Celebration is a beautiful gift of humanity
From time to time, Madonna House as a community decides to have fun and offer optional screen access to a hockey, football, basketball game, etc. Watching the Olympics, for example, or the World Cup even if, as a general rule, we do not watch TV.
We may also have a fun night like our yearly Pre-Lent event, which is like a variety show, mostly humorous, in which silliness is not excluded and often even welcomed. Then again, we might offer a special beer and homemade pizza supper to cheer up the troops, or the traditional pancake supper on Shrove Tuesday.
We also — and mostly — have liturgically-centered celebrations (Christmas, Easter, St. Joseph, Annunciation, Assumption, etc.) in which we offer wine (if we have it) along with a meal as beautiful and delicious as we can make it in a dining room decorated for the occasion. While we try to lead a rather simple life, we definitely do not exclude celebration in its manifold forms.
It is not uncommon for some of our younger and beautifully zealous visitors, applicants, or even staff to struggle with what can be perceived as lack of austerity. Could this be interpreted as a lack of Christianity?
It is true that in these events there is a danger of falling into self-indulgence and frivolity. However, I have been at Madonna House for over 35 years, and for me, the beauty of this family is the trust placed in the integrity and personal responsibility of her members’ hearts, knowing that celebration is a beautiful gift of humanity and spirituality; a fundamental way of expressing love, care, joy, and gratitude.
Humanity and spirituality can be placed at odds with each other, especially when we are young in faith and understanding. I would like to suggest that Madonna House is a human community in the best spiritual sense of the word, where a rich human life is proclaimed, upheld, and celebrated. One in which humanity and spirituality are inseparable, intrinsically united.
The fact that Madonna House places such trust in the hearts of her members, leaving a ton of space, room, and respect for conscience, however risky this can be, is to me something magnificent that speaks volumes of God’s own heart.
There is such respect and honoring and non-judgment of the individual heart and person that it is an icon of God’s own respect. Something essential to our very life and possibility of flourishing.
Without this risk, true holiness could give way to a prefabricated holiness, an imposed one, an illusory one. And in the end, an oppressive, destructive one. One that robs our heart, soul, and spirit of their very breath. If God does not coerce us to holiness, Madonna House will not do so either. Like God himself, she beckons — even implores — and waits, offering the living waters of the Gospel to whoever wishes to drink.
When I was very young in this family, I made the comment one Friday evening at supper that our fasting meal was quite poor as far as fasting is concerned. I did not think it was rigorous enough. One of our elders kindly replied to my youthful enthusiasm and disappointment, “No one is keeping you from fasting more if you want to.”
This has stayed with me all these years and is a frequent reminder that I am the one responsible for living this, and my life, before God.
Madonna House places that much trust in me, and it is an awesome thing. She has no interest in thwarting or hindering anyone’s efforts towards holiness but rather celebrates them. However, she will, somehow, by her very way of life, shatter illusions of holiness.
But coming back to our more festive times, including opportunities for fun or silliness: perhaps in these events, the point is not so much to see and shun opportunities of sin so much as to see, choose, welcome, and rejoice in the Lord’s goodness and glory manifested in simply being human as he too was human and chose to be so with us.
At Cana, many might have been inebriated after Jesus multiplied the wine. And what of Our Lady being concerned with the wine rather than the possibility of people over-indulging? There is no doubt that her concern was for people and friends, for their joy and dignity. Something worth pondering a little?
Our life is not so much one of turning away from sin as of turning to and following Jesus Christ. The very gazing upon and following Jesus leads to virtue. But in just turning away from sin, there may well be a subtle and yet all too real possibility that we may forget to turn towards Christ and run to him.
We could be running to ourselves and our own illusion of perfection, our own fabrication of what is actually an idol. Turning away from sin without running to Christ might then lead to cynical and revolted despair, profound bitterness. Have you met a bitter Christian lately?
The good news is that Christ will never give up on us, even in our possibly misguided efforts. Ours is a journey to his heart, and discovering such magnificent breadth of heart can take a long while. He patiently walks with us (as does Madonna House) and will not break the bruised reed.
With regard to us well-meaning souls who are skeptical of festive occasions, one might ask: “What are we afraid of? And what kind of perfection are we aspiring to?” We may have a long journey to freedom (who does not?), and hopefully we can persevere and discover a treasure in the field.
One treasure of Madonna House is that she is not fearful of the flesh because she knows and celebrates her Incarnate Redeemer. Our life is one of loving Christ and our neighbor, who is human just as we are. It’s a life of freedom in love and the life of little ones. In our efforts and longing to love, we will inevitably contend with sin, not as sin “seeker-hunters” but as seekers of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness.
Madonna House is saying to each of her members and to all who come to live with us for a while: “I know your profound dignity and potential for holiness. I will honor and uphold this as I journey with you to Beauty, recognizing and celebrating our gift of humanity and God’s presence there.”
Is Madonna House leading me into sin or inviting me into a broader vision and experience of the life of holiness? In one of her most beloved letters to her MH family Catherine Doherty expresses: “The only thing that can hinder this community — actually destroy it — is uncharity […]
“Never mind discipline.…It will come” as we place charity at the heart and forefront of our zeal to live a beautiful and wholesome Christian, human life. For if a Christian life is not also truly and beautifully human, is it Christian at all?
Two major saints (Bernard and Augustine) offered these words to all Christians: “Love is its own reward” and “Love and do as you will.”
And so we ask, are fun and celebrating outside of love? What are we afraid of? Let us come, just as we are, to meet and live with our God.
[Photo by ©Beth Scott, Madonna House: Dining room on Assumption feast 2025]
