Robert_Wild_-_Catherine_Doherty_Servant_of_God

achievement—and probably the hardest. Christ came to
give us the power to live in love together. This is the sign
that something new is happening in the world. This is the
great sacrament. The Holy Family in Nazareth was the
perfect reflection of the Trinity on earth. The Trinity and
Nazareth—these are the two basic models for our life
together.
Our houses outside of North America, however, are
not simply North American transplants. We take some of
our Combermere traditions with us (which often include
customs from other traditions; for example, Our Lady of
Guadalupe). But Catherine’s charism of striving for “East
and West” unity does not simply mean an interiorizing of
“Catholic” and “Orthodox” elements, generally understood.
This charism, at its heart, is an appreciation for the
traditions and cultural expressions of the whole Church,
world-wide. Every country to which we are invited has its
own saints, its own culture, its own treasures. We try to
learn from other Catholic cultures, and reflect them in our
houses. This is important.
Catherine said that each of our houses is simply
“another room” of Madonna House. But even in our center
in Combermere, there is a universality expressed
because the Catholic cultures of our houses flow into the
center. Our liturgical customs, for example, come from a
variety of countries and traditions.
“To Restore All Things In Christ” means making our
Catholic heritage come alive once more. We are open to
the best of new expressions of Catholicism in the modern
world. But so many of our ancient treasures are lying dormant
in our books, in our history, in our museums. As the
Lord said, “A good householder draws forth from his
treasury things both old and new.”
Many well-intentioned young people today are cut off
from, and therefore ignorant of, any deep spiritual tradition.
Peter Berger, the American sociologist of religion,
called it, in a book by that title, the heretical imperative.
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