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COMMUNITY PROFILE
 Madonna House, Roanoke: Lay apostolate celebrates 30 years
By Jean Denton
of The Catholic Virginian
Six blocks west of downtown Roanoke sits a house of “prayer and listening,” Madonna House.
A place of calm amid city life, the Catholic lay apostolate has been there for 30 years, yet many local Catholics still ask what it is.
It is a house of prayer and listening.
“We are mostly a ministry of presence,” explained Roanoke’s Madonna House director Patricia Lawton. “We are here to receive people seeking encouragement in their lives.”
The house in Roanoke is part of an international Madonna House apostolate that has 18 field houses — five in the United States. The community of about 200 members also has houses in Russia, Belgium, Ghana, the West Indies, England and Canada.
Unlike most retreat houses that have structured group programs, Madonna House is a place for individuals to stop for a quiet conversation over tea with an interested listener, or find an hour or two of solace in prayer and reflection.
Some come for an overnight personal retreat. The community’s express intention is to live the Gospel and evangelize through their everyday lives and serve in “hospitality and availability.”
Explaining that the Madonna House mission is steeped in the dignity of the person, Ms. Lawton noted that in receiving visitors, staff members don’t ask questions about career status or social involvement.
“We are very respectful of receiving you as a person, based on our strong conviction that a loving God exists, he is real and is within all of us,” she said.
“When people come in to talk one on one, they are usually not looking for formal spiritual direction. When they come, we stop and listen, we take an interest in who they are,” she added.
 On May 31 Our Lady of Nazareth Church in Roanoke hosted an anniversary celebration of Madonna House’s 30 years of presence and spiritual encouragement in the community. The reception was held after the 11:30 Mass in Our Lady of Nazareth’s fellowship hall.
Founded in 1947 by Russian immigrant Catherine Doherty, the apostolate has its training center and headquarters in Combermere in rural Ontario, Canada.
Ms. Lawton noted that the field houses vary in size from two to a dozen members with some of the larger houses providing community soup kitchens.
Currently the Roanoke house has only two permanent staff members, Ms. Lawton, who has been there for 10 years, and Margarita Guerrero, recently arrived from Texas. They expect a third member to be assigned there soon.
The women at Madonna House are not nuns. In fact, Madonna House members, Ms. Lawton explained, are “consecrated laity” that fit the church’s criteria for an “ecclesial community.” Members include both consecrated lay women and consecrated lay men as well as a few ordained priests,” she added.
Some houses have both men and women and their apostolic life is to live, work, study and pray as brothers and sisters together in community. They are dedicated to offering to God humble daily tasks in prayer, what Ms. Lawton called “the sacrament of the present moment.”
“We say about our community that we live a life of Nazareth, reflecting Jesus’ hidden years (before his public ministry), living here as any family would,” Ms. Lawton said.
“One thing we want to communicate to people is the incredible value they are to the church in the world in their faithful commitment to daily family life,” she added.
Like religious orders, Madonna House members make promises of poverty, chastity and obedience and do not marry. They go through a two-year formation process, then progress from first year “working guest” through two years as a “staff worker” to final promises and lifetime membership after seven more years.
Ms. Lawton pointed out that Madonna House doesn’t come into a community unless invited by the bishop, and Bishop Walter F. Sullivan invited them to Roanoke in 1979 “to be a visible prayer presence, especially in this part of the diocese where there isn’t access to a religious convent.”
 At the time, OLN parish had just moved to its new church from the site on Campbell Avenue where Madonna House now sits. The house had been a convent for the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth who taught at the parish school there. Madonna House now shares that diocesan-owned property with RAM (Roanoke Area Ministries) House, a day shelter and soup kitchen for the poor and homeless, St. Francis House food pantry and its newest next-door neighbor Refugee and Immigration Services.
The women of Madonna House come to know many of the agencies’ clients simply as neighbors as they speak with them regularly during the day.
Ms. Lawton noted that sharing the grounds with organizations that serve the neediest people of the community is appropriate to Madonna House’s mission of presence.
“There is a tangible presence of God in this house,” she pointed out, “because the Blessed Sacrament is here in our chapel. So for people walking by on their way to RAM House, the real presence of Jesus is right here — and it affects them even though they may not know it.”
Madonna House also offers itself as a spiritual resource to all the Catholic churches of the Roanoke and New River valleys. Members “quietly” make themselves known to parishes and parishioners by rotating among all the churches in attending weekend Masses.
They are available to parish groups such as RCIA and Confirmation classes and enjoy being invited to give spiritual talks as requested on a variety of topics.
Priests from the local parishes take turns celebrating Mass at Madonna House at 8:30 a.m. on the first and last Saturdays of each month. There’s a potluck breakfast afterward.
Attendance ranges from a dozen to 40 people. The house also hosts an open house on Easter and Christmas every year.
First drawn by the Saturday morning liturgies, several local families have felt blessed by long, lasting friendships with Madonna House.
Karen Surat said that years ago she and husband, Deacon Eric Surat, brought their pre-school children for Mass as a family outing. They had gone at the urging of friends Deacon Nick and Ginny Mammi who for some time had been bringing their young children for Mass and fellowship.
“There was such a sense of hospitality and peace,” Ms. Surat recalled. “They were very welcoming to children of that young age.
“We were glad that here we could expose the kids to fellowship with people who want to lead a life of prayer — people who were not clerics. And the women devoted to that way of life were a wonderful model for our girls.”
Both families, along with others, have continued that relationship even as their children grew to college age and adulthood.
 “Also during 30 years we’ve established a relationship with many benefactors, all individuals which is what we want - personal relationship,” Ms. Lawton said.
The diocese provides the house and maintenance plus health insurance for Madonna House staff members. But for everything else — utilities, gas for the car, food and clothing — “we live on donations,” she explained, saying that contributions fully provide for their needs.
“It’s uncanny, but it shows that God is looking after us,” she said.
In any given week five to 30 individuals may visit Madonna House.
Particularly popular during Lent is the “poustinia” (the Russian word means “desert”), a private, 24-hour retreat of silence, prayer and fasting, a tradition of the Madonna House’s foundress’ native Russia.
Madonna House provides a room, bread and drink for individuals who come for poustinia. Members also are available to talk before and after a person’s retreat.
“The idea is to bring God into the desert of the marketplace — into the middle of everyday life,” Ms. Lawton explained. Madonna House is closed to visitors every Monday when staff members make their own weekly poustinia.
Visitors usually call ahead, especially to arrange a poustinia, but Ms. Lawton emphasized that walk-ins always are welcome.
While the house generally is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, she noted, “We live here, so if people need to come in the evening, that’s okay, we’re here to receive them.”
“We live a deep Gospel life,” she said, “but we are not perfect people.
“Catherine Doherty encouraged us to follow the words of Pope Pius X when he said we must be about ‘restoring all things to Christ,’ and we begin first with ourselves.
“We represent Christ and the Gospel here, but it’s not about ourselves. It’s like God said ‘go to Roanoke and be there, and I’ll do the rest.’”
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Copyright © 2009 The Catholic Virginian Press. Articles from Catholic News Services, including Fr. Dietzen’s column, may not be reproduced due to copyright considerations.
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