Published in the Westchester Guardian, August 2013
A Brief Review of an Unusual Path, an Unusual Women
Anyone mentioned in the writings of both Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton deserves a closer look. She was a woman in love with God, which might turn off some of our readers. Her failures, her struggles, her resilience, and of course her accomplishments – the adventure which was her life of her is worth a read. Here is a partial list of her awards:
The Cross of St. George, for bravery on the Russian Front, during World War I.
The Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, Papal medal for “exceptional and outstanding work, 1960.
The International Mark Twain Society Award
Member of the Order of Canada in 1976, for her life’s accomplishments.
Can success occur without failure, without pain, without love? The journey began in Nizhny-Novgorod, Russia, on August 15, 1896 with the birth of Catherine Kolyschkine to wealthy and deeply Christian parents, minor nobility of Czarist Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. Her path included starving as a refugee, a broken marriage, single parenthood, a witness and first-hand experience of extreme poverty, hunger, homelessness. The lives we live with its twisted paths challenges us, diverts us, compelling us to mystery and destiny, but somehow she always focused on that one Love above all loves. Through uncertainty she persisted, questioned and searched, becoming vulnerable, helpless and susceptible. She therefore was punished, threatened, chastised and failed, renewed, regrouped, failed and succeeded with true love in a desert wilderness.
Her aristocrat father, a career diplomat brought exposure to the Catholic Faith through education in Egypt. Back home, in 1910, she was admitted to a prestigious academy and two years later she married Baron Boris de Hueck; she was 15 and he was her first cousin. Their marriage was a disaster. With World War One, Baroness de Hueck become a Red Cross nurse serving on the front lines.
Escape
The Russian Revolution destroyed the world they knew and tainted her for life. (Over 20 members of her family were killed) As I see much of the suffering occurring today, she saw the Revolution the same way – as a tragic consequence of a Christian society’s failure (through political leadership) to incarnate their faith. She witnessed and protested the hypocrisy of those who professed to follow Christ, while failing to serve Him through others. Have times changed? In our own Congress are we are debating ending benefits to the least.
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Gilbert K. Chesterton.
She reached England, through Finland as refugees in 1919, labored and struggled. By 1921, she was living in Canada, entered the Roman Catholic Church and became a mother to her only child, George. Again, she struggled with her husband ailing until discovered for speaking skills. Lecturing and prosperity followed, but peace constantly elusive. The Faith and the continuous calling of “Arise-go…sell all you possess and follow Me,” haunted her until she did just that while providing for her son.
The great depression fueled the pro-Communist’s flames. The Catholic Church saw its members drifting to the charities and benefits offered by the Communists’ grass root movements. Catherine de Hueck witnessed the tragedy of bigotry and problems associated with unemployed, restless, idle youth and substituted despair with the hope of Faith. With the Archbishop’s approval she moved to slums of Toronto in 1934, selling all her possessions – to live a hidden lay apostolate life.
Friendship House, Failure and a Journey in Harlem.
Friendship House began with begging for everything and sharing. As membership grew, they lectured, taught classes and set up a newspaper to combat communism. Her interracial ideas of justice and equality were considered too drastic, too radical; she was ironically labeled a communist sympathizer. It was forced to close in 1936. Not being content, she spent a year in Europe, studying, observing the group, Catholic Action, learning from her mistakes and their success.
Again wanting to challenge the terrible strife of hunger, unemployment, idleness and despondency combined and fueled with racial ignorance, looking to bring Catholic Faith to the masses she went to the one place where both existed – Harlem 1938. With an invite by Fr. John Lafarge S.J. and assistance from Cardinal Hayes and Cardinal Spellman, the House prospered. Again, there were classes on faith and education, a newspaper, a free library. Other Friendship Houses opened throughout the country.
Depending on the individual, through failure, success may come. And failure occurred again. With an unlikely marriage to Chicago newspaper reporter, Eddie Doherty in1943 and voting differences with the staff over items she considered important to the apostolate, she resigned in 1947 as Director General.
Unexpected Beginnings, Again.
Through hindsight, the hand of providence can be seen at work. Through two failed Friendship Houses, no place to call home, a new stage was beginning, unplanned, unforeseen in the small town of Combermere, Ontario, Canada. Intending to retire but with the desire reach out to her neighbors, Mrs. Doherty applied her nursing and other skills, established the newspaper, Restoration, and a lay apostolate training center. February 1951, saw the sacred act of consecration to Jesus through Mary and a marriage vow of chastity. In a world based and imbedded to the physical and material, another promise, another effort without hypocrisy, without compromise, to be a living gospel.
Again, people, came to volunteer. Further vows of poverty, chastity and obedience on April 1954, led to a spiritual foundation of the home that still serves today – Madonna House. Again, they begged for what was needed, gave what they could to the poor. By the year 2000, 15 years after her death, stood a staff of 200, over 125 associate priests, deacons, bishops and 22 field houses from the Americas to Europe, the West Indies and Africa. However, her Christian faith and outreach extended far beyond Houses serving the poor.
Out of her paths and trials came the book, Poustinia, the greatest of all her works. A Russian word meaning desert was the great spiritual meditation she left us. It is “a place to meet God in silence, solitude and prayer.” Here we are invited to leave the world and enter the chamber of our hearts where ever our bodies may be in the midst of this life – from the supermarket to the gas station – and have our souls bloom in this prayerful simplicity.
The printed word has an impact beyond generational divides. Mrs. Doherty’s words are in hundreds of articles and over 30 books. Why has our culture not revere such a writer concerned with that very inner core of any and every individual? Can the works, ideas be obsolete? Or is it that our culture does not have room, nor time for deep thought. Or is it that were are so addicted , deeply encumbered with the mass of noise which distracts us from true reality, like me who a lot of times feels the need/desire to fuel one of my Achilles’ heels – the television and imprinting images on the brain.
Would the book and practice of Poustinia have been possible with the failures faced in the Friendships Houses? Could Madonna House have been possible without these failures? Maybe failure is not the catastrophe, the end of all but a stepping stone to the next endeavor? It may all depend on faith, endurance, resilience of the individual and those around them.
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Glenn Slaby Blog