+(Intro) Today we celebrate the holiness of St Kateri Tekakwitha, born in 1656. Most of her family died of smallpox and she herself was left scarred from the disease. Her faith remained strong amid persecution against it. Let us admit of any failures in our following of the Lord Jesus…
(After the gospel) We have Jesus reproaching the town of Chorazin and Bethsaida for he had worked most of his mighty deeds in these towns and they had not repented. In the life of our saint of today, Kateri Tekakwitha, she also experienced a similar rejection among her own people. Baptized at age 19 she was renamed Catherine after St Catherine of Siena.
Some of her own Mohawk tribe opposed her conversion and accused her of sorcery. Threatening to kill her, she fled the village, traveling 200 miles to StFrancis Xavier, a Christian mission in Sault St-Louis near Montreal and joined the community there. She lived a very ascetic life and died at the young age of 24. Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980, was then canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 12th 2012. . She has become the patron saint of ecology, the environment.
Isa 7:1-9; Matt 11:20-24