Daily Gospel Reflection

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July 14, 2023

Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha - Virgin
Mt 10:16-23
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Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.
Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.”

Reflection

Daniel Russell ’91
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Jesus’ life and ministry are so singularly profound that the importance of his Apostles’ mission is perhaps easy to overlook. Today’s Gospel and all of Matthew chapter 10 make that mission and its extraordinary sacrifices searingly clear.

Jesus hadn’t yet died nor risen when he spoke these words to the apostles, so that they couldn’t comprehend all of its meaning. But we know from later Gospels how full of fear and dread they were at Christ’s crucifixion and overcome with joy and faithfulness when he rose.

Only then were they truly empowered to act on Jesus’ instructions, ultimately leading to their suffering and deaths. Without the Apostles, Christ’s world-changing message and proof of salvation via his resurrection could not have been passed down to our generations.

From John’s Gospels to Paul’s letters to Peter founding the Catholic Church and the others spreading the word to lands far beyond Israel, where would we be were it not for the work of these remarkable fishers of men?

Today, thousands of years later, the world is a far different place. We work in jobs, raise our kids, and live our lives amid advancements unimaginable in Jesus’s time. Yet Christ’s message and his promise of eternity endure.

Let us actively believe in Christ’s message, love the Lord with all our hearts, and treat others as we want to be treated. Those are Jesus’ instructions to us.

Taken fully, and especially to those of us most fortunate, these instructions should not be easy. But they are infinitely more manageable than those Jesus and his Apostles performed. And because of them, we can believe, serve, and love until our time to enter eternity arrives.

Prayer

​​Rev. Bob Loughery, C.S.C.

God our strength, give us the courage to live our faith in a world of lies, betrayal, and hurt. Help us to seek your justice. Show your mercy and grant us your peace. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Saint of the Day

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha was a Native American who was known as the “Lily of the Mohawks" for her purity and devotion.

She was born in 1656 in what is now New York; her indigenous name is Tekakwitha. Her father was a Mohawk warrior, and her mother was an Algonquin who was captured and brought into the Mohawk tribe.

When she was four years old, both of her parents and her brother died of smallpox. Tekakwitha survived the disease, which left scars on her face and damaged her eyesight; she was adopted by her extended family. As she grew up, she would avoid social gatherings because of her scars, and sometimes wore a shawl or veil over her face.

When she was 17, Tekakwitha’s family encouraged her to marry, but she refused. Soon after that, she met a Jesuit missionary and began learning about the Catholic faith. When she was 19, she was baptized, and took the name “Catherine,” or “Kateri,” after Catherine of Siena.

Because of her faith, and her unusual reluctance to conform to traditional practices to marry, Kateri was shunned from her family and village. They ridiculed her, gave her difficult workloads, and threatened her. She left her home village to live in a Jesuit mission for Native Americans on the St. Lawrence River south of Montreal.

She continued to grow in the faith there, practicing rigorous mortifications. In 1679, Kateri formally dedicated her virginity to God, and encouraged a number of other women who felt the same calling.

When she was 24, her health faltered, in part due to her zealous fasting and harsh bodily disciplines. Kateri died during Holy Week in 1680. She is reported to have appeared to several of her friends and family after her death, telling them that she was “on her way to heaven,” and a number of cures were reported by people who appealed to her help in prayer.

St. Kateri was canonized in 2012 following a miracle in Washington State when a boy was cured of a flesh-eating bacterium through her intercession. The chapel in Welsh Family Hall is named after St. Kateri Tekakwitha, and the image and statue shown above are displayed there.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks—pray for us!