Her family eventually returned to Russia and in 1912, at age 15, Catherine married her cousin Baron Boris de Hueck. It wasn't a happy marriage.
At the outbreak of World War I, Catherine became a Red Cross nurse at the front where she witnessed the bloody horrors of war firsthand.
When the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, she and her husband, as members of the nobility, were under threat of imprisonment, or worse. They barely managed to escape to Finland where they nearly starved. They eventually made it to England. There Catherine was received into the Catholic Church in 1919.
Catherine and Boris emigrated to Canada where she bore their only child, a son, George. Catherine took on various jobs and finally became a travelling lecturer throughout North America. Since they were cousins and their marriage was unlawful according to the Catholic Church, their marriage was annulled. (Catherine later married Eddie Doherty, a reporter, in 1943.)
In Canada, the de Huecks were prosperous again but Catherine felt dissatisfied with her life. She was moved by the Scripture passage from Saint Mark's Gospel, "Arise, go sell all you possess, take up your cross and follow Me."
In 1932 she did give up all her possessions and for the rest of her life she worked with the poor, initially with a soup kitchen in Toronto, but eventually throughout the world with her apostolate 'Madonna House.'
Catherine died in 1985, aged 89, in Combermere, Canada. Her cause for canonization has been taken up in the Catholic Church.
I recommend visiting the website www.madonnahouse.org.
When you have an inferiority complex - and who of us hasn't - you say things like, "I just don't believe that what God made is good. Look at me, I'm a louse." Don't dare to challenge God like this. Everything he made is good, including yourself. Don't listen to that serpent who is giving you apples that look red on the outside and are full of inferiority complexes on the inside. Don't eat that apple, or else you are going to go down into a pit prepared by Satan for you for your whole life.
How can you have a wrong image of something or someone that God touched? God touched you and he created you. You passed through his mind and you were begotten. Anyone of us that passes through God's mind, anyone of us that God touched, cannot be this horrible person we think we are. No! Each one of us is beautiful - we're beautiful because he touched us.
Sometimes this is very difficult for us to accept. We look at ourselves and say, "He made us in his image, equal to himself in a manner of speaking, heir to his Son? This just can't be. He hasn't looked into my heart. He doesn't know what I'm made of!" We say those silly things because our evaluation of ourselves is very poor. We haven't looked at ourselves with the merciful, tender, compassionate eyes of God. So we walk in despair half the time. As a result, the ability to realize that God is both in our midst and in us - a realization that is the fruit of faith - fades and disappears.
This is the main reason, it seems to me, why the Father sent his Son to us, why the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us as one of us. The Father, having given us the fantastic gift of faith, wanted to help us accept this awesome gift. He sent his Son Jesus Christ so that we, unbelieving, might believe. We are like children; we need to touch.
Every human being is a mystery. The mystery of man enters into the mystery of God, and bursting forth with great joy, comes faith and understanding. When faith is there, all is clear, and a love relation with God enters into your heart. When you have faith, it is such a simple thing to accept his love, even if you do not understand why he loves you.
extract from Re-Entry Into Faith: "Courage - be not afraid!" by Catherine de Hueck Doherty.
Catherine with Pope John Paul II
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