Catherine de hueck biography of barack

The Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty was a pioneering figure in the Catholic social justice movement, along with her friend Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker.

Raised an aristocrat in Russia, she and her family were driven into exile when the communist revolution came in 1917. Taking refuge in England, she converted to Catholicism in 1919, and from there her life took a deeply apostolic turn.

Acting on words she said she’d received from Jesus, she moved to Canada and then to America, where, beginning in the late 1930s, she founded lay-run homes for the poor and homeless in Toronto, Harlem, Chicago, and elsewhere.

During Advent, Catherine used to deliver daily talks to her coworkers. In one of these reflections, she said:

“Advent is a short season, yet it covers a long distance. It is the road of the soul from Nazareth to Bethlehem … a road into infinity, into eternity. It has a beginning, but no end. Advent is the road of the spiritual life.”

This is a beautiful idea for us as we prepare for the holy season of Advent.

Advent is a pilgrimage of the soul, an interior journey of the heart. In these four weeks, we travel, both in our liturgy and spiritually, from the annunciation at Nazareth to the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem.

We make this journey with the Virgin Mary, and as we go, we learn from her the habits of the heart that we need to welcome Jesus into our lives, to allow his life to grow within us, and to share his life with others.  

I’ve always liked the fact that Advent comes at the end of the calendar year, but marks the beginning of the new Church year.

The first Christians spoke of Jesus’ coming with great joy — as a new creation, as a bright morning star that was rising in their hearts. “Behold,” Jesus said, “I make all things new!”

Every Advent is a time to awaken our hearts from the sleep of lazy habits or indifference to our spiritual lives. It’s a time for removing roadblocks and obstacles, for

The Catholic Community at Connecticut College  November 8, 2008

Catherine de Hueck Doherty was born to an aristocratic family in Russia, barely escaped the
Revolution there and emigrated to Canada. But slowly, over the course of years, she realized God was
asking her to sell her possessions, live simply and work with the poor. She did as he asked.

Doherty (1896-1985) grew increasingly uncomfortable with her privileged life.

“[By] identifying myself with the poor and living their life, living the gospel
without compromise, loving always and remaining little, I would be hidden as
Christ was hidden in Nazareth. I considered Nazareth to be the center of my
vocation. Only by being hidden would I be a light to my neighbor’s feet in the
slums,” Doherty wrote. She believed that activism should be rooted in prayer and
that faith should be brought to every aspect of daily life. One of her key ideas
was what she called “the duty of the moment.”

Doherty wrote, “The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever
place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have
a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do
it. But you don’t just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for
both God and that child. … There is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done,
because the duty of the moment is the duty of God.”

“With God, every moment is the moment of beginning again.”

“Put your head into your heart and try to achieve a dee

Cheryl Ann Smith FAITH MAGAZINE May -June 2013

Cheryl Ann Smith, the director of Madonna House Robin hood’s Bay and a member of the Madonna house community for 32 years, gives an insight into the life and spirituality of Catherine Doherty, founder of the Madonna house movement.

Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty was a lover of Christ. Refugee, spurned wife, oft-maligned champion of the poor, holocaust of divine love, Catherine Doherty was a white martyr of the Gospel. Pioneer of the Catholic Lay Movement, forerunner of the new ecclesial communities, founder of the Madonna House Apostolate, Catherine Doherty was a prophet and poet of the Holy Spirit.

Childhood and Early Years

Who was this woman? Catherine was born in 1896 in another age, another world, the Orthodox world of pre-revolution Russia. She was born into a deeply Christian family in a society whose warp and woof was the Church. She described her childhood as idyllic, but as soon as she stepped into adulthood, innocence was shattered. Marrying her first cousin at the all-too-early age of 16 years, unhappiness broke into her heart. Only a year later, she and her husband were called into the front lines of the First World War, and she plunged into the horrors of war. But she did so with spirit and courage, and was decorated for bravery.

Both Catherine and her husband, Boris de Hueck, were born into aristocracy, and when the Russian Revolution exploded many of their family were killed. The couple fled to Finland. Catherine described hiding in the mire of pigs to escape the Red Army, only to be captured and condemned to death by slow starvation. Hovering between life and death she promised God: “If you save me from this, in some way I will offer my life to you.” The White Army rescued them, and in the spirit of divine forgiveness they refused to hand over their tormentors.

The Move to Canada and then New York

Catherine and

Editor’s note: This Lent, the Catholic Women in Business team is exploring the theme “Cultivating Virtue in the Desert.” Learn more here.

Every day, I tell myself that the moment my daughter goes down for her nap that afternoon, before I start working, I will set aside time for prayer. I tell myself that if I prioritize prayer, God will make sure everything else falls into place. I tell myself that it’s no use working (particularly in my work, which is almost entirely faith-based) if I am not grounded in prayer.

All too often, though, the second my daughter is in her crib, my mind races to all of the tasks I want or need to accomplish, and prayer doesn’t seem as important.

Sure, I pray occasionally throughout the day, and I always get in a Rosary, even if it’s in bits and pieces here and there. But I know that I need more than that. I need some time—even if it’s just a few minutes—in silence. God always finds a way to hit me over the head with a message I need to hear, but how much more fruitful would my life be if I set aside time to listen? After all, I wouldn’t have a good marriage if my husband and I didn’t make time to sit and talk with each other. Catholic Women in Business would fall apart if my co-president and I didn’t have regular check-ins.

If I truly believe that the most important relationship in my life is with Jesus, why isn’t time with him my top priority?

The Poustinia

The poustinia (literally meaning “desert”) is an Eastern Orthodox tradition in which God calls someone to live in a poustyn—a bare-bones cabin where they pray and fast, alone except for the Holy Spirit.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty was a Russian immigrant to the United States and a convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. She brought the idea of the poustinia with her to the States and to Roman Catholicism. (The cause for her canonization was opened in 2000.)

“To go into the poustinia means to listen to God,” she w