joy, love, gratitude, and fun.

During their busy summer, the farmers went all out with an afternoon and evening open house. The words "open house" don’t begin to convey this multi-faceted event.

There were beautiful displays in the farmhouse: pictures on the walls and albums to browse through, showing in text and photos the history of the farm and Catherine’s vision of apostolic farming.

Throughout the afternoon, a local music group including staff worker Trudy Moessner provided live music. A surprising number of activities were available, including volley ball, treasure hunts, a chance to make your own ice cream, walking up to the cross on the hill, and of course, just visiting together over snacks.

For those with a more adventurous spirit, there was a maze made by Fr. Louis Labrecque out of bales of hay. You had to crawl through on your stomach in total darkness!

At 5:30 Mark Schlingerman, director general of the laymen, announced the next event—a rosary—by blowing a ram’s horn. The rosary was offered in thanksgiving for Catherine Doherty’s vision of apostolic farming and for everyone who had ever worked on this land, including the family who owned it before we did.

Then it was time for a wonderful barbeque. Alma Coffman had made a huge cake, impossible to describe but replicating part of the farm. It even depicted two events capsulating fifty years of farm history: on one side were farmers chasing cows through the woods, and on the other all the cows were neatly fenced in.

After supper in the decorated and thoroughly cleaned machine workshop, there was a quiz show (Farmers’ Feud), and square dancing.

The evening ended with fireworks (a couple of the men have learned to put them on) with a background tape of music interspersed with words spoken by Catherine Doherty and Pope John Paul II.

Another jubilee that a few of us attended was that of our house in Winslow, Arizona. The director, Kathy McVady, had invited everyone who had ever served there. Some of them, who were able to arrange vacations at that time, went and stayed at the homes of our friends and neighbors. The celebration consisted of several events, and people said it was wonderful.

Among those attending were our directors general who stayed on to conduct a visitation of the house.

Back on the home front, we got quite a surprise one morning. Mary Davis, the first to read the morning paper that day, was the one to discover it. There on page 2 of The Ottawa Citizen was a big picture of and a long article about Catherine Doherty.

The article, written by someone none of us knew, was quite good, and was the first of a four-part series.

Fr. Wild, the postulator for Catherine’s Cause, e-mailed our thanks and congratulations to the author, columnist Donna Jacobs, and invited her for a visit, which she was already planning to do.

Speaking of visitors, we’ve recently had numerous short visits from families of staff and from old friends. I will just mention three: Agnes Shehade, Maria In Bok Lee, and Fr. Vincent Compton.

Agnes Shehade, who runs the House of Grace in Haifa, Israel, came after attending a prison fellowship conference in Toronto. The House of Grace, a halfway house for prisoners, is also a place where Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Druze are welcomed and can come together in harmony.

Maria In Bok Lee, a Catholic lay leader in Korea, who visited here many years ago, also took advantage of a visit to Canada to come and visit us.

Fr. Vincent Compton, an MH associate priest from Trinidad, recently celebrated his 51st anniversary of priesthood, and he has known Madonna House since he was a seminarian!

Several among us have taken short courses. Donna Surprenant took a three-week painting course in New Mexico, Fr. Ron Cafeo took an icon painting workshop and then helped with a Cana-type retreat near where he took his course. Linda Owen, who is responsible for the care facility for our elderly and sick members, attended a conference on geriatric care within religious communities.

Finally, one last wee item of news. Our farm now has a llama. It was purchased to guard the sheep from night-time predators.

Well, that’s it for this month. May God fill each of you with his peace.