On the Cross of Rejection

Meditations--when your heart is pierced.

Rejection can hurt beyond any other state or emotion.

Rejection is a part of the journey of faith. To be rejected by friends hurts--being rejected by family even more so. This rejection is a mystery that encompasses you when you choose to follow Jesus Christ. Like him, you will experience that strange feeling of rejection by God himself, when you too cry out, "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?"

But as Catherine Doherty explains in this collection of meditations, if you want to follow Jesus, you must walk with him to a place where you will face the ultimate rejection: Christ occupied one side of the cross--you must be crucified on the other side. From its height, you will get a first glimpse of the land of love. For here, Love himself sets out on the supreme road of suffering. You will know that you must not blame anyone, and what is more, you must both bless them and pray for them, for maybe they knew not what they did.

Catherine knew rejection throughout her missionary life. Now, she shares meditations written in her poustinia and in the hustle of her life dedicated to the poor. Out of these experiences over many years came this book--which she fervently hoped would offer consolation to those experiencing the cross of rejection in their walks of faith.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty used her heritage as a Russian Christian as a matrix for responding to the needs of Christian life and work in the modern world. Her own personal pilgrimage led her to be "poor with the poor Christ" in the slums of Toronto and in Harlem; and later to the establishing of the world-wide Madonna House Apostolate. A dedicated wife and mother, Catherine was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, a best-selling author of dozens of books, a renowned national speaker, and a pioneer of social justice. Catherine Doherty's cause for canonization as a saint is now under consideration by the Catholic Church.