A Tour of the Madonna House Training Centre

The Song of the Cleaning Materials

Now, let us hear what Catherine Doherty has to say about cleaning, for all of Madonna House is regularly well-cleaned, with great love, in every area. One guest who spent time here said he knew the members of this community truly loved one another because of how clean our outdoor jons were!

Unfortunately, our tragic world is far removed from the true principles of the Gospel and the dignity of manual labour. The average person considers manual labour somehow beneath him. This is one of the tragedies of modern times.

Christians especially need to realize that these attitudes are completely pagan. Christ was a carpenter, a manual labourer. This didn't just ‘happen’ to him at random. He did nothing ‘at random.’ He chose to be a manual labourer, as an example for us. Nor can we forget that his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was an ordinary, humble housewife in Palestine, who had to do all the household chores without our modern conveniences!

Strange, isn't it, that so many people in our age are neurotics. Having divorced themselves from God, they drift in a semi-realistic world and pay immense fees to psychiatrists to restore their emotional health. And what does the psychiatrist often prescribe? Manual labour!

At Madonna House, as people wedded to poverty, be glad that by manual labour you can share the lot of the poor who are so beloved by God. They all must work with their hands to make a living. The accent here is, “Do little things perfectly with a great love for God.” By doing so, little, humble, ordinary souls like ourselves will become great; but what is even more important is that we will restore the kingdom of God.

Christ said, ‘I have come to serve, not to be served.’ The moment you become the servant of others, you unite yourself to our Lord. He washed the dirty, callused feet of fishermen and ordinary peasant folk and farmers — his apostles. In that humble action — God at the feet of man, washing his dirty feet — our fastidiousness gets a sort of twist. We don't like that. There are so many things that God did that we don't like because we are fools. We do not understand. And we do not understand because we do not listen with our hearts.

Have you ever thought of the song of the cleaning materials? How symbolic all this is! So here I am dusting. I am dusting a chair well. You just hear a swish. But if I am putting my soul, my heart, my love for God into this action, not missing any corner or any place, I am disciplining myself. I am beginning to die to self. I am really singing a song of love with each movement.

There are two songs today: there is hate and denial of God (or at least indifference to God), and there is our little song that starts in the morning, making the corners of the bed because you love. No other reason in the world could make you do them so well. You want to mortify that body of yours, discipline that mind of yours, make your will strong. Because you were faithful in little things, you can be faithful in big things.

You must begin at the bottom where Christ began, at the feet of his apostles: Hear the song of polishing, of elbow grease, of dusting, of cleaning, and of doing everything well for the love of God!

Place yourself in Nazareth with Our Lady during her time of waiting to give birth when she had no one but Joseph. Nobody paid any attention to her. You pay that attention. You sweep for those who never swept the cobwebs and the dirt from their souls — and still don't. Sweep in the Nazareth of human minds and hearts. Prepare that inn eternally, every day, for the Child to be born, the Child who was denied the inn and still is denied the inn of our hearts.

Narrower and narrower is the group of people who believe; still narrower those who will believe and lay down their lives for the Lord. Begin to lay your life down now — in the exacting, routine, monotonous, repetitious work of cleaning. Do it well. Offer it up. Pray. Don't pray with words; pray with your hands. Your movement is a prayer.

You see, give concentration and thoughtfulness to things today, and tomorrow you will give thoughtfulness to people. There is so much beauty in the action itself, in concentration, and in its results.

Our Madonna House Apostolate is little things done over and over again exceedingly well for the love of God. This is going to make you saints. It is absolutely positive. Don't seek immense mortifications or flagellations and what have you. Seek the daily mortification of doing a thing exceedingly well. Believe you me, you are certainly going to have mortification, I can promise you! You will get so that you will have the heebie-jeebies sometimes just at the thought of dusting the same chair once more. But you're going to take those heebie-jeebies in your hands, squeeze them, and throw them away saying, ‘This too, Lord, for love of you.’

The motivation of love is part of every department at Madonna House.

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