Saturday, July 14, 14th Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin
Extreme left: Earliest portrait of Kateri, by a French Jesuit to whom she appeared in a vision shortly after her death.
BLESSED KATERI TEKAKWITHA (b upstate New York 1656, d near Montreal, 1680), Virgin, 'Lily of the Mohawk', first Native American 'Blessed'
Kateri was born nine years after the Jesuit saints Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf were killed by the Iroquois near their place of martyrdom. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin who was captured and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawks, the strongest of the Iroquois. At age 4, Kateri's parents and brother died in a smallpox epidemic which also left her near-blind and disfigured with scars. Adopted by her uncle who succeeded her father as chief, Kateri had contact with Jesuit fathers who, under a French peace treaty with the native Americans, were allowed to be present in villages with Christian natives. At 19 she was baptized. But it meant she was thereafter treated by her tribe like a slave. As she grew in holiness, so did their persecution. On the advice of a priest, she escaped one night and walked 200 miles to a Christian village near Montreal. There, she lived the few remaining years of her life dedicated to prayer, penance, and care for the sick and aged. She also took a vow of virginity. She died in 1680 at age 24. Her first biographer, a Jesuit priest, wrote in 1696 that Kateri's scars vanished at the time of her death revealing a woman of immense beauty; that many sick persons who attended her funeral were healed on that day; and that she appeared to two different individuals in the weeks following her death. A move towards her canonization began in 1884. She was declared Venerable in 1943 and beatified in 1980. In 2011, a miracle was reported which was 'certified' earlier this year, which leads to her canonization in October as the first native American saint.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071412.cfm
No Vatican bulletins today other than the appointment of an auxiliary bishop for Edmonton, Canada.
This item belongs to yesterday's posts, but it was a most irregul;ar 'work day' for me on the Forum:
One year ago...
On July 13, the Irish government released the full text of what came to be known as 'the Cloyne report'
which triggered a summer furor of renewed but far more vicious and relentless attacks in the media
against the Pope and the Church, over results that had long been known (publication of the full text was
delayed until a court case involving one of the accused priests was out of the way) but the way Ireland
= and most of MSM - reacted, one would have thought it was the first time the world had ever heard of
sexual abuses committed by priests against minors. One week later, the Irish Prime Minister would
deliver a thoroughly scurrilous attack against the Pope and the Church, including a few flat-out false
statements about the Pope. It gave MSM something to run with during the summer news doldrums, and
indeed, they ran with it full steam ahead for about three weeks though it seemed like an eternity then.
It wasn't that MSM had found something new to occupy itself with - they just ran out of things
to say that had not already been said again and again. And three weeks later, there was WYD Madrid
and suddenly, Benedict XVI was once again 'Benedict, superstar' in the eyes of the media, for a few
days, at least.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/07/2012 18:22]