M
mdgspencer
Guest
The Pity of God by Catherine Doherty - Madonna House Apostolate
Sometimes our compassion for someone is not really our own; sometimes, it is God’s. Here is one of Catherine’s many stories from the 1930s, from her first apostolate, Friendship House...
www.madonnahouse.org
"The father was a Communist and the mother a practicing Catholic. There were seven children of school age.
The father would not allow them to attend the parochial school and forbade his wife, under threat of bodily injury, to even set foot inside a church."
…
Then she went to talk to him.
“Suddenly, he became furious. Raising his axe, he shouted that he would brain me right there and then, if I mentioned God or Church once more.”
…
But then Catherine Doherty didn’t stop speaking about what he was doing to his family–furious, he lifted his axe and started for her.
“I ran. I ran as I had never run in my life.”
–But then something remarkable happened, through God.
…
Catherine Doherty, was the Canadian equivalent to Dorothy Day for her service to the poor, a Catholic speaker and author, whose cause for canonization is proceeding. She died in 1985. This is one of the stories of her life she told.
Last edited: