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The time between Christmas and Lent is usually a relatively quiet time in Madonna House. This year it has been very cold. For a number of days temperatures ranged between -20 and -30 degrees Celsius (-4 and -22 Fahrenheit). And not unusually we have had a lot of snow.
The main event of this time-frame took place at St. Mary’s where the directors general made a three-day visitation.
At these meetings, they reiterated that there are two equal houses in Combermere: the Training Centre (or main house) and St. Mary’s.
Like Madonna House itself, St. Mary’s is difficult if not impossible, to describe. Here are just a few facts.
Located about a third of a mile away from the main compound, St. Mary’s is at the present composed of 48 members.
Though the two houses do some things together, such as Sunday and Feastday Masses and some events, on a day-to-day basis, they live and work separately.
(Well, on an individual basis, not completely. There is a lot of back-and-forth, even to the extent that a few of us belong to one house and work at the other.)
What is a visitation? A visitation is a visit by the superiors (in our case, directors) of one of the mission houses. Visitations are mainly a time of discerning what the Holy Spirit is doing and what he wants to do in that house in the future.
During his opening remarks, Fr. David Linder, director general of priests, invited people to “open up our hearts, stand back, and let God do what he needs to do,” which involves intensive listening and, as Pope Francis has urged, being open to surprises.
Sounds like the Holy Spirit did work; many of the staff found the visitation deeply moving and powerful.
The directors general also had a meeting with our elderly staff—all those eighty years old and over. This is our pioneer generation, and it was the first time that all of the ones in Combermere had come together as a group.
It turned out to be a time of sharing, and the main “word” that came forth was a beautiful one—gratitude. That says a lot about our elders.
What else has been going on? Well, as happens every year in winter, we had a flu epidemic, a time when the “duty of the moment” suddenly became “rest.”
It was not a terrible flu, and we didn’t all go down at the same time, so we just filled in for each other for the necessary work, and life went on. (It was a flu with cold symptoms, and there was lots of coughing, sneezing, and resting during the St. Mary’s visitation.)
Some of us—Peter Gravelle, Teresa Gehred, Julie Coxe, and a number of others—have been busy planning for necessary and upcoming renovations of the main house. The plan is to begin these in the spring, and we will be telling you about it as it happens.
Winter for sure has its challenges. As will be no surprise to those of you living in northern rural areas, sometimes, due to snow, ice, and/or poor visibility, we have to cancel medical appointments and other trips.
Less frequently, due to those poor weather conditions, we go and can’t get back.
Here’s one story: One day there were two trips from here to Ottawa—a 2½ – 3 hour drive away—one of them a medical trip.
By the time those on the medical trip started the drive home, it was snowing so heavily that they were forced to inch along the major highway at 5 km. (3 miles) per hour.
Teresa Gehred, the driver and the acting local director of the main house, decided not to continue to drive home. She wanted to tell the driver of the other trip to stay, too, but that person did not have a cell phone. How to connect and communicate this?
Teresa and her passenger prayed to their guardian angels. Would you believe that within seconds, two lanes over and a bit ahead, they spotted the other Madonna House car!
Slowly, with more angelic help, they managed to get alongside of them, and after much honking and waving, they got their attention.
Then Catherine Nugent, a passenger in the other car, couldn’t get the window opened!
So she opened her door to see what they wanted, and Teresa hollered, “Follow us!” Which they successfully did.
Carol Ann Gieske and Christina Milan traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana, to attend the FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) conference, which occurs during the colleges’ Christmas break.
This year the theme was: Encounter Something More—How to Give Our Lives Over to Christ, and 17,000 college students and 500 priests attended. (How’s that for a sign of hope?)
There we had a book table to make contact with the students and tell them about Madonna House.
Among other things, people loved the basket of saints’ medals we offered for free.
One of the joys of such events is that we always meet old friends and people who know of us in one way or another.
One visitor to our table was a woman who had grown up on Donkey Bells, our book about Advent and Christmas. She is now a teacher, and at her school all the teachers put bells on their wrists during the Advent season.
Another person said to Carol Ann and Christina, “One of your staff members made me fall in love with Jesus.”
Back in Combermere, we had an evening of playing the game, Trivial Pursuit—Madonna House Trivial Pursuit. Examples: How many MH staff are twins? How many statues of Our Lady are in our dining room?
Finally, here are some news in brief: Madonna House, as usual, gave diocesan retreats in our diocese. Fr. David May and Steve Héroux gave the men’s, with Alec Bonacci helping. Fr. Robert Johnson and Cynthia Donnelly gave the first of the two women’s retreat, and Gloria Lawton had a book table there.
We had a day of recollection on February 2nd, the Day for Consecrated Life, and a bee to mail out our semi-annual begging letter, which many of you received.
Anne Burns, who runs the cardiac rehab center at our local hospital, gave us a talk on maintaining cardiac health.
The guests’ weekly catechism classes continue, as does “Basement University,” our weekly wintertime videos and DVDs on a wide range of educational topics.
These included some about nature (such as life in the desert and a woman’s experience living with wild turkeys!) and sleep (the science of what it is and why we need to get enough of it).
During this coming Season of Mercy, may each of you encounter the God who is mercy.
