Madonna House Movie XII: Why Not Give It a Try?

Well, this will be my last blog post for a few days. The Easter Triduum I prefer to spend with a bit more quiet and prayerful reflection, so I will suspend blogging for those sacred days, and then take a bit of a break with the Easter feast. I'll probably be back to blogging the middle of next week.

So here is a video that has no discernible connection to the holy season we are entering, but wraps up our series of short films on the MH vocation. This one in particular is about the young people who are joining our apostolate and what has led them to make such a radical choice.

It is quite lovely, has lots of 'beauty shots' of our life in Combermere, and is a happy, hopeful video. The Lord is blessing us with vocations, both reasonably good quantities (eight applicants currently) and very fine quality (see for yourself!).

As I leave you with this, be assured of my prayers for all of my blog readers over the holy season - may God give you every grace of the season and a joyful, peaceful Easter.

Madonna House Movie XI - A New Vision

Well, here it is, folks - the eleventh instalment in a twelve-part series on Madonna House community that we produced last year. This one, as you can see, is on a topic somewhat dear to my heart, which is the presence and role of the priests in MH. I show up, burbling away on the subject, throughout this video, so don't know what more I can add here. This is, simply, my vocation, and this short video does a pretty good job of presenting it, all things considered.

I believe that what we are trying to live in MH--priests and laity living together in a common family life with true mutuality and equality of dignity and mission--is not just for our community but is a new vision for the whole Church, one that I have given my life for. So here it is, and I hope you enjoy it:

Madonna House Movie X: The Fire Still Burns

So I'm back from retreat with the ladies of MH Vancouver - a very fine four days at Westminster Abbey in Mission BC. Back with the blogging, and the next installment of our MH movie series.

This one is a bit unusual, reflecting on the reality that Madonna House has been around long enough that we have a large cohort of older members, and that this has shaped our apostolate very seriously in the last decade especially. Like so many people and so many families in our aging and increasingly youth-scarce world, we are confronted with the challenges of caring for the elderly, sick, and dying in our family.

Here is the video where we reflect on our experience:



It is especially poignant and beautiful that Kathy Rodman is able to reflect so deeply on  her own experience of infirmity. I am very struck watching this video in light of the current agenda of physician assisted suicide--euthanasia by another name, as far as I'm concerned--that in MH we are trying to walk another way with one another in these most serious and difficult realities of life and death.

Anyhow, we don't claim to have the 'big answer' on these questions--as I say, like everyone else we struggle to know how to best serve and love our elders and the dying. We do know that the answer is not an injection of lethal chemicals, but something more human, something more dignified than that. And this little seven minute video at least begins to talk about some of that more human approach to the matter.

Madonna House Movie IX: What You See Is Not Necessarily What It Is

Well, here we are on Thursday, and once again it is time for the MH movie of the week. This one is about our various mission houses, and I must say it is quite a gem of a short film, really giving a pretty good picture of the various works and the spirit of those works that is done, at least as much as a short film can do. Here it is:



It is kind of funny that this is the film we have reached this week on the blog, since I'm actually in one of our MH houses right now--MH Vancouver--to offer a series of missions, retreats, days of recollection to various groups over the next two weeks. I was feasting my eyes this morning on the colour green, which I have not seen for quite a few months. Vancouver is in full spring mode.

The title of this blog post is taken out of context from the film, where it refers to a very difficult situation confronting one of our houses. But it is true that our MH life, so normal, so ordinary, so seemingly unimportant to appearances, is not necessarily what it is. So much goes on in MH, just sitting around a table with people drinking a cup of tea, sharing ordinary conversation and chit chat.

There are heights and depths that happen around those tables, around those cups of tea. Love, life, hope, joy, peace--all of this flows through our days and flows to those we serve. And this little film gives a 'not bad' picture of what that looks like in our different missions. Enjoy!

Madonna House Movie VIII: What's the Program?

Well, here we are again, with the Thursday movie, number eight in a series of twelve. This one I post with a certain amount of embarrassment, I have to say. I am, basically, the narrator of this video, on the subject of how MH evangelizes.

Let's just say the Morgan Freeman will sleep well in his bed tonight. I am not threatening his position as the 'narrator in chief' of the movie industry. There is nothing quite so good for the humility as seeing and hearing yourself like that.

That being said, and speaking from a position of sheer dispassionate objectivity, this one does a pretty good job highlighting the various ways MH tries to spread the Gospel, both through media of various types, but more importantly through the one-to-one personal contacts and friendships we form in Combermere and in virtually all our mission houses. So, without further commentary (since I say everything I would want to say in the video itself), here it is:

Madonna House Movie VII: Restoring the Earth

Thursday again, and so time for another thrilling installment in the franchise of MH short films. I'm posting a bit later in the day than usual, as I had some (routine) blood work at the hospital this morning. I have found that, while I can blog when half-asleep, I cannot blog half asleep without coffee. So here we are - enjoy the show:



This is just about my favourite of all twelve of the films. For one thing, it is beautiful - tons of beauty shots of our MH farm, which is an utterly gorgeous place. Lots of shots of cows and horses, sheep and chickens, and green gardens, pastures, hills. All just lovely - we are so very blessed to be living in such a place of God's created order and grace.

But I think the film does a very good job of giving at least a sense of our whole MH approach to the question of the earth and our care for it. We were environmentalists here long before it was a fashionable stance, long before anyone had any concern about global warming or whatever they're calling it these days.

And our approach to these matters are completely unconnected, then, to the fierce debates and raging conflicts around AGW, etc. If tomorrow there is conclusive proof that the AGW is false; or if tomorrow there is conclusive proof that it is true, it will not affect in any regard how we live our life in MH.

Because here, we have always cared for the earth. Here, we have always tried to use as little as we can, and to farm in a sustainable way, to compost and recycle, reuse and make do. We live on donations--every article of clothing I am currently wearing is second-hand! We do not use herbicides, pesticides, hormones. We do use chemical fertilizer, but even the most strong advocates of organic farming have conceded to us that we need to do that to get crops off the poor marginal soil of these parts.

But beyond the specifics, the MH approach to farming and the earth is one of knowing ourselves to be in relationship with creation, to dig our hands into the soil, to pull weeds and plant vegetables. To move through the year of plowing and tilling, planting and watering, weeding and thinning, reaping and storing, and to do it all again the next year, and the one after that, and then again...

There is something that happens to you when you live close to the earth, some way of being tuned in to God and his plan for creation in the natural order that blends easily with his plans in the supernatural order. So many things fall into place, and so much of our fractured, failing humanity falls into place as well.

Well, that is enough for now - watch the video, and enjoy it. We believe in MH that we have a key here, in the way we farm and the way we live, that addresses much of the anguished questions and turmoil of our times, and is a great healing for humanity and for our poor beleaguered planet.

Madonna House Movie VI: Light From the East

It is Thursday, and so we have the sixth instalment of the Madonna House video series, the twelve short films about our apostolate that we made just this past year. Here it is, with some thoughts following:

Now, I have to say for the first time in these videos that I don't think this one quite nailed it. This is not a criticism of the film makers, really: the subject of MH and its relationship to the Eastern church is a big one, perhaps not possible to cover in a seven minute You Tube style video. Film is a necessarily visual medium--this is its great power and beauty--but I think (I may be biased in this by my own authorial avocation) that something more needs to be written about this topic.

The film covers our celebration of the Byzantine liturgy--three of our priests have bi-ritual faculties, and we have the Divine Liturgy once a month. It also touches briefly upon the presence of icons in our community, interviewing one of our iconographers, and finally touches very briefly on the presence of poustinia in the life of the community. All of these are vast and profound topics in themselves and in the context of our Roman Catholic community, and so in a seven minute video the most that can be said is 'these things exist; they are really beautiful; we really like them!'

Like I say, there's a lot more that can be said on the topic, and it's on my 'long list' of books I would like to write some day. The fact is, Catherine Doherty was Russian, to the marrow of her spiritual bones, and her entire Christian formation was that of a Russian Orthodox lay woman. She had been exposed quite a bit to Catholicism in her childhood, being educated by Catholic nuns in various boarding schools, and her father in particular was very ecumenical in his own person, being a disciple of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev who took a remarkably pro-Roman stance in his writings.

Catherine, then, upon her becoming Catholic as a young woman lived out her Roman Catholicism with a complete interior orientation towards Russian spirituality and piety. Living outside of Russia, she often felt like a stranger in a strange land, and questioned God as to why He was asking her to found a community when she always struggled to communicate her understanding of the Gospel to a Western audience.

It is a long story as to how God answered that question. Part of it was his bringing to MH Fr. (later Archbishop) Joseph Raya whose dynamic charismatic celebration of his Melkite liturgy opened the community up to the beauty of the East. In addition, she discovered, and began to read, a succession of books by Russian theologians who themselves had left Russia in the Communist era and who thus had a Western audience for their Russian presentation. Schmemann, Arseniev, and above all Paul Evdokimov gave Catherine the words to explain what she had always lived, and the 'permission' to use those words to present her deepest spiritual insights to her MH family.

And so besides poustinia, she brought forth in the last decade of her life a slew of Russian words that I believe we are still just beginning to unpack in MH: sobornost (unity); strannik (pilgrim); urodivoi (fool for Christ); and molchanie (the silence of God). All of this (and more, yet) has made MH an odd thing indeed--a Roman Catholic community beating with a Russian heart, a group of Westerners, called to be faithful to our Western traditions and ways, yet illumined by light from the East, and still, largely, striving to understand what that means precisely and how we are to live it fully and faithfully.

Madonna House Movie V - Our Lady's House

It is Thursday, and time for the next instalment in the MH film festival. This one needs little words to introduce it. Madonna House is just that, Our Lady's house, and her presence here is the silent, hidden life that shapes and nurtures everything we are and do here.
Please note that not only do I have a cameo in this video, but so does my flyaway, floppy hair. I'm also not really that short--I look like a hobbit next to Scott there. I happen to be standing right where the ground falls away. At any rate, here is this lovely video on the Woman who is behind it all:

Noteable Quotes:

"People sometimes come to the statue and begin to weep and not know why. Why are they weeping? Because there’s something very deep, beyond the rational beyond the visible that’s happening. Loved – I think they feel loved."

"She’s our example, par excellence. She’s our model, because her yes had incredible profound world-changing ramifications. Christ, God Himself, became man within her womb, just because she said yes. If you look at her life, she didn’t do extraordinary works, but that changed everything."
"O Mary, you desire so much to see Jesus loved. Since you love me, this is the favour which I ask of you: to obtain for me a great personal love of Jesus Christ. You obtain from your Son whatever you please; pray then for me, that I may never lose the grace of God, that I may increase in holiness and perfection from day to day, and that I may faithfully and nobly fulfil the great calling in life which your Divine Son has given me. By that grief which you suffered on Calvary when you beheld Jesus die on the Cross, obtain for me a happy death, that by loving Jesus and you, my mother, on earth, I may share your joy in loving and blessing the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit forever in Heaven. Amen."

Madonna House Movie IV: A Place of Life and Excitement

Once again it is Thursday on the blog, and so movie day. This is the fourth instalment of short films on MH life and spirit that we made last year. This one is one of my very favourites, since it is on that aspect of MH that initially attracted me most powerfully, namely, the spirituality of Nazareth. Here it is:

Noteable Quotes

“Sanctity is found in ordinary, everyday things. You don’t have to be extraordinary in anything. Just do what you’re supposed to do, do it well for the love of Christ and for your neighbour and your family, and you will be a great saint.”

“I’ve learned at MH that saying prayers is good… but we're rooted on the land, and there’s a lot of work to be done. It's so important to become a prayer.”

“Christ is present in every person, in every moment, in everything that we’re doing. Whether I am fully physically able, whether I am mentally challenged, whether I am chronically ill or at the point of dying, it doesn’t matter. None of that takes away my value and my worth, my dignity.”

“A lot of times we feel, ‘well, I’m not doing anything important, so what’s my purpose?’ But our purpose is to live our life fully. And for me, it’s that spirituality of ‘no matter what I do, no matter where I am, no matter who I’m with, that this moment is full of life and excitement because God has made it happen.’”

“The whole idea of Nazareth is to live a divine life or a divinized life, a life with God, a life lived in an awareness of being a creature of God, being created by God, being given this life by God in whatever you’re doing, anywhere, and it’s for everyone.”

Well, I don't have too much to add to all of that. I would say, though, that besides the wonderful words of my brothers and sisters on the deep spirit to which we have given our lives, there is also in this video a succession of truly beautiful images, footage of our living our ordinary Nazareth life, with great joy and love evident in it all. 

This is what I believe has the power to transform the world, and why I wish I could communicate the vision of MH life and spirit to every human being. I honestly believe this is the answer to so many of our questions, problems, divisions, sorrows. But... all I can do is offer it up for whoever stumbles by this blog, hoping that this little film and my little words may kindle a spark of faith and love and (who knows) bring about the bonfire of faith and love that the world needs, lest it die of the cold.

Madonna House Movie III: Family Matters

Thursday is movie day on the blog, and so here we are with part three of the twelve short films on MH we made this past year with the help of a professional film company.

This is one of my favourites of the twelve, for the simple reason that it is largely about Cana Colony, our MH outreach to families, which has operated continuously for over fifty years, and with which I have been involved for almost twenty years. Cana is a place dear to my heart filled with many treasured memories, and I know all of the couples interviewed in this video.

Without further ado, here is the video:



Notable Quotes: 
"We’ve come to other family camps, and this one’s different, because it has MH behind it."

"It’s natural that Madonna House, which has such a strong spiritual base, should minister to families."

"Way back in the 1950s, the Pope said to Catherine, don’t forget the families, because they are going to be under attack."

[MH staff] live a poverty, and it makes it OK to realize you can live a poverty as well… there’s a simple way of life that can be lived, and that happiness, that God can be found in that."

"Cana’s no easy experience when you embrace it because you usually have to clear out something that shouldn’t be in there,"

"There’s a peacefulness and a grace that comes from living this life of Nazareth that MH lives, and if we can be that safe haven and be that peace and grace of Nazareth in our families, then they can go out into the world and bring that peace and grace into society and into the world."

It is a genuinely creative decision on the part of the film makers here that, in the context of talking about MH's involvement with marriage and families, they depart from Cana to tell the story of Catherine and Eddie's marriage: the profound love they had for one another, their coming to Combermere together to what they believed would be a quiet life in the country, the beginnings of the MH community and its embrace of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and their subsequent decision to themselves embrace chastity as a sacrifice necessary for the secure foundation of the apostolate.

MH is a family, a spiritual family, and our life is so intimately connected with the kinds of things families are taken up with--small acts of humble service, the daily effort to love one another as we all share the same roof and table, forgiveness, mercy, forebearance, and a host of things that are all summed up in the commandment of Christ, to love one another as he has loved us.

Because of this, there has always been a vibrant connection between the MH vocation and life and the lives of the families who come to Cana or who live in the area. Different vocations, yes, and the differences are important, but our spirit has nurtured and nourished the lives of many hundreds of families over the years through Cana and elsewise.

All of which is to say that the Cana registration season is underway, and if all this looks interesting to you, why don't you check us out? The contact info for registration is at the bottom of the page I link to there. Come on, everybody - let's go to Cana this summer!