These words of comfort of our Lord in today's Gospel can well be applied to Blessed Kateri
Tikkuitha, who labored and was burdened during her very short life as a Christian in the
midst of hostility and persecution.
Her parents, her mother died when she was four years old, I believe of smallpox.
It was an outbreak that left her.
She was an orphan and also very sickly.
She barely survived the disease herself, disfigured she was because of it.
Her Christian mother prayed for her, prayed that she would be a Christian and would persevere
and find God's grace and remain pure.
And she did.
In the midst of wickedness, in the midst of hostility towards her and her eventual faith,
she remained pure.
So pure in fact that she resisted, she was a chief's daughter and had much to look forward
to in terms of prestige and wealth within her own tribe.
But she chose.
She chose rather to remain a virgin without really even knowing exactly why before she
even became a Christian.
She was set upon that way and afterwards she came to understand the beauty of Christian
virginity and begged her spiritual director to allow her to do this.
And it was very uncommon among the Indians at that time not to marry, but she was given
permission.
She actually, she's the first consecrated virgin among the Indian.
She was given permission.
She actually, she's the first consecrated virgin among the Indian.
She's the first consecrated virgin among the Native Americans in the United States
and Canada.
And she suffered for all of this.
She suffered for her Christian purity and for her faith in Jesus Christ and ultimately
had to leave her home of Arrisville.
It's now today called Arrisville and she went to Canada to live among Christian Indians,
where she could practice her faith in peace and there she died, a young woman, pure before
God and an example to the Americas of the grace that God has brought to this new world.
Kateri was living her earlier life.
She was a Christian.
She lived her life in Arrisville, New York, where previously St. Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil
and others were martyred for the faith, the great Jesuit missionaries that brought the
faith to the Americas and considered it their honor and glory, their privilege to offer
their lives for the salvation of men and mostly for the glory of God.
And that martyrdom had its fruit, we might say.
And the purity and holiness of Blessed Kateri Tikkuitha.
So we continue to pray for her final glorification at the altar of God as a saint who reminds
us of the power of God to overcome all things in the midst of darkness and persecution,
in the midst of difficulty and contradiction.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.