Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
October 31 , 2001
Scripture tapes ministry shares Gospel with blind
Local woman's effort enriches spirituality of blind, elderly
By Alwen Bledsoe
Many visually impaired Catho-lics have Kae Madden and her grandmother to thank for their daily dose of Scripture.
Some 165 subscribers receive studio-recorded tapes of the Church's daily Scripture readings through Madden's home-grown ministry, The Word Proclaimed. Most of those 165 are visually impaired or blind. When she last checked, said Madden, a third were priests and nuns.
Madden's service began in 1999 as a Christmas gift to her devout Catholic grandmother, Georgia Lawler, who had been robbed of her sight by macular degeneration. Lawler had read Scripture daily, so it was a heart-breaking loss, said Madden.
When she looked for others doing similar recordings and came up empty, Madden decided to expand her gift into a ministry.
"Kind of the don't hide your light under the bushel — that kind of a thing," she said with the gales of laughter that often erupted through the peaceful flow of her voice.
The Xavier Society for the Blind agreed to run a blurb about her service in their newsletter, and soon Madden had her first 50 subscribers. Though the one listener has expanded to 165, the tapes still bear grandma's mark. Each label still reads "Dedicated to Georgia Lawler."
"So many subscribers are in the same boat as her," said Madden. "I think it makes it personal, doing it for grandmother."
Madden sends subscribers updates about her grandmother, and many subscribers send Lawler cards, said Madden.
Madden records at a studio then writes a monthly reflection, and packages and mails the tapes out of her home — all on top of a 32-hour-a-week job as coordinator of Northglenn's Park Volunteer Services and Special Events.
Greg, her husband of 25-years, said the generosity and deep spirituality of his wife's ministry is her way of life.
Because of her protests, he no longer calls her a saint.
"But I still think it," he said.
And he still gushes eloquent about her virtues.
"She has the truest heart and spirit that I've ever met," he said. "She's that person who can be in a room and not say more than three words, but when she says those three words to you, all of the sudden all the other people in that room don't exist. She has a way of being present to people and accepting them as well."
When she talks about her faith, Madden fairly glows. She herself started doing the daily Scripture readings in the late 1980s, and is moved to tears when asked what is meaningful to her about The Word Proclaimed.
"The richness that the daily readings bring to your spirituality is just amazing," she said. "Some people have said that since they started listening that they're so amazed that the Sunday readings don't just fall out of the sky. They're a part of a progression, and so it enriches so much your Sunday liturgy if you've listened to them daily."
Fingering an almost illegible "thank you" note clearly scribbled by a visually-impaired subs-criber, she added: "There are obviously lots of people out there whose love of Scripture is so deep, and they can't read it anymore. So those days when you think, `What am I doing here?' you know there are over 100 people hearing the word of God in unity with the Church who couldn't hear it otherwise."
In addition to her visually-impaired listen-ers, said Madden, some can't get to daily Mass, are too deaf to hear the readings at Mass or just enjoy meditating on the readings prior to Mass.
"The Gospel message is the basis of who we are and what we do," she said. "I want to reinforce that for people."
To Madden, the ministry and the seemingly serendipitous opportunities it presents are the natural outgrowth of intimacy with God.
"It's about pregnancy and about being pregnant with God," she said of her faith. Contemplatively she added: "If you recognize that God is within and that you're one, then trying to bring that to birth and trying to bear fruit is an everyday thing. I can't imagine not having faith. It drives everything I do."
The latest surprising development is her first commercial recording: Joyce Rupp's "Inviting God In: Scriptural Reflections and Prayers Throughout the Year."
Looking for a way to off-set the costs of complimentary and reduced-price subscriptions for those unable to pay, she recently contacted James Adams, editor of the devotional "Living Faith" to talk about doing a recording of Rupp's writings.
"He said, `Funny, we're just going to do one right now — a brand new book. We could do audio,'" remembered a laughing Madden. With sincere passion, Madden said: "It's following the nudges. You know, they're not — Ta Da! — You don't get it in a big letter from God. You have an inclination or a nudge to do something and when you follow that, wonderful things evolve that you couldn't have imagined."
Tape subscriptions are $9.50 a month, including shipping and handling, $7 for blind and visually impaired. Reduced fees are available. Audio versions of "Inviting God In" are also available. Call Kae Madden at 303-426-5464 or toll-free at 888-203-0697.
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