This was one of those summers when we got a C- for vacation planning. June suddenly appeared and we didn’t have much of a gameplan (note to selves: next year, try to plan a little earlier).

Then there came a moment in late June. We still had nothing on the calendar, travel costs kept rising, and our energy for planning continued to plummet. So we turned to each other and said, “Let’s surrender this. Maybe God will send a sign.”

It didn’t take Him long. That very evening, we were talking with our French-Canadian sister-in-law, and vacation came up. We mentioned how we’d always wanted to make a pilgrimage to St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, the home of St. Andre Bessette.  

“I’ve got an idea!” she said. “I was just there for a girlfriends’ weekend and we stayed in my friend’s dad’s place that looks out on the Oratory. And he’s out of town all summer.” She pulled out her phone and began to text. Within a few minutes, she had secured a place for us to stay just down the hill.

Of course, we were so energized by this amazing blessing that we finally started planning. We mentioned how we’d probably make a day trip to Ottawa to visit friends as well as the Madonna House community founded by Servant of God Catherine Doherty. “No need for a day trip!” our sister said, “I have another friend in Ottawa with an unused apartment!”

A few weeks later, still in a state of disbelief, five of our family of seven set out on a road trip. We all sensed how special this trip would be. Between all the other sightseeing, two numinous destinations became the focal points of our pilgrimage.   

Madonna House, Combermere, Ontario

Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985), founder of the Madonna House Apostolate, has been part of our lives for decades. Soren has family friends who spend summers in a cabin near there, and he recalls a brief but memorable visit to Madonna House with them when he was only ten. We were only too happy to visit them again!

Ever’s past encounter with Madonna House was more significant. When she was in her twenties, her spiritual director was associated with the community, and he suggested she make a retreat there while discerning her vocation. Her time there—which included a lot of prayer, gardening, and a time of solitude in “poustinia,” a kind of hermitage—was unforgettable. And we met just a couple of weeks later in the summer of 2000.

Seconds after getting out of our car at Madonna House, we heard, “You must be the Johnsons!” Mary Lynn, a member of the community, then led us on a tour of the grounds—including Catherine Doherty’s own cabin, Our Lady of the Woods chapel, the “Little Library,” the main house, and everywhere…gorgeous flowers and gardens.

Here are three teachings of Catherine’s that have touched us over the years, and we invite you to bring them into your own prayer this week:

• “The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you.”

• “Don’t seek immense mortifications or self-sacrifice. Seek the daily mortification of doing a thing exceedingly well.”

• “Have we experienced the utter joy of scrubbing a floor? Do we know how to make it a prayer, a song of love and gladness? Have we recited the litany of dusting and sweeping whose goal is a home bedecked with cleanliness? Or are these humble tasks irritatingly monotonous to us? Do we understand the sublimity of service — humble, daily, constantly repeated?”

Doherty offers us an examination of conscience and an invitation to reenchant our home and domestic church. How often, facing our “duty of the moment,” do we turn our attention to something new and shiny, outside the pressing arena of duty?

Taking Doherty’s dictums to heart is like watching a demolition: so many of our self-styled goals do not meet the basic threshold of duty. And so, they must go. As we waved goodbye to Mary Lynn and the beautiful grounds of Madonna House, our hearts were full.

The Oratory of St. Joseph, Montreal

Just hours after leaving Ottawa, we settled in to “our condo” in Montreal with a breathtaking view of St. Joseph’s Oratory, the crowning work of St. Andre Bessette (1845-1937). It didn’t take us long to scale the steep streets of the Mount Royal neighborhood, leading up to the grand basilica.

We have long admired the story of St. Andre, a simple seminary porter whose holiness and devotion to St. Joseph grew through the years, alongside his amazing charism of physical healing, which brought, and still brings!, crowds of people from around the world. As a testament to his gift, hundreds of crutches hang just outside the crypt church, proclaiming the miracles God continues to send for his suffering people.

As we prayed in the crypt church, near his heart (yes, you can see it), and in the many chapels throughout the shrine, we could sense how the Lord was inviting us to greater faith and trust. We felt so close to the many thousands who have made a pilgrimage to the Oratory and walked away with healing and deepened faith.

We invite you to reflect on a few of St. Andre’s quotes that have spoken to us:

• “My only ambition is to serve God in the most obscure tasks.”

• “People who suffer have something to offer to God. When they succeed in enduring their suffering, that is a daily miracle.”

• “Do not seek to have these trials lifted from you. Instead, ask for the grace to bear them well.”

• “God is love and he loves us; that is the heart of the Christian faith. God gave us the commandments and it is in observing them that we show whether we love God. Pray that you may obtain a true love of God. God loves us so much. He wants us to love Him.”

Inadequate summer planners that we are, we asked God for a sign. And by His abundant grace, we were blessed with memorable days in such close proximity to Servant of God Catherine Doherty and St. Andre Bessette.

Their lives are now woven more tightly into the fabric of our own family’s pilgrimage in faith. Their witness, their generosity, and their humility seem that much closer. As Leon Bloy wrote, “The only real tragedy in life is to not become a saint.” And we are so grateful for these two witnesses for their encourgament and inspiration!