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I think of my first visit to Madonna House as a cross-cultural experience. The depth of gospel living that I encountered piqued my interest. It was unlike any other Christian community I had experienced. If you had asked me what I was looking for, I would have said something neutral: “Oh, I’m curious about Catholicism.” This was true, but not as relevant as I thought.
I was not aware of the deep hunger in my heart for an experience of God’s mercy. God, in his tenderness for me, led me to Madonna House to encounter that hunger in my own heart. It was a place to begin to learn of my need to receive his mercy and eventually learn to offer this to others. Nothing could have been more foreign to me at that time in my life.
I was struggling to make sense of the suffering I had experienced as a child and teen, many experiences of a lack of mercy when I was grieving and in pain. I felt this absence of mercy, most acutely, in my relationships with spiritual authority figures.
My experiences told me I could not be safe and vulnerable. I experienced a lot of rejection. These experiences influenced my understanding of God. I doubted his goodness and his love for me. As a teen and young adult, my faith was overshadowed with despair, but God protected me from being overcome.
A couple weeks into my first visit, I had an experience of God’s mercy that changed my life. Very gently and reverently, God opened the wounds in my heart through the humility of a Madonna House priest. It was a simple exchange, but for me, it was deeply foreign.
I was sitting in the dining room and a priest approached me to ask what I was reading. We talked briefly; he made a judgment about my choice of spiritual reading. I withdrew from the conversation.
The next morning, about 12 hours later, he apologized. “I’m sorry, that was unkind of me.” A very simple apology, but it had great impact. Such a small offense, such a prompt apology, from a priest! It made an opening in my heart. It was so unexpected. I knew then that I was encountering a vision of gospel living I had not experienced before.
I went to Madonna House at the suggestion of a friend. I didn’t know much about the place. I had read a little of Catherine Doherty, a short biography of her that was part of the introduction to a book on women mystics.
A year prior, I had had a brief tour of Madonna House on the way home from a retreat in Arnprior. The beauty and peace of Our Lady of the Woods Chapel had stayed with me.
When I arrived, in October, my intention was to stay for three weeks. I was not a Catholic; it was an adventure for me. I decided to just be open to experimenting. I was so open many staff and guests didn’t realize I wasn’t Catholic! After the encounter in the dining room, I asked to stay week-to-week. I knew God had something for me here.
Through community life, prayer, spiritual direction and Scripture, I began a process of healing, especially of my image of God. It was a steady exchange: my anger for God’s love, my judgments for his mercy. I wanted more freedom and I could see the living reality of a life of freedom in Christ all around me, in the staff and guests.
It has been a long journey; it continues today, but I started to see light and experience more freedom when I began to forgive. Ten years later, I can thank God for setting me free.
To my surprise, Our Lady became my guide in my search for God. I didn’t really have a sense of her role in the life of Christ or the Church. She was sidelined.
In December, we began to read The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander. Her meditations offered a vivid response to my question: “What do Catholics know about the Incarnation?”
I would learn that her “yes” brought us the Incarnation, gave flesh to the Word. The reality of the Incarnation was medicine for me. It treated the wound of suffering alone. Over time, God’s love healed that wound and I began to learn the truth: God is with us always; we are never alone.
On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I heard these words in the homily: “Mary had perfect trust in God. Put your trust in her. She will teach you and lead you to Jesus.” It was exactly what I wanted.
I started to get the sense that the Lord was leading me towards becoming a Catholic. It became steadily stronger. In early January, I received permission to enter the Church at Madonna House and began catechesis.
I needed help to persevere. It was a huge change of life and all this happened in less than three months. I entered the best experiment: I made my consecration to Jesus through Our Lady on the Feast of the Presentation. I entered the Church at the Easter Vigil.
My time at Madonna House opened up a piece of my history for me in a surprising way. I grew up in a Christian home, but we had no firm denominational affiliation. I had attended various churches: Mennonite, Christian Reformed, Independent Charismatic, and Lutheran. As a young adult I went to an Anglican Church and then to an Emergent Church.
I had little exposure to the idea of consecrated life in the present day, but the scriptural references to consecration and spiritual marriage were very familiar and a helpful bridge for me in understanding the Madonna House vocation.
My mom had given me a keen sense of consecration through sharing her love for the Old Testament, especially the prophets. She loved the Old Testament passages that speak of God being a husband and Father.
After my parents’ divorce, I can see that she particularly claimed these promises. It’s not every woman who decides to tell her children: “God is my husband now and he is your Father. Everything you need, you can ask him for.”
Her perspective was a great blessing to me, along with the witness of her daily, often-out-loud prayer that one of her children would be given to the Church for a life of service.
All the time I was at Madonna House, I was attracted to the vocation. It didn’t make a lot of sense. It was uncomfortable to be drawn to a vocation I was not “qualified” for since I was not yet a Catholic and then a very new Catholic.
I talked about it with my spiritual director and decided it would be sensible to put this idea of vocation aside—isn’t it enough to be preparing to enter the Church?
So I did my best to put it aside, but this did not work. One evening people were talking at dinner about staff letter #183, a letter by our foundress Catherine Doherty to her Madonna House family, a letter about Nazareth spirituality.
I read that letter over and over, and my attraction made perfect sense. The whole letter spoke to me, but this line was key: “To be a witness … means to be a living mystery, to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”
I knew I wanted God to be the center of my life, the source of my joy. I knew that the Madonna House vocation would guide me deeper into God’s heart, one day at a time.
A few weeks later, I visited Madonna House Toronto. There I met Fr. Jim Duffy. After our meal, we did the dishes together, everyone left, and it was just the two of us putting away the cutlery.
He asked me about my time at Madonna House. I talked a little bit about what had transpired. His comment was this: “Our Lady has brought you into the Catholic Church for something you could not be or do in another Church.”
This word was a confirmation for me. I asked to become an applicant, that is, to enter into formation to become a member of the community, and I made First Promises in June 2014.
Ten years after applicancy, Madonna House remains a mysterious place for me. It is a place for freedom, my spiritual home, and a place to breathe in the mercy of God.
On June 8, 2021, I made my Final Promises. After dinner that evening, I went to Catherine Doherty’s cabin to get a word from Scripture.
It was Zephaniah 3:17: The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory. He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will renew you in his love. He will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.
