14 July 2018
Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
St. Kateri Tekakwitha was born in present day New York state in 1656 to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother who gave to her a sense of the living God. She converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of nineteen, when she was renamed Kateri and baptized in honor of Saint Catherine of Siena. Refusing to marry, she left her village, and, to escape persecution, she took refuge in Saint Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal. Living a simple life, Kateri remained faithful to her love for Jesus, to daily prayer, and to daily Mass.
At her canonization at Saint Peter’s Basilica on October 21, 2012, Pope Benedict said in his homily, “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America! May God bless the first nations!”
Kateri’s response to the Gospel message is the work of grace. Only with the help of God’s grace are we able to be like Kateri and to give our entire lives to serve, reverence, and praise God, as St. Ignatius of Loyola said in the First Principle and Foundation. In your prayers today, reflect on the grace from God that you need the most right now. Speak to God and ask Him directly to grant the grace that you need.