Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Born in 1656 in that part of the American Continent which is today the State of New York, her parents were native Indians.  Her father, an Iroquois, was pagan; her mother, an Algonquin, was a devote Christian.  When she was four years old, Catherine lost her parents and her only brother to an epidemic of smallpox.  She too contracted the disease and, although she survived, her face was left severely pockmarked.

Finding a home in the family of her uncle, a chief of the tribe of Agniers, more commonly known as the Mohawks, she was brought up in that tribe.  While living among the Mohawks, she received instruction in the faith and was baptized in 1676 by Father Jacques de Lamberville, one of the devoted Jesuit missionaries committed to the evangelization of the Indians.  After becoming a Christian, Catherine soon became a model of youthful piety.

Unfortunately, she was a target of harassment and persecution at home because of her faith and her determination to live in virginity.  On the advice of the missionaries, who thought she should move to friendlier surroundings, she came to live among the fervent Christian Indians of the settlement known as the Mission of St. Francis Xavier, near present-day Montreal.  Here she made great progress in a short time along the road of holiness.  And here she died on 17 April 1680, widely known and esteemed by all as a saint.  Her last words: “Jesus, I love you”.

This young Iroquois woman, whose life was sustained by her Christian faith and by an ardent love of Jesus present in the Eucharist, found in Jesus Christ the strength to withstand the hostile pressure of the non-Christian culture in which she lived and to keep with heroic fidelity the vow of virginity which she pronounced on 25 March 1679.

(excerpted from the liturgical libretto of the canonization liturgy of 21 October 2012)

St. Marianne Cope

In 1862, Barbara Cope entered the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse and took the name Marianne.  Apart from engaging in teaching, she founded and administered two hospitals in Utica and Syracuse.  In 1877, she was elected superior general.  In that position, she bravely heeded the plea of the king of the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii), already turned down by several congregations, to send sisters who would care for his suffering people.

Initially, Mother Marianne only intended to help the six volunteer sisters to settle down in the mission.  Deeply touched by the plight of those with Hansen’s Disease (then known as leprosy), she chose instead to remain with them.  She first ministered to the residents of “Leper Hospital” in Honolulu for five years and then at the isolated Kalaupapa Peninsula for thrity years.  In her freely chosen exile, Mo. Marianne provided a safe, loving home for the social outcasts.  She collaborated in the work of St. Damian De Veuster and continued his ministry after he died in 1889.

With deep maternal concern, Mo. Marianne promised her sisters that none of them would contract leprosy from their patients and none have to this day.

Mo. Marianne died in Kalaupapa on 9 August 1918 and was buried among the people she so loved.  In 2004, her remains were moved to the Motherhouse chapel in Syracuse.  The “Mother of Outcasts” was beatified on 14 May 2005.

(excerpted from the liturgical libretto of the canonization liturgy of 21 October 2012)

 

Unfortunately, some of us who are divorced and/or separatedeven widowedmight hear these readings this weekend and walk away with a great pain.  Thus, I’ve got to take this opportunity to comfort each one of us when we hear Christ’s stinging words this morning; so that we hear His challenge and His invitation.

We heard in our first reading the painful reality of the first man: he was alone, without a suitable helpmate.  Even given all the other creatures God had made, this one man found no companion, no remedy to his isolation.  And clearly, this made sense, did it not?

Even God himself is a communion of persons, is He not?  The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in constant, loving, life-giving relationship.  And because man is made in God’s image and likeness, he too is destined for such relationships of self-giving and receiving.  And so he mustby his very natureovercome his isolation and alone-ness.  God sees this and responds: by taking this first man and making woman from his very being, the man begins what will be the human project for all of time: from his isolation he reaches outward to share himself with another; to give from his very life in order that another may have life.  And from his so doing, God is then able to replicate, to duplicate, to propagate His own life of love and relationship in humankind.

It’s only from this understanding that we can now hear Christ’s words for what they truly are: a challenge and an invitation.  In condemning divorce, Christ upholds the divine value in giving oneself and receiving anothers self most completely and in the virtue of love: a love that knows no bounds, no end.

So, what is the invitation?  To give of oneself so completely to another that we actually mirror the divine love shared within the Trinity.  As the Father and Spirit give the Son to us, they share everything of themselves so that the Son can share everything of Himself for our sake.  As the Son awaits new lifeas He sleeps in death (remember He descended into death for 3 days)it is the Father and the Spirit who raise Him to new life in the resurrection.  They fully give and fully receive each other in their unity, in their friendship, in their life and in their love.  That’s our vocation as well: simply do everything you can to uphold such a beautiful life.  Yours may not be perfect, but it can be perfected: do everything in your power to live in love and live in God.

So, what’s the challenge?  Isn’t it built into the invitation?  Isn’t it true that such a love is difficult, is painful, is sometimes “less than rewarding”?  The challenge then, is to keep at it.  For it is in the determination, in the grit, in the growing out of despair, out of loneliness, out of turmoil that such a love is perfected and reborn.

May God be gracious to each of us this day and in the week to come: may he strengthen you who are married; may he console those who are widowed; and may He encourage and be compassionate to those who are separated or divorced.  Only in His life is found our true calling…and His life is filled to overflowing with love, mercy, compassion and peace.