Better Than A Week At The Cottage

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love... love... love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House

Pray always. I will be your rest. – And with this final line we come to the end of this little series of commentaries on the Little Mandate, the words God gave our foundress Catherine Doherty to be the guiding spirit of Madonna House.

I will freely confess that when it comes to this last line of the Mandate, I don’t really get what is being said here—we are all works in progress, and in my case the progress has not yet progressed to this beautiful place yet of experiencing either constant prayer or Christ being my rest. I am quite certain of the truth, beauty, and goodness of these words, but I haven’t yet reached the direct experience of them, not yet. Some day.

‘Rest’ is a big word for most people, I imagine. We are all a little tired. Nobody quite gets enough sleep. Nobody feels entirely well, entirely fresh and bouncy. Well, maybe some people do, and youth especially is known for its inexhaustible energy. But as one gets older… well, we get tired. Not sick, not miserable, not incapable of functioning—just a wee bit tired.

And so we look for a place of rest. I have my annual vacation coming up in a few weeks, and I’m not ashamed to say that I am deeply looking forward to it. I think the Lord in this line of the mandate is disclosing something to us about what it means to be at rest that takes us so far beyond this normal human level, though. For us, ‘rest’ is synonymous with ‘respite’. For God, ‘rest’ is synonymous with ‘consummation’. In other words, a being comes to a state of rest when it reaches its proper place, its home, its state of fulfillment.

Well, our proper place and home and fulfillment is not a week at the cottage sipping cocktails by the beach. Our home is the heart of God, and the heart of God is the wellspring of love in the world. ‘Pray always’, at a deep level, means the same thing as ‘love always’, since prayer is communion with God and God is Love.

Our rest, then, is found in our relationship with Him. He doesn’t say here, Pray always, and I will give you rest. He says that He will be our rest. And this takes us very deep indeed. As I finish this series on the Little Mandate, it is right and proper that the last sentence of the Mandate takes us where we really need to be taken.

Namely, to Jesus. Our life is about Jesus. It is for Him, from Him, and towards Him. He is the source of the ‘Arise – go!’, the command to movement that begins the journey of the Gospel life, and He is the destination to which we are heading, and He is the way itself of love and service in the world.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House is a 118-word revelation of the radical Christ-centred nature of Gospel life and love in this world. And it does come down to this ‘pray always’ business. If we are going to take up the cross of the poor, we have to pray always. If we are going to be little, simple, poor, childlike, we have to pray always. If we are going to preach the Gospel with our life, do little things exceedingly well for love, love without counting the cost, go into the marketplace, into the depths of men’s hearts, be a hidden light to the feet of our neighbour… we have to pray always.

We have to pray always because all of this is what Jesus does and who Jesus is for us, and our living of it is utterly impossible save by His constant intervention and help in our life. We can do nothing without Him; with Him, all things are possible.

‘Pray always’ does not mean hours spent in silent contemplation. It does mean a constant dialogue with God throughout our busy days. It does mean cultivating a habit of prayer, whereby in the midst of everything that fills our life we continually go to that place of rest—not a place of inactivity and torpor, but a place of fulfillment, consummation, intense activity of love and communion.

It is all about Jesus, all about calling on His name, seeking His face, striving to live according to the words of light and truth and pattern of love and sacrifice that He has laid out for us, and that His grace and His Spirit make possible in our lives. It is Jesus, Jesus, and Jesus again who is our rest, who is our life, who is our mandate from God. And that is what Madonna House continually proclaims and tries to live in our humble communal way of life.

You Want Me To Do What?

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love... love... love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House

Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you. Our weekly journey through the Little Mandate of MH, the core words we believe God gave our foundress Catherine as the guiding spirit of our community, is winding to a close.

These sentences of the mandate were the ones above all that, when I first joined MH, seemed like essentially a dead letter to me. Go… where? And without what… fear? Why? How? For what good purpose? Mind you, I was 22 years old when I became an applicant here, and somehow not too many people want a socially awkward, barely out of high school young man blundering around in the depths of their hearts. I would have just broken something in there, which come to think of it was more or less of a leitmotif of my early years in the apostolate.

And ‘I will be with you’… well, Jesus, since you’re in there already how’s about I just let you handle it, then! And so it was, with only the most mild and moderate growth in the matter for the longest time, for the first ten to fifteen years in the community. In the meantime, though, and this is the important thing, this line was working on me in a way that was most necessary for my being able to live it in any meaningful way.

Namely this line pushed me to go into the depths of my own heart in a consistent, deep, and often very painful way for the longest time. The long work of coming to know myself, what was going on inside me, and what I needed to do and be to be healed and freed to love and serve God and neighbour. And this was what was needed—we cannot go into the hearts of other people if we have not dwelt at some depth in our own hearts, confronted to some degree at least our own darkness, brokenness, sin. And come to know that, miracle of miracles, He is with us there and has been with us there all along.

When Catherine De Hueck received the Little Mandate in the 1930s, she had already been forced deeply into her own heart of suffering and darkness by her life experience. Her painful marriage, the horrors of war, the nightmare of the revolution, exile, starvation, being a stranger in a strange land—all of this had pushed her at a very young age deeply into the depths of her own being. And it was through all of that pain and suffering that her faith, always strong, grew to its fullness.

So as a young woman in her late 30s she was well prepared to receive this word of the Lord, and in fact had been living it for some years, as hear large and loving heart was a refuge and consolation for many people already at that time.

And this is how it is in life: we have to go through the things we have to go through—it is utterly different for each person—and out of this come to be able to console others in what they are going through. We are pushed into the depths of our own hearts, meet Jesus there, and then have the capacity in this to accompany others into the depths of their own hearts so that they can meet Jesus there, too. Mostly by just listening and praying, praying and listening, occasionally offering a word of advice or two. But mostly, listening.

What I am describing is so much the daily work of a seasoned member of MH, so much what we are really doing while we are doing all the humble ordinary tasks of our daily life. In Combermere it is the hidden fabric of the place, and in our mission houses the constant work, whatever else they are doing.

And of course, 25 years later, as a priest in this community, I am simply more and more given over to my daily work being precisely here in this line of the mandate that, when I joined the apostolate, seemed to be utterly beyond me and completely irrelevant to my life and capacities. Our God is an awesome God.

The beautiful thing we learn in this is that Jesus really is with us, in our own hearts and in our efforts to love and serve others in the depths of their hearts. And that the simple act of listening to a person with profound respect, praying with them in a spirit of faith, and blessing them is powerful beyond measure. We don’t have to solve people’s problems—most people know what they are supposed to do, I have found—but the very act of listening and loving helps give people the clarity and the courage to do what it is they need to do next. It is light to our neighbours’ feet, and it is the deep work of this apostolate, a work that has benefited thousands of people over the years.

Hidden Light For The Path

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love... love... love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House

Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. We are going through the Little Mandate, the core words of the Madonna House vocation and spirit, each Tuesday here on this blog. There is a lovely tension at this point in the Mandate—be hidden, be a light. Which is it?

Of course it is both, and when you think about it, lights are in fact ‘hidden’ things. A light that is properly placed and correctly calibrated does not draw attention to itself but to what it is illuminating. In a well lit room you don’t stare at the lamps and ceiling fixtures, but at the furnishings and the people. Lights are hidden, in that they exist not for themselves but for what they light.

I have a great love for this line of the Mandate in particular (not that I don’t love the whole of it, of course). It seems to capture exactly what it is we do around here so much—certainly it makes sense of the large majority of how I spend my time.

To shine a light on your neighbour’s feet—that is, to help illuminate the next little stretch of the path so that they can walk on it more easily—to me, that is the definition of what a spiritual director does, and that happens to be more and more my primary work in MH. It’s never about having enough light to shine forth for the next hundred miles of roadway, to provide all the answers and the big picture of life, the universe, and everything (42!), but simply helping the person discern the next few steps, the next little bit of the crooked winding path of God and man in the world. 

Sometimes the path is so gnarled and tortuous all the light can do is show the way forward for the next day, sometimes there is a straight level stretch of road ahead and the light illumines quite a bit of road indeed (this is called ‘vocation discernment’).

Of course this line has a particular resonance for me and the work I do right now, but it is bigger than that. It seems to me that what shines a light for the feet of the other is authenticity, Christian witness, fidelity in little things, and personal love and hospitality. All of which is the very substance of our life in this community, and is utterly applicable to anyone’s life. We all are (or should be trying to be, anyhow) living out our faith in the small choices of our daily life—acts of service, forgiveness and kindness, prayers and humility. Nothing big and showy, pretty ordinary and even ‘blah’ most days.

But there is a quiet light shining forth from that, and it is a light on the feet of our neighbours. It is so important for all of us to take seriously the impact of our choices on those around us, and in particular of those who do not share our faith in Jesus Christ. If they see Christians wrangling and acrimonious, selfish and greedy, bitter and hateful, lazy and complacent, it doesn’t shed much light on the path for them, does it? 

But the quiet hidden light shed by people who at least strive to go through their days loving and serving, praying and being merciful—this is what has the power to convert hearts and change the world. And it has been our consistent experience in MH for over 60 years that it is this, in fact, which has the most lasting and deep effect on the many people who have passed through here over the decades.

It is not the words we speak, not the homilies the priests preach, not the good teaching or brilliant exposition of faith and moral we present, but the quiet witness of a hidden life that convinces people of the truth of the Gospel.

How To Make a Real Splash

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love... love... love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House

Be hidden. With this line of the Mandate, we come to an aspect of MH spirituality and life that sometimes annoys our friends and supporters, and even ourselves on a bad day. This call to live a hidden life is so utterly counter-cultural in the North American scene.

In North America, bigger means better, and if you want to have an effect on things, you have to make a splash. You have to market, advertise, have publicity, generate buzz. This is not new in our culture, but the Internet and social media have made democratized and universalized the phenomenon and its attendant ethos.

It’s all about going viral now. And the people who ‘count’, the ones who make a difference, are the ones who capture the spotlight and command the big speaker’s fee, the celebrities, the big names.

To all of this, MH says, basically, ‘No thanks!’ Partly it is because we just don’t believe that that’s how it works. After all, in the words of Paul Simon “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts,” and yet somehow the world doesn’t really change all that much from generation to generation. Making a big splash generates lots of noise and ripples, but does it really effect a sea change?

Meanwhile, I cannot tell you how often we get letters in MH from people basically saying the same thing: “I spent a week in your community in 1975. It has shaped my whole life, and I think about my time there and your way of life constantly.” Our life is so ordinary—in an hour’s time I will be kneeling on the floor of the chapel, waiting for Morning Prayer to start; then we have breakfast (oatmeal and yogurt… again!).

Then we go to work—today pretty much the whole community is working out at Cana Colony to get it ready for the families coming there. Lunch happens, and then Mass and supper and then various evening chores… and repeat tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day…

An ordinary, simple life revolving around love of God (prayer, worship) and love of neighbor (humble service, hospitality and friendship). And it’s not all that different in our eighteen mission houses.

It is our firm but simple belief that it is that, and not generating buzz, that changes hearts, and that it is changing hearts that changes the world. We’re not opposed, exactly, to publicity—after all, I am writing this blog, we do publish books, and just made a series of videos about our MH life. It’s just that we know that the real action of our life is not there, but in the direct and basic choices we make (or alas, don’t make) to love and serve in the duty of the moment.

Mind you, our choice to ‘be hidden’ is not exactly based on everything that I just wrote. Fundamentally, it is a matter of obedience to God. He is the one who has ‘hidden’ MH—first by planting us in the Upper Ottawa Valley which is hard to get to (harder all the time as they keep cutting down bus service to rural areas in Canada), and second by keeping us a small and humble community. We are getting vocations, thanks be to God, but it seems that our incoming vocations, balanced with the deaths of our older members and the inevitable departures from the community, are just enough to keep us at a stasis of about 200 members.

Which is enough for us to live our MH life in all its glorious hidden ordinariness, which seems then to be exactly what God wants for us. We have also all had the experience here that, even when we do get a moment in the spotlight, when there is some brief moment of ‘publicity’ that comes our way, it a) doesn’t last; and b) doesn’t really matter. God has made it clear to us that MH’s real work and real effectiveness happens when nobody is looking at us and we ourselves don’t even know what’s going on. We’re as much hidden from ourselves as from anyone else.

Oh, it’s all so gloriously counter-cultural, such a wonderful contrast to the desperate quest for fame and fortune that dominates our world today. And it is the very pattern of Christianity, of course. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Golgotha, the empty tomb—who knew about these things? The world was saved, and the world continues to be transformed, not by power but by love, and love is an affair hidden deep in the soul of the human person.