Saint of the day: Kateri Tekakwitha

Today is the memorial of St. Kateri Tekakwitha! Let's continue to pray through her intercession for all those who suffer persecution for the faith!

St. Kateri has been accorded the title of the patroness of the environment and ecology and is dear to the hearts of many Native Americans. She was born in upstate New York, near Auriesville. Both of her parents were Native Americans. Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother an Algonquin, who was raised Catholic.

In her lifetime Kateri was frequently afflicted with illness and became partially blind. In order for her to walk, she groped her way around as she walked. She was then named, Tekakwitha which literally means, “One who walks groping for her way.”

St. Kateri was baptized when she was 20 years old after being catechized by Father de Lambertville S.J. After her baptism, Kateri was considered an outcast by her tribal community. Living on her own, she professed a vow of perpetual virginity. Poor health and the effects of small pox led to her death in 1680 at the age of 24.

In 1943 Kateri was declared venerable and then in 1980 she was declared blessed by Pope John Paul II. She was canonized by Pope Benedict on October 21, 2012.  She is the first Native American to be canonized and was the patroness of the 2002 World Youth Day.

Bright Smile by Josh Ritter

Skeptics and the Claims of the Catholic Church

The following comes from The Catholic World:

In today’s world, isn’t it crazy to appeal to scoffers to consider Catholicism? Why would a rational modern man or woman in the 21^st century be attracted to what the world and its enlightened guides consider an outdated, misogynistic, anti-LGBT, anti-science cult?

Is historical momentum on the side of these scoffers? Doesn't history itself demonstrate the allegedly backwards and inhuman nature of the Catholic Church? The modern soothsayers say yes, but here are 17 reasons—hardly an exhaustive list—why the soothsayers are wrong:

1. The Church “conceived” the university, the hospital, and countless institutions to assist the world’s suffering.

2. Catholic martyrs—unlike Muslim “martyrs”—never kill, but offer their own lives as a sign of their love of God and their fellow man.

3. The Church, in obedience to its founder, conceived the concepts of universal justice, mercy, and generosity that became the moral foundation of the world’s representative democracies. Prior to this, and in much of the world today, only certain groups or classes are entitled to human and legal rights.

4. The Church survived a multi-century eradication program by the world’s Roman overlords; survived wave after wave of barbarian invaders; survived power-seeking and predatory leaders; survived nation-states that desired—and still desire—to control and manipulate it; survived atheistic Jacobins, communists, fascists, and other tyrants.

5. Unique among religious institutions, the Church treasures Revelation (Scripture), tested Tradition, and reason—all three, with renowned scholars and mystics opening all of these “windows” to the Divine.

6. The Church holds up thousands of physical phenomena and miraculous healings that no one has ever been able to explain or disprove using science alone.

7. The Church fearlessly speaks truth to power: Peter and Paul to Nero, Leo the Great to Attila, Thomas Becket to Henry II, Catherine of Sienna to Pope Gregory XI, Joan of Arc to her inquisitors, Thomas More to Henry VIII, Cardinal Kung to Mao and his successors, Lech Walesa to Jaruzelski and Poland’s Soviet overlords.

8. The Church proclaims angels that aren’t New Age fairies and devils that don’t have pointy tails and pitchforks—powerful spirits who have made definitive choices and who are engaged in the eternal destinies of human beings for good or evil.

9. Pope Francis calls the Church a field hospital for sinners. Catholics are certain that, if contrite, sins—no matter how heinous—are forgiven by a priest in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) in sacramental confession.

10. Catholics enjoy spiritual friendships with thousands of unique and powerful saints who care about their eternal fate and who can assist them in the here and now.

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

The Word’s Return: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Sunday Readings

The following comes from Scott Hahn:

Readings:
Isaiah 55:10-11 
Psalm 65:10-14

Romans 8:18-23 
Matthew 13:1-23

Today’s readings, like last week’s, ask us to meditate on Israel’s response to God’s Word—and our own. Why do some hear the word of the kingdom, yet fail to accept it as a call to conversion and faith in Jesus? That question underlies today’s Gospel, especially.

Again we see, as we did last week, that the kingdom’s mysteries are unfolded to those who open their hearts, making of them a rich soil in the which the Word can grow and bear fruit.

As we sing in today’s Psalm, in Jesus, God’s Word has visited our land, to water the stony earth of our hearts with the living waters of the Spirit (see John 7:38; Revelation 22:1).

The firstfruit of the Word is the Spirit of love and adoption poured into our hearts in baptism, making us children of God, as Paul reminds us in today’s Epistle (see Romans 5:5; 8:15-16). In this, we are made a “new creation” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), the firstfruits of a new heaven and a new earth (see 2 Peter 3:13).

Since the first humans rejected God’s Word, creation has been enslaved to futility (seeGenesis 3:17-19; 5:29). But God’s Word does not go forth only to return to Him void, as we hear in today’s First Reading.

His Word awaits our response. We must show ourselves to be children of that Word. We must allow that Word to accomplish God’s will in our lives. As Jesus warns today, we must take care lest the devil steal it away or lest it be choked by worldly concerns.

In the Eucharist, the Word gives himself to us as bread to eat. He does so that we might be made fertile, yielding fruits of holiness.

And we await the crowning of the year, the great harvest of the Lord’s Day (see Mark 4:29;2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 1:10)—when His Word will have achieved the end for which it was sent.

Sport

Fr. Longenecker: The Vocations Crisis is Over

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

When I say this is a prophecy I don’t want to suggest that I have had some sort of supernatural vision. This is not a prophecy in that sense, but a prophecy because prophets not only sometimes have supernatural revelations, but they are people who are also able to see the big picture, understand the times and circumstances and know the past so they can therefore predict the future.

So here is my prediction: the vocations crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States is over.

Here’s why: Fifty years after the revolution of the Second Vatican Council we are moving on from the tensions it created. Those tensions existed because Catholics kept comparing the pre-Vatican II church to the post-Vatican II church. The ones who did this most were the folks who went through the Vatican II revolution. The Vatican II modern Catholics–for their whole life–could not help but compare the “new” church to the “old” church. Everything was viewed through that lens. A pope, bishop, priest or theologian was therefore either “conservative” and “pre Vatican 2″ and trying to turn the clock back or they were “liberal” in favor of the “Spirit of Vatican 2″ and progressive.

To be blunt, those people are old. Not only are they dying out, but their ideas are dying out. Their places are being taken by a younger generation of Catholics who do not remember the Vatican 2 wars. The old folks would like to brand the young Catholics as “conservatives” or “traditionalists” or even “arch conservatives”. Some of them are, burt most of them are not. They are young. They’re smart and they simply want to be Catholic. They’re not buying into the whole liberal agenda, but most of them also don’t care that much for the traditionalist agenda.

These are the young people who are filing traditional religious orders with young vocations. These are the young men who are going to seminary, and the reason their numbers will continue to grow is because of several other factors.

First, cultural Catholicism in America is dying. People aren’t Catholic now because they’re Irish or Italian or Polish. They’re Catholic because they believe the Catholic faith. While cultural Catholicism continues to die out committed Catholicism will continue to rise. Cultural catholicism doesn’t produce vocations. Committed Catholicism does.

Second, faith is always stronger under fire. At this time American Catholicism is in too many places fat, lazy and complacent. The American culture, however, is moving very rapidly to an aggressively atheistic stance. The Catholic Church will increasingly be in the firing line over a whole range of moral, political and financial issues. As it becomes difficult and dangerous to be Catholic the complacent and comfortable Catholics will quietly slip away. They are doing so already.

Read the rest here.