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Part 1
I recently traveled halfway around the globe to visit our Madonna House in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in Russia. I found myself involved in many interesting conversations with our friends and supporters in that city of over one million.
Of course, I had many things I wanted to share, including stories about Catherine Doherty, the foundress of our community, who herself hailed from Russia, though not from Siberia. I had a number of these stories, and people seemed to enjoy them and to also get a lot out of them as they were translated from English into Russian.
Their responses gave me an idea. Why not share the same stories with the readers of Restoration? Here are two of them.
***
I arrived in Madonna House, Combermere, on a grey November day. In fact, it was Remembrance Day, November 11, 1972. I was 21 years old and searching for the roots of my faith to see if they were truly authentic, if they were real.
Through various circumstances, I had been directed to Combermere as a truly Catholic center where I could get some genuine guidance concerning questions about our Faith.
I had lots of questions, and a few people tried to respond, but I was still unsatisfied and restless. I wanted to know if Jesus Christ was real or not. I wanted to know if he was alive or not. I knew what the Church taught, but where was the evidence for the truth of that teaching?
I had seen the greatest evidence so far in my own mother’s adherence to her Catholic faith during troubled times in our young family in the 1950s. But now I needed a different kind of witness, someone who could “explain” how the Lord could permit such things to happen.
So, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Catherine Doherty, who was away on a trip, because it was said about her that she was a holy person, wise, maybe even a saint. And since I never met a saint—at least I wasn’t aware of having met one—I was hoping she might be able to help me.
Finally, she returned. One evening not long afterwards, she was visiting with people in the Madonna House dining room, where it was customary to have tea and visit with one another. Slowly, Catherine made her way around the dining room, and at last, she arrived at the table I was at. And then she looked at me!
I knew this was my chance. But before I could speak, she said to me, handing me a little pamphlet, “This is what Madonna House believes about poverty.” It was a little poem she had written about evangelical poverty, something in which I had little interest at the time. So, I ignored the pamphlet, and I got straight to the point.
“B,” I said, speaking rapidly, “in John’s Gospel, chapter 14, verses 1 to 6, Jesus says, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ I want to believe this, but I can’t. What should I do?”
“Oh,” she said, “You’re not ready for this yet,” and quickly removed the pamphlet from my hand and placed it back in her basket. “You’re asking about faith—how do you get faith?” she said. “I’ll show you.”
With that she turned to the wall that was next to our table, upon which hung an icon of Jesus Christ. She said to me, “This is how you get faith.”
Then, she bowed reverently towards the icon with her hand touching near her foot in a gesture of reverence. Making a Sign of the Cross Russian-style, she proceeded to lay down on the floor, flat on her stomach! And she lay there for some time.
She was quiet, completely silent, and immobile. It seemed that she lay there for an eternity, though it must’ve been only for a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile this little drama was beginning to attract the attention of the entire dining room. People were straining to see what I had provoked the 75-year-old foundress of Madonna House to do! We waited. And we waited. And we waited.
Then, very, very slowly, and very deliberately, she got to her feet with the help of a cane, and she started to walk away without saying a word. Then, suddenly, she turned back to me, gave me a mischievous wink, and said to me a sentence I’ve never forgotten: “a couple of nights of that … and leave the rest to God!” With that she walked away.
***
The next day, a Sunday, we were all at Mass together at Our Lady of the Woods chapel. After Communion, there was some silent time, and I was somewhere in the middle, but towards the front, kneeling on the bare wooden floor, as were many others.
Suddenly, I heard what can only be called a loud stage whisper coming from my left, where Catherine and others of our elders were seated. The whisperer was asking a question: “What’s his name?” Somehow, I knew this referred to me, but I did not look up or give any indication of hearing anything.
In response, someone whispered back, “I don’t know.” In turn this person turned to her neighbor, asking the same question: “What’s his name?” The answer came from further down, “I’m not sure.”
“Oh, no,” I thought. “How long will this drama go on?” Fortunately, the next person had met me, and said, “His name is Dave.”
This information was whispered up the row, from whisperer to whisperer, till the name “Dave” reached the failing ears of the foundress, at which point, she whispered a prayer audible to angels and human beings: “Lord, please help Dave!” Interestingly enough, I was not embarrassed by all this, but was touched and consoled.
As for the encounter the evening before, I realized she had not been speaking literally, that is, two nights of prayer and you’re done! She was telling me that if I wanted anything from God, I had to be humble enough to beg for it, to really ask, over and over again.
But also, that my immense (to me) problems with the Faith, so complicated for me, were utterly simple to God, and he would settle them in due time, in his own way.
Some time afterwards, the men working guests were invited to Catherine’s cabin for an evening. We could ask her anything we wished, even as we could get a good look at her living quarters.
After we were settled in there for a time of visiting together, I noticed a sign on the wall that read as follows: “Pain is the kiss of Christ.” This was very much along the lines of further questions that were boiling in me, so I asked her what was meant by this statement.
Her reply was unforgettable. She paused. She closed her eyes. She opened them, gave a kind of shrug and said, “I can’t explain it. This you have to learn for yourself, between you and him.” How true those words were to prove—in his good time!
to be continued
