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This wonderful piece of Eastern spirituality was written by the late Servant of God, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, in 1974. Catherine was a humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard, as she worked diligently in the arena of social justice in both Canada and the United States, which lead to the founding of the first Friendship House Apostolate, which later transformed into the Madonna House Apostolate, currently located in Combermere, Ontario, Canada. Catherine Doherty was a woman on fire with the love of God, and held nothing back in her pursuit of holiness, and in her efforts to assist others along that path. She was a woman of boundless wealth at the ripe young age of 15, as she married Baron Boris de Hueck in her native land of Russia. After surviving the Communist persecution and the revolution of 1917, Catherine and Baron de Hueck escaped to England, where she was introduced to the profound truths of Roman Catholicism, after being raised as a Russian Orthodox, and later converted.
In 1920, Catherine and her husband arrived in Canada virtually penniless, and with a baby son to care for. Unfortunately, the Baron’s health suffered greatly after the war, and would later depart from this life only to leave Catherine to fend for herself and her young child. During this time of trial, Catherine served as a maid, a laundress, a waitress, a salesclerk, and therefore became well-acquainted with many people in North America through working with the poor in Montreal, Toronto, and New York. Soon enough Catherine acquired a proficiency in the arena of public speaking and later became an executive of a lecture bureau. Once again she had reclaimed all the wealth she had previously lost, since arriving in North America; she was living the American Dream. However, it wasn’t soon enough that the words of Christ in the gospel would come to torment her: “Go sell all you possess, and give it to the poor, and come, follow me.” At this point in her life, and with all the success she had secured for herself, surely this idea of selling all of her possessions was pure madness. But the words would simply not go away. Finally, in 1930, after a year of discerning God’s call with her spiritual director, Archbishop Neil McNeil of Toronto, and paying for her son’s education she realized that indeed she had a vocation to live and serve amongst the poor. Catherine thus sold all of her possessions and went to live and serve the poor in Toronto during the Great Depression. Catherine served the poor as only she knew Christ would have her do – simply, quietly, humbly, becoming their friend. In many ways she became the Mother Teresa of North America. Her personality was inevitably contagious for some, and her boldness would “[scandalize] others, and, after a few years, misunderstanding and calumny drove her out of Toronto” (Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer, 9). Catherine, nonetheless, strove along with her dear friend, Dorothy Day, to take the social teachings of the Catholic Church out text books, and insert them into the hearts of the men and women around her. Unfortunately, for Catherine, her first attempt at establishing a Friendship House proved to be unsuccessful.
In 1943, after her first husband had long since passed away, Catherine married Eddie Doherty, a well-renowned journalist. In 1947, Catherine and Eddie took one of the Friendship House staff to Combermere – northeast of Toronto – where the Bishop of Pembroke invited her to continue her apostolate. Upon arriving at the small village, something tugged at the Doherty’s hearts, and somehow they knew this was where they would continue to live out their service to the Lord. Eventually, the apostolate, now called Madonna House, gradually grew and took root in the hearts of the lay men, women, and priests who came to visit. Many left, but more stayed. In 1955, Catherine and Eddie took vows of celibacy and Eddie was ordained a priest of the Melkite Rite in 1969, as the Madonna House community decided to establish itself more formally as an apostolate of the Church, though keeping with its lay character.
After a stroll one day through the Canadian countryside Catherine happened on a large barn that in some way revived in her a childhood memory of the poustinia. Poustinia is a Russian word for “desert” or “hermit” (poustinik/poustinikki). Here then is where the concept of this book takes flight. Though Catherine was now a Catholic, her Russian spirituality was never really completely eradicated. Throughout this book Catherine attempts to introduce to the Western man the notion of a poustinia. Essentially, a poustinia is a place of silence, solitude and prayer, where man goes to listen to the silent voice of God and experience His presence. A poustinia is more precisely a physically isolated location such as a cabin in the woods, yet its meaning can be stretched to describe that interior place – the inner sanctuary – where the soul ventures inward, into the “desert,” and there encounters the living Christ who comes to him in the silence. This particular concept was something that intrigued me personally about this book, not because it had introduced something new to my understanding of the spiritual life, but rather it reminded me of the need for an openness of heart, as well as the demand for creating a silence in the life of a Christian pilgrim. Now, what exactly I mean by the “need for an openness of heart,” should be understood as a need for a greater capacity to listen to the still voice of God and clear the mind from thoughts of one’s daily life, which can often times inhibit and stifle one’s spiritual growth. In order to further open one’s heart there must be a folding of the intellect, for one does not approach God through reason simply, but the wings of faith assist in bringing the Christian closer to the face of God. In order to accomplish this, it is imperative that one enter into silence. By this I do not mean a silence from worldly noises, as we inevitably cannot escape for very long anyways, but rather the silence of that interior room where Our Lord says that, “your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt. 6:4). In a chapter called The Western Poustinik (a person entering or making a poustinia), Catherine draws a very good point in saying that the Western man, unlike the more contemplative spirituality of the East, thrives on being “productive.” If he’s not producing or actively doing something, he’s doing nothing. Its as though the West has lost the hunger “for the silence of God, this passivity of the silent soul” (Poustinia, 64). Without this “passivity” of soul we cannot be good listeners, and therefore we cannot experience a genuine encounter with the living God, who is silent and speaks to us in silence. I believe Catherine summarizes it best in the following sentence:
In the gospel of the Passion we see how Christ is silent before the authorities. Imagine, God is silent! He asks for nothing, and he gives himself (ibid., 69).
It is the silence and the sacrifice of the Cross that spells out the “essence of the poustinik” (ibid., 69), or what is required to enter the “poustinia of the heart” – the inner sanctuary. God calls every poustinik to a life of total purgation, total self-emptying. Finally, then, the greatest contribution that one can make to His Majesty is oneself – totally and completely empty and naked before the Lord. An act of simple presence is sufficient, and thus necessary in order for God to perform the same miracle as He did in the life of St. Paul. To put it in Catherine’s words, “If you want to see what a “contribution” really is, look at the Man on the cross…When you are hanging on a cross you can’t do anything because you are crucified” (ibid., 69). St. Paul illustrates this image for us in his letter to the Galations: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This silence, however, is not something that happens immediately without practice, as our thoughts tend to overcomplicate our ability to return to our more primitive state of existence, a more contemplative spirituality.
So far I’ve spoken on the need for cultivating silence, and until now I have mentioned nothing about prayer. What can we expect to do once we’ve cultivated this silence in us? We must pray. If silence teaches you anything, it will teach you to pray, perhaps in a way unlike what you’re accustomed to. As Christians we know that prayer is the way in which we communicate and enter into union with God, but we often convince ourselves that we don’t have time to pray. Where then has been your place of prayer? Have you not interiorized your prayer? Have you enthroned Christ at the center of your heart? Have you left the formality of prayers printed in a book and ventured inward? If we are meant to be temples of the Holy Trinity, then where else should our prayer take place? The greatest thing about this ability to gaze inward is that no words are needed. As two lovers look into one another’s eyes, the intensity of their love eventually becomes far too great for words. Such is the union with God through prayer. As St. Paul urges us, we must pray unceasingly, “there should be no break in our prayer” (ibid., 74). Why should our hearts become detached from God when we leave church and enter back into our daily routines? When you are truly in love with someone, it ought to be as though the face of the beloved is always before you. “When you drive, when you type, when you are taking out insurance, and so on.” In some way, the lover is able to “encompass these two realities, the face of the beloved and whatever we happen to be doing” (ibid., 74). Love is not divided, but wholly one in everything.
Unfortunately, its here now that I choose to stop discussing the book, and where now I encourage you to pick it up for yourself. The words of Catherine Doherty are truly penetrating and will clearly resonate within you. It might even make you wonder what you’ve been doing with your time lately, especially when making the poor excuse that you “don’t have time to pray.” Read this book once, and you’ll have no more excuses. With that said, I’ll leave you with an outline written by Catherine herself for the individual who sets out to enter the poustinia:
It is to be remembered that you are going to the desert for the following reasons:
To fast
To live in silence
To pray
So that you might die to yourself quicker, so that Christ might grow in you faster.
So that you might give Him to the world faster too…this world that is so hungry for him.
To atone for your sins and those of others
To pray for mankind
To pray for peace
To pray for the missions and unity among Christians in the Catholic Church
To become saints faster (i.e., lovers of Christ in truth and in deed)
To imitate Christ
To save your soul and that of others
To learn total surrender to God quicker
We have made Christ wait long enough.
Come Awake! 