To pray in poustinia
It was during the years of 1976-78, when the book, Poustinia was just becoming known that I encountered the Madonna House on Parent St. in Ottawa.
Arlene, the director, urged me to make a “poustinia.” I had perused the book briefly, reading sections here and there. I certainly knew about the need to pray. But “No!” A day in a small room on the third floor of a city building right next to a busy street and stop light was no place for me.
“Arlene, I would just go stir-crazy in a small room for 24 hours. I need to be out walking in the woods at a fast pace to pray for that long.” Finally, I agreed to try it.
Around 5 p.m. I arrived at Madonna House. Arlene or Doreen gave me a bag of bread they had baked, showed me the room and an electric pot to make tea. I looked around at the simple chair and desk and hard small bed, took time to read Scripture and to pray, and then laid down to sleep. All was well.
Around 7 a.m. I awoke to the sound of banging and crashing above my head! What was going on? Looking out the window, I saw pieces of roofing being tossed to the ground and workmen on the ground as well. The roofers had finally arrived to put a new roof on the flat-roofed building.
There was a knock on my door and Arlene apologizing for the noise and asking if I wanted to come downstairs where it would be a little quieter. I stubbornly refused. I had come for a poustinia in the city, even when I hadn’t wanted to, and I was going to stay put. So that is the way it was.
I ate my bread and drank tea (which I didn’t like), tried to pray and read Scripture and stay calm. Finally, late in the afternoon, the workmen went away and soon it was time to leave.
Before I left, I prayed, asking God what I was to learn from the day. I have never forgotten the answer I received in my heart. It was simply this, “Silence is of the heart, not the ears.”
Then came the time of making a poustinia in Combermere when I was a guest. I spent much of my first day walking deep into the woods! Soon I was going to poustinia on a regular weekly basis. The bread, tea, and a hard bed remained constant factors. But here I could be in a little log cabin amid the silence of the surrounding trees and grass.
In poustinia, I struggled to discern what seemed to be a call to enter the Roman Catholic Church. How could God be calling me to leave my beloved Mennonite Church where I had been born, raised, educated, and committed to serve? How could I leave a Church where I had encountered the Holy Trinity and the Christian faith so profoundly?
Later came more praying and discerning about a vocation to Madonna House. The small log cabin with its little stove and hard bed continued to be a place of spiritual struggle and intense listening for that inner, small voice of God’s directions.
I made my promises of poverty, chastity and obedience with real confidence as a continuing call from God to follow him. My first assignment as a member of MH was to “La Casa,” our apostolate in Winslow, Arizona. Again, I continued to make weekly poustinias.
Then I came back to Madonna House Combermere and weekly poustinias in a log cabin. My favorite time was when it was -20 degrees and snowing and blowing. I could get a good fire going and enjoy the rigors of winter.
In 1993 I went with Marie Javora and Miriam Stulberg to Magadan, Russia. Our three-room apartment didn’t have room for a poustinia.
We tried taking poustinia days in an old hotel where men stayed as well. I spent my last poustinia day there with my bed propped against the door because of drunken men in the hallway, and one trying to open the door.
Then we were able to get a one-room apartment to use as a poustinia.We called It “Padre Pio.” This weekly poustinia was surrounded by the noise of daily life in the building complex of 50 apartments, with 15 of them on our stairwell.
Sometimes it was quiet, with only ordinary living noise, but many times one was acutely aware of family discord, loud music, drunken behavior, distressed pets, and misplaced passions. Here again it was the call to pray that kept us faithful to our weekly poustinia days.
It became very evident to us that to pray in poustinia didn’t depend on having the right environment of quiet and solitude. What it depended on was the cry in our own hearts to seek the God of Mercy for all that was happening around us.
