Then there is the Forty Days for Life,—forty days of prayer, fasting, education, and 24-hour vigil in front of abortion clinics. This major thrust against abortion is taking place in 175 communities in 47 states of the U.S., two Canadian provinces (including Ontario) and American Samoa.

Plus, of course, there are always the many intentions of our friends, families, and people who phone and write for prayers.

Right now, in mid-October, life in MH Combermere is relatively uneventful. The harvest is just about finished but food processing is continuing on, at least for a little while longer. This week 7 cows and 31 sheep were slaughtered and are being butchering.

The farmers and food processors are very grateful that three professional meat cutters—Norm Bouffard, John Blom, and Clifford Olson—are volunteering their time and skills to help them with this.

The spiritual formation program for men considering priesthood has begun, and this year there are two: Matthew Cowper, Will Gaertner.

Their classes cover a variety of subjects including Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on priesthood, Shepherds After My Own Heart. However, the main formation, we have discovered over the years, is their total immersion in our community life.

Winter classes are well underway for applicants as well. Among other things, they spend Friday afternoons and evening together receiving teachings from their directors of training and a guest speaker from among the staff, a different one every week.

The working guests, including the men in the spiritual formation program, are having Wednesday morning classes on "The Fundamentals of the Spiritual Life."

Fr. Louis Labrecque, Scott Eagan, and Jocko d’Ursel traveled to Rimouski, a diocese in Quebec, to attend the installation of its new archbishop, our associate Pierre-André Fournier.

Archbishop Fournier, who has been visiting Madonna House since he was a seminarian, has deeply embraced Catherine’s spirituality and is very much a part of our family. Our delegation found the entire time deeply blessed and graced.

One delightful event of this past time was the Rural Ramble. This event, put on by the local tourist bureau, consists of a number of sites featuring various aspects of rural life in this area, both past and present. People were given a descriptive list of the sites and a map and went from one to the other.

Our gift shop area—gift shop, flea market, handicraft center, bookshop and museum—was one of the sites.

We offered a number of displays and demonstrations, and probably the most popular were the interactive ones. At the honey-making display people tasted the new honey, and at the candle-making demonstration they helped make dipped candles.

They watched Raandi King on the potter’s wheel and made pinch pots out of clay. And everybody could take a turn turning the crank to make ice cream the old fashioned way. (All got to taste the ice cream as well.)

They watched spinning and weaving and the setting up of a loom, and those who wished to, carded wool. And they watched Mark Schlingerman wood carving and Deirdre Burch painting.

In the museum, they heard Tina Tan (a working guest) play the player piano and a local friend, Paul Shulist play lively fiddle music. Some even did a bit of dancing.

And this is only some of what we offered!

Among the many visitors, both those we knew and those we didn’t, were lots of children, and some who came on Saturday were so enthralled that they talked their parents into bringing them back on Sunday.

Fr. Pelton gave two retreats to the priests of the diocese of Denver, Colorado.

Our new bishop, Bishop Michael Mulhall, came to celebrate Mass and bless the renovations at our parish. The parishioners did lots of fund-raising and lots of work and the church looks beautiful.

Susanne Stubbs and Victoria Fausto attended a large pro-life weekend conference, "Creating a Culture of Life Around the Globe." They had speakers from the fields of bioethics, medicine, and politics.

Among our visitors were four women from Solitude Myriam, one of the new communities in Quebec. Their members are divorced and separated women whose marriages have no hope of reconciliation, and their work is to pray and work for the unity of family.

Larry Klein is teaching a few classes on biblical Greek to whoever wishes to take it. About a fifteen are doing so.

And here’s the latest on Henry Morgentaler. Despite the great outrage following the announcement of the award, he was officially given the Order of Canada last week.

To avoid demonstrations, the ceremony was only announced 24 hours ahead of time and moved from its usual location in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to Quebec City. In her opening remarks in the ceremony, Governor General Michaelle Jean said that the twenty or so recipients of the medal "represent the best amongst us." Needless to say, Canada is much in our prayers.

As Advent approaches, we continue to live our simple gospel way of life. We continue to offer God through Our Lady, our prayers, our efforts to love one another, and all the work we do every day—the dishes, the cleaning, the maintenance, the carpentry, the office work, just to give a few examples.

Like anyone else, it is all we have to offer. And if we, like anyone else, do it out of love and to the best of our ability, God uses it as grace for the whole world.

May God give you and all your families a blessed, grace-filled Advent and a joyous Christmas.