Robert_Wild_-_Catherine_Doherty_Servant_of_God

a foundress grew over a period of time, as it often did with
other founders and foundresses. In the early 1940s she
begins referring to herself as the foundress of Friendship
House; in 1970, after almost 30 years in the service of the
Lord, she began writing a series of letters to the community
of Madonna House entitled, “Letters From the
Foundress.” Shortly afterwards she wrote a Constitution,
or Way of Life. In her voluminous writings she has given
Madonna House its spirit and direction. She certainly
believed that the Lord had called her to found a new family
in the Church.
When the Lord desires to create a new community, he
speaks to someone. This brief presentation of the life of
Catherine and Madonna House will center on the theological
reality of the charism of a foundress. Charism simply
means “gift.” The Holy Spirit orders and enriches the
whole Church by his gifts and graces (Lumen Gentium,
12). He himself is the Gift of the New Testament. By his
coming at Pentecost he gave birth to the whole Church;
by his continual coming he nourishes and distributes gifts
to all its members.
A number of charisms are listed in the New Testament
(1 Cor. 12); but there are many others. Of particular interest
for our purposes is what Pope Paul VI, in Evangelica
Testificatio, called “the charisms of your founders whom
God has raised up in his Church” (11) . (Vatican II simply
spoke of the spirit of founders and foundresses.)
Sometimes attempts are made to pinpoint one special
gift of such people in order to distinguish them from other
founders and foundresses: “What is the charism of St.
Francis which distinguishes him from St. Dominic” Such
questions and distinctions have a certain validity.
However, concentrating on one particular aspect of a
founder can obscure the fact that what we are really dealing
with is a charismatic person. At the very end of his valuable
study, Foundresses, Founders, and Their Religious
Families, 1 Fr. John Lozano states what I wish to make my
11