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As I was gathering news to write this column, it struck me that, while we continued to live our Nazareth life, the main events that could be called “news” occurred outside of Combermere. As a matter of fact, they occurred on three different continents!

The first and most important one, in fact our biggest news for some time, is that we have opened a new house. Where? In the heart of America, almost in its geographical center. It’s in rural Missouri, in the Ozark Mountains—in a small place called “Salem.”

This house has been in process for a while. A friend and former visitor of MH Combermere, Muriel Herbrand, and Betty Summers, her friend who lived with her, willed us their house and a few small buildings and property, which was a retreat-center/prayer house of sorts.

Our directors prayed for discernment and sent Tom White to do needed work on the buildings and to start getting to know the people there.

He stayed almost two years, during which time various other staff went down for shorter periods of time to help him out. David Williams was there for a year and a half.

The directors talked with Bishop Edward Rice, the bishop of the diocese, and selected a team—Patrick Stewart (director), Paul Mitchell, and Raandi King, and they got ready to go.

At 8:30 a.m. on October 22nd, we gathered in front of the main house to bid them goodbye. After many hugs, we followed our tradition when we open a house: we rang the bell and sang Salve Mater as the car pulled away.

When the team arrived in Salem, they had a gathering to say goodbye to Tom and David and to welcome Patrick, Paul, and Raandi. Between sixty and seventy people attended.

Shortly after that, our directors general went down to help them get launched and to talk with the bishop.

We are excited about this new adventure, and in future issues we plan to tell you more about it.

Our second away-from-Combermere news occurred in Brazil. In response to an invitation, Andorra Howard travelled there to assist at a retreat for a young people’s group, Germinar, a group which we know well from the time when we had a house in Brazil.

Though Andorra hasn’t spoken Portuguese in twelve years, she gave three talks and led a prayer meeting in that language.

Like the journey to Liberia and Ghana that Darrin Prowse, Genevieve Enoe, and Maureen Denis made, a journey we told you about in our October issue, this Brazil trip was much about reconnecting with people and here, too, the deep bonds between our staff and their friends were palpable.

Like our three staff in Africa, Andorra was received with much love by many people. She said that it was wonderful to see the fruits of our Madonna House presence in Brazil as well as to plant more seeds.

Our third out-of-Combermere news took place in France and Spain. Bonnie Staib (the Restoration circulation manager) and Ruth Siebenaler went on a walking pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago to Compostela, Spain. Barring the unexpected, we will be telling you more about this next month.

Another of our members made a pilgrimage as well: Zoyla Grace to the Holy Land.

Meanwhile, back at home, our applicants, too, went on pilgrimage, a weekend one. (We are blessed to be not far from some of the shrines and holy places in Quebec.)

They traveled with their directors of training, Fr. Michael Weitl, Peter Gravelle, and Christina Milan, to St. Joseph’s Oratory and the church of Notre Dame de Bon Secours in Montreal (one of the oldest churches in Canada) and to the shrine of St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Kahnawake.

Our directors general, too, have been travelling. Besides Missouri, they also went on visitation to our house in Winslow, Arizona.

Here’s one last news item which occurred away from here. Due to the interest of gardener Mary Davis (she’d watched a number of DVDs about it), she, Michael Amaral, and former applicant Michele Schaeken (who works on her family’s farm), drove down to Virginia to visit Polyface Farms, where they were given a thorough tour by the manager of one of Joel Salatin’s farms.

Besides the DVDs, Joel has written a number of books about his holistic approach to farming. When she met him after the tour, Mary gave him a copy of our booklet, Apostolic Farming, by our foundress Catherine and our 2018 calendar which features our farm. She told him that we have the same approach to farming as he does but that we use different words.

So, what is happening in Combermere? It is mid-November, and since our last column we have celebrated a few feast days—Thanksgiving, All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day, and the anniversary of the founding of Catherine’s first house—in Toronto.

Now Advent is very near. Among other things, the liturgy class for the guests has begun, the Small Shop is now the Christmas Shop, Susanne Stubbs and Fr. David Linder gave classes in card-making, and we had our house Advent music practice.

We have had some good talks lately.

Fr. Jacques Philippe, a well-known spiritual writer whose books have been translated into 24 languages, spent two days with us. He gave us a deeply touching talk on Our Lady and Nazareth. He is from the Community of the Beatitudes in France, a new ecclesial community which has been influenced by our Madonna House spirituality.

He said that in the painful state of the Church today, a relationship with Mary is not optional. He also has a strong sense that the Church will return to Nazareth. “If we want to be renewed and be the salt and light of the world, we have to go back to Nazareth.”

Mary Prince, a psycho-geriatric resource consultant for our county (or as she calls herself, “a nurse who works with seniors”), gave us a teaching on dementia.

Her talk emphasized the dignity of each person and helped us understand what the impaired person is dealing with. She gave some good, practical suggestions on how to communicate with someone with dementia.

She also told us about a documentary, Alive Inside, which is about how hearing familiar music can bring a person with dementia back to life. We saw this extraordinary documentary last night.

Unless you read “Combermere Diary” first when you read our newspaper, you will probably have seen a couple of articles about the spiritual power of bells.

Well, we experienced one more manifestation of this just a few days ago. In commemoration of the ending of World War I, all across Canada, bells were rung at the same time—at the very time of day when, in 1918, the bells rang to announce the end of the war. This year, each bell was tolled one hundred times.

May God give you peace and love.

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