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The Madonna House Gift Shops are open!* Everything is sorted and shining, cleaned and packaged, looking orderly and welcoming. Some who enter the shops say they have never seen such an assortment of items so beautifully displayed.
A lot of hidden work was involved, meticulous and tiring work, and this work of preparation has set me thinking about the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
For our shops are very unusual. All the merchandise has been donated. “Our Lady is the buyer,” our foundress Catherine used to say. And the proceeds are given to missions throughout the world.
There is a connection between sorting and cleaning jewelry and putting a new tin roof on a small home in Nepal. What is it? I’ll tell you!
The woman who gave the jewelry to be sold is sharing treasures she no longer wears and is thinking of the people who might benefit from them. Or perhaps she still would like to keep them but has decided to sacrifice for those in need.
The person sorting, cleaning, and pricing that jewelry is praying for whoever will receive the money from the sale. The person who buys the earrings knows the money he or she is spending will help someone else in some particular way. Is it the money from the sale of this pair of earrings that will pay or help pay for the roof on the house in Nepal?
This is an example of the Mystical Body of Christ, of people living out Christ’s command to love each other. Pure and simple, it is a giving of love to Christ in the other person.
In this way, the gift shop staff are a “divine conduit” of love between those who have what they need and those who have so little. This is an honor for us.
Our Lady joins us together in the heart of her Son, and somehow we come to know that we are brothers and sisters to everyone in the Church throughout the whole world.
Our customers, too, are part of this. Each summer, as tourists pass through our blue doors looking for just the right item, they learn that the money they spend will be given to the poor. Sometimes they in turn bring donations that can be sold, and sometimes they become our friends.
There are so many stories. I am reminded of some wooden trucks and cars that a dad made for his sons who now are quite grown up. He gave them to the shop, and here they were restored to their original beauty and sold.
Another dad bought them for his young sons who will play with them for many a year to come.
I can’t help but think that the money paid for these toys may help provide school tuition or books for a child in India or Africa. From one child to another; a treasure is passed on.
Our customers receive other blessings when they come. In addition to browsing for treasures in the main gift shop and the Small Shop, they are drawn to our pioneer museum.
This old log structure houses a fine collection of furniture and other artifacts from the local area, artifacts dating back to the nineteenth century. Then too, a favorite for many is the bookshop with its amazing selection of books ranging from rare antiques to recent publications.
We are all part of the Mystical Body of Christ, and we share together the universal call to love.
Through the shop, we are in contact with missionaries from dioceses throughout the world. And these missionaries do not receive only material help from us. For over fifty years we have been sending these missionaries in India, Africa, Europe, the Near and Far East, the West Indies, the Philippines, and South and North America Restoration, Madonna House books, and religious articles to help them in their spiritual life.
Moreover, through the personal contact we have had through the shop, we have come to know them and their suffering and to know about the people they serve.
Just this year, a bishop we know in Syria suffered the bombing of his cathedral. Another bishop in Sri Lanka lost his nephew when a church was bombed during Sunday Mass.
We can do something for them. We can pray for them. And when we sort religious medals or polish silver, we can make the connection between our everyday work and the suffering in our lives and the suffering in theirs.
One word describes all of this: compassion. Most of us here in Canada will never know the hardships of someone in Ethiopia who has to walk for miles to get a pail of water or someone in Kerala or Malawi or Mozambique who has lost his livelihood through monsoon rains.
But there is a connection: Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for Me (Mt 25:40).
Glory be to Him whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory be to Him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever. Amen (Ephesians 3:21).
*This was written in June of this year.
