Open the door to your heart

Margaret-Mary Woods is the co-founder of the Zion RC Community in San Fernando. In this edition of God @ Work, she talks to Associate Editor Simone Delochan about her call to lay ecclesial life and the charism of the Community.

Can you give us a little about your background?

I’m Margaret-Mary Woods, the eldest of five children. I grew up with my mother, father, grandmother, uncles, and aunts, a big family in San Fernando on Gordon Street. I was baptised, made First Communion, Confirmation, all at Our Lady of Perpetual Help on the Promenade. I went to St Joseph’s Convent. In my kindergarten years, it was at a private school just close to us. Then I stayed home for about a year, had private lessons, and then I went to St Joseph’s Convent. All my years, it was right here in San Fernando, all my church years, right at Our Lady of Perpetual Help on Harris Promenade.

I was involved, when I left school, in the CYO (Catholic Youth Organisation) and the church choir. Later on, I got involved as a Eucharistic Minister. Even before then was the Charismatic Renewal, then the Zion RC  household. I’m one of the founders of Zion RC Community.

I went to primary school, I went to St Joseph’s Convent, but I was not, say, no bright star thing. I used to feel very, very, very insecure. I am an albino, right? That was a lot of pain in my life, but my home was my refuge. At nighttime, and when I’m crying, my mother didn’t know what to do with me because I’m not talking. But my mother always taught me, just talk to Jesus. Just talk to Jesus. When I was at Convent, I would go to the chapel and pray and cry. If I couldn’t go to chapel, I’d go to the church. I brought a lot of my pain, my suffering, to Jesus. When I came into Community, I realised that I have something different, not just a parent, but who I am.

Zion Community is over 45 years old now. How did it get started?

After I left school, I used to do private lessons at my home. I had children under ten. Little ones. When Charismatic Renewal began, which was us attending prayer meetings here in San Fernando, I met Mary Baptiste, who is the other founder. We got involved with the prayer group at Oropouche, and Janet James at Gasparillo. Three of us came together. From Charismatic Renewal, experiencing the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we began praying, really seeking because all of us felt there was a call on our lives, and we wanted to know exactly.

We came close to the convent [joining a religious Order], more Janet and Mary, but we knew somehow it was not that. We began praying very, very closely. Night vigils, just seeking the face of God, seeking to know His will for each of our lives. All three of us, Janet, Mary, and myself, were leaders in our prayer groups. We visited each other and we did things together. We were involved very much in the Renewal and had a close relationship with [Ursula] ‘Babsie’ Bleasdell. We knew the lifestyle there.

We just felt deep within our souls that God was calling us to something deeper than just a prayer group. We began receiving the Word from scripture, and in many little, little beliefs of building God a house of prayer and caring for the poor and broken.

Now, in those early days, we had a spiritual director, Fr Jim [James] Duffy, and he guided us a lot. We had retreats with him, and when we got the Word about God, Zion, being a dwelling place, God’s dwelling place, he guided us. There were also three young men with us, but eventually, just before we came to our first commitment, they left.

We each, after about two or three years, made the first promise, in 1980. It was made here at my home. The Community began here at my home on Penco Lane. My mother, God spoke to her heart, and she opened her heart and the home to the Community. We came together and we lived here for about three years.

During that time, we first came together, those first years, it was really caring for people, the poor and the broken, not just material poor. People who were all looking well and doing good and professional but within themselves, broken, hurting, in pain. We kept faithful to the two main goals, building God a house of prayer and healing for His poor and broken.

When we made our lifetime promise, we had 13 persons who came into covenant relationship with us. We lived together on Harris Street and continued from there.

We have about 20 covenanted members, the rest are associates. They’re there in the community. We have a household. We don’t have the household as we used to be. After about ten years, we had a household of six, which included Fr John Theodore CSSp. Now, we only have a household of two. And all the other members, they live in their own homes, but they are in the Ministry with us. So it could be about 40, 50 [members altogether].

Do you have any standout memories from any of the people who passed through your doors?

Three young women. One was an alcoholic from a very broken home. She came, she stayed with us. Another one was mentally ill, and the third one had a nervous breakdown. Two of them were there with each other, and then the third one came.

The most powerful experience for me was one of them decided she would just walk away this night, about eight o’clock. Now where we lived, the police station is right there, the hospital is right there, the bar out there, about two bars, and she decided to and we went following. She wouldn’t stay with us to say walk with us. We just had to walk, follow her.

Then all of a sudden, we saw her turn back, “Okay, we could go home now.” This is nearly midnight. Then the day after, one of the police said to us, he said, “Listen, you all are some strange women. But we saw you. We saw you. We saw when you were walking”. They knew her, too. They kept an eye out for us. She would attend the hospital and there was a doctor there who, when she met us, really helped us in dealing with her. These three persons lived with us, maybe just for a year, but it was a powerful experience of learning about the human person, the needs of people. But, as I said, we had our parish priest, we had the police station, and we had the hospital [as support].

What are the consistent issues you have seen with the women you counsel and what advice do you offer women?

I found with women, they needed someone to open the door. For example, a woman would come. Now, you know this simple, humble, poor woman. She don’t mind sharing herself. What she doesn’t share is what she don’t know about herself. But other women, professionals, women who made it through life, it’s as if they need someone to help them open that door. The real person wants to come out. The real person they want to know. Some people don’t know themselves, or they see just what is on the surface or what somebody tells them about themselves.

And it’s like, I have found out that, and I think maybe it’s just because God showed me once in prayer. It’s like opening the tabernacle, that you had a key to open the tabernacle and expose Jesus.

It was like opening, giving them the encouragement. I love Psalm 139:13-14, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” That is the person God right now is asking you to reveal, to see yourself, to come into that knowledge that you’re beautiful, you’re wonderful. God, led me to a beautiful song maybe you have heard it, called ‘Designer’s Original’.

[I would tell women] Find someone who would listen to you and do not be afraid to open your heart to that person. Someone who’s wise, someone that you know has a good reputation, someone that has the Spirit of God. Yes, because it is a journey to discover yourself, you have to be able to trust the person that is going to help you.

Or sometimes I even tell people, listen, just ask God to send someone in your life or send you to someone who will be able to journey with you and help you experience the healing power of Jesus.

Because it has helped me, silent retreats over the years. I’m doing this…over 50 years, going quietly before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Okay, let’s say about 45, because I would have been going to these silent retreats at Emmaus Centre way back with Sr Rosa [Pantin SJC]. That helps a whole lot, that quiet, and that person who helped me to discover myself and see myself as a child and a beautiful child of God. So retreats and finding that spiritual director who will guide, it is necessary.