The daily life of Nazareth transforms the random Wednesday afternoons of our lives into something beautiful for God.
In the absence of a bishop in the Diocese of Pembroke, Fr. George Ryan Holly, Diocesan Administrator, was the main celebrant for our community Mass on June 8, at which our members made or renewed their promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience. This is his homily.
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Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart (Lk 2:51).
There is universal familiarity with Catherine Doherty’s prolific correspondence and spiritual friendships among other luminaries of her day, such as Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.
While perhaps not as lofty, but no less important, are the letters of Catherine and Bishop William Joseph Smith, the fourth Bishop of this Diocese of Pembroke, because these exchanges trace the emergence of this apostolate within the heart of the Church.
The elder members of the Madonna House family will remember that Bishop Smith was a tall, imposing, and rather direct Scotsman from Glengarry County. A diligent canonist, and a banker before entering seminary, Bishop Smith was not exactly disposed to novelty, especially in ecclesial matters, and when change needed to happen, he favored a rather guarded gradualism.
Needless to say, he was not a bishop who would have intentionally set out for his diocese to be a place for a groundbreaking new ecclesial movement.
In 1947 he was a bishop of only two years, and considering timing and temperaments, Bishop Smith’s openness to the new beginnings of this apostolate could be seen as something of a miracle in and of itself. For Bishop Smith was as prudent as Catherine was passionate.
Their correspondence leaned more to the practical than the poetic, but it shows Catherine’s unfailing desire to live totally within the Church, universal and local.
Catherine’s proposals — and Bishop Smith’s precision — display an abundance of virtue, especially that of obedience, showing that the work of this apostolate has from the very beginning been rooted in communion with the Church on matters large and small.
With every meeting, every visit, every letter from Catherine for even small permissions, this man of the Church obviously saw fruits of the Holy Spirit at work and responded generously with his episcopal accompaniment by encouraging, guiding, and sometimes even correcting the foundations of this family.
One might think that the zealousness of Catherine and the vigilance of the formidable Bishop could be a recipe for contention, but instead a beautiful disposition of mutual respect and love emerged between these two souls that ultimately allowed the apostolate to be established and flourish in the Pembroke Diocese and beyond.
I have no doubt that it was Our Lady who was the glue that kept all this together. Bishop Smith had a tremendous piety for Our Lady. During his tenure, with only one exception, when establishing new churches in our diocese Bishop Smith ensured that they were all named under a title of Our Lady.
In one instance, in Petawawa, when another Father Holly asked that a new church be built because of expansion, the bishop went to great lengths to petition the Holy See for the favour of changing the patronage of the parish from St. Luke to Our Lady of Sorrows. I’m sure the apostle was obliging.
So, it comes as no surprise that Catherine’s request for the title of Our Lady of Combermere was met with ready acceptance from her bishop.
In 1960, upon the arrival of the new statue of Our Lady of Combermere, Catherine wrote to Bishop Smith, in the hope that he could come for the blessing of the statue on Foundation Day, May 17, or if that didn’t work out, on June 5, because it would be Pentecost and the Local Directors would be meeting.
But Catherine’s scheduling didn’t work. Bishop Smith replied that May 17 was not possible because he would be at a meeting of bishops in Quebec, and June 5 was out of the question because he was already committed to Confirmation at the Cathedral and graduation at the Lorrain School of Nursing. He would come June 8.
And so, this feast of June 8 was born out of sheer practicality! But isn’t it wonderful that our celebration of Our Lady of Combermere came into being not as the result of an extraordinary or supernatural event, but on a random Wednesday in June — the result of the bishop’s faithfulness to his own duty of the moment?
The daily life of Nazareth transforms the random Wednesday afternoons of our lives into something beautiful for God. That’s what Our Lady teaches us through her fiat and her faithfulness.
Sixty-four years ago today, in blessing the statue of Our Lady of Combermere, Bishop Smith prophetically said: In this very blessed part of the diocese, in this very beautiful part of the world, in this month of June, I know that, as the years go by, great graces will flow out all over this diocese, all over Canada and the U.S.A., and all over the rest of the world through Our Lady of Combermere and the great work to which these people have dedicated their lives.
During those three anxious days of searching for the Christ Child, Our Lady sought tirelessly for her Son. But Mary’s whole life was a quest for Christ, whether in Nazareth, Cana, or Calvary. Not according to her schedule but the divine will, a model and a mother for us all, leading us over and over again to purify and curb our searching in order to seek God alone.
The promises spoken before the Lord today are your own searches for Christ. While this search comes from your unique histories, languages, and homelands, it is the work of God within you, stirring up the graces of your baptism and confirmation that allow you to dedicate your lives as Mary did.
A million duties of the moment have brought you to this moment, where you rely on the tenderness of Mary’s Immaculate Heart to lead you ever deeper into love with her Son.
Not only for your own sanctification, but far beyond the chores and chanting, the poustinias and potato rows of Combermere, your promises of obedience, poverty, and chastity are gifts to the Church universal. They are gifts waiting to be given to searching souls in this world who yearn for authentic witness, spiritual freedom, and pure love.
When you feel the cross in living out these promises, let the duty of the moment sustain you. When you are at wit’s end and struggling to love a brother or sister in the family, remember that they, too, are seeking to live out the same promises as you are.
When you find it challenging to see the will of God in what is asked of you by your legitimate authority, trust that God is already arranging his will to be revealed to you at a later date. It might be in heaven, but hopefully sooner!
Walk always with confidence in the communion of the Church which encourages, guides, and sometimes corrects. Have the radical trust that God is not going to let any circumstance or duty go to waste as you live out your Little Mandate.
Upon news of Bishop Smith’s retirement in February 1971 after 26 years as Bishop of Pembroke, Catherine was able to look back and see that Madonna House had endured only because it was lived in this obedience of the Church. She wrote lovingly to Bishop Smith:
You have accepted this crazy Apostolate of ours, I at times think against the advice of many of your fellow bishops and priests. You have been such a tower of strength to me. But above all, you have always represented Christ to me, and your protection, your kindness, your paternal solicitude, your infinite charity all have come to me from the hands of Jesus Christ himself.
…You know that I have always considered you the father of my soul…The father of the soul of all our members. As long as you okayed what we were doing, I felt happy and secure, no matter what the opposition might have been.
While the Eucharistic Prayer this morning temporarily lacks a name, we already pray for the tenth Bishop of Pembroke,* who, in God’s good time will represent Christ for our diocese and this family.
Today, your new promises in this temple provide us with an opportunity to offer thanksgiving, that in the delicate thoughtfulness of God, Our Lady matched one woman and one bishop, in this mustard seed diocese, to both say yes to what God was asking of them in the establishment of this apostolate.
May the treasure of your heart be lived with passion and prudence, zeal and vigilance, with the help of Our Lady of Combermere — the Madonna of the Moment — who always takes us by the hand in our search for the Risen One who is Love.
*A few days after June 8, Fr. Holly announced the appointment of the new Bishop of the Diocese of Pembroke, Fr. Michael Brehl C.S.s.R.
Bishop William Joseph Smith of the Diocese of Pembroke blesses Our Lady of Combermere statue on June 8, 1960.
