Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 07-14-05, Memorial, Blsd. Kateri Tekakwitha

July 14, 2005
Memorial of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, virgin

Psalm: Thursday 31

Reading I
Ex 3:13-20

Moses, hearing the voice of the LORD from the burning bush, said to him,
"When I go to the children of Israel and say to them,
‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,'
if they ask me, ‘What is his name?' what am I to tell them?"
God replied, "I am who am."
Then he added, "This is what you shall tell the children of Israel:
I AM sent me to you."

God spoke further to Moses, "Thus shall you say to the children of Israel:
The LORD, the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you.

"This is my name forever;
this my title for all generations.

"Go and assemble the elders of Israel, and tell them:
The LORD, the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
has appeared to me and said:
I am concerned about you
and about the way you are being treated in Egypt;
so I have decided to lead you up out of the misery of Egypt
into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites,
Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites,
a land flowing with milk and honey.

"Thus they will heed your message.
Then you and the elders of Israel
shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him:
"The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent us word.
Permit us, then, to go a three-days' journey in the desert,
that we may offer sacrifice to the LORD, our God.

"Yet I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go
unless he is forced.
I will stretch out my hand, therefore,
and smite Egypt by doing all kinds of wondrous deeds there.
After that he will send you away."

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 105:1 and 5, 8-9, 24-25, 26-27

R. (8a) The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name;
make known among the nations his deeds.
Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought,
his portents, and the judgments he has uttered.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He remembers forever his covenant
which he made binding for a thousand generations–
Which he entered into with Abraham
and by his oath to Isaac.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He greatly increased his people
and made them stronger than their foes,
Whose hearts he changed, so that they hated his people,
and dealt deceitfully with his servants.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He sent Moses his servant;
Aaron, whom he had chosen.
They wrought his signs among them,
and wonders in the land of Ham.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Gospel
Mt 11:28-30

Jesus said:
"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

From: Exodus 3:13-20

The Divine Name is Revealed

---------------------------

[3] Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to

them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What

is his name?' what shall I say to them?" [4] God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I

AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to

you.'" [5] God said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'The Lord,

the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of

Jacob, has sent me to you': this is my name forever and thus I am to be

remembered throughout all generations.

The Mission of Moses

--------------------

[16] Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, 'The Lord

the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has

appeared to me, saying, "I have observed you and what has been done to you

in Egypt; [17] and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction

of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the

Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and

honey." [18] And they will hearken to your voice; and you and the elders of

Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The Lord, the God of

the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, we pray you, let us go a three days'

joumey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.' [19]

I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a

mighty hand. [20] So I will stretch my hand and smite Egypt with all the

wonders which I will do it; after that he will let you go."

***********************************************************************

Commentary:

3:13-15. Moses now raises another difficulty: he does not know the name of

the God who is commissioning him. This gives rise to the revelation of the

name "Yahweh" and the explanation of what it means--"I am who I am".

According to the tradition recorded in Genesis 4:26, a grandson of Adam,

Enosh, was the first to call upon the name of the Lord (Yahweh). Thus, the

biblical text is stating that a part of mankind knew the true God, whose

name was revealed to Moses in this solemn way (Ex 35:15 and 6:2). The

patriarchs invoked God under other names, to do with the divine attributes,

such as the Almighty ("El-Shaddai": Gen 17:1; Ex 6:2-3). Other proper names

of God which appear in very ancient documents lead one to think that the

name Yahweh had been known from along time back. The revelation of the

divine name is important in salvation history because by that name God will

be invoked over the course of the centuries.

All kinds of suggestions have been put forward as to the meaning of Yahweh;

not all are mutually exclusive. Here are some of the main ones: a) God is

giving an evasive answer here because he does not want those in ancient times,

contaminated as they were by magic rites, to think that because they knew

name they would have power over the god. According to this theory, "I am who

I am" would be equivalent to "I am whom you cannot know". "I am unnameable".

This solution stresses the transcendence of God. b) What God is revealing is

his nature--that he is subsistent being; in which case "I am who I am means

I am he who exists "per sibi", absolute be-ing. The divine name refers to

what he is by essence; it refers to him whose essence it is to be. God is

saying that he "is", and he is giving the name by which he is to be called.

This explanation is often to be found in Christian interpretation. c) On the

basis of the fact Yahweh is a causative form of the ancient Hebrew verb

"hwh" (to be), God revealing himself as "he who causes to be", the creator,

not so much in the fullest sense of the word (as creator of the universe) but

above all the creator of the present situation--the one who gives the people

its being and who always stays with it. Thus, calling upon Yahweh will

always remind the good Israelite of his reason-for-being, as an individual

and as a member of a chosen people.

None of these explanations is entirely satisfactory. "This divine name is

mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and

something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as

what he is--infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is

the 'hidden God' (Is 45:15), his name is ineffable, and he is the God who

makes himself close to men (cf. Judg 1.3:18)" ("Catechism of the Catholic

Church", 206).

At a later time, around the 4th century BC, out of reverence for the name of

Yahweh the use of the word was avoided; when it occurred in the sacred text

it was read as "Adonai", my Lord. In the Greek version it is translated as

"Kyrios" and in the Latin as "Dominus". "It is under this title that the

divinity of Jesus will be acclaimed: 'Jesus is Lord'" (ibid., 209). The RSV

always renders "Yahweh" as "the Lord". The medieval form Jehovah was the

result of a misreading of the Hebrew text into which vowels were inserted by

the Massoretes; it is simply a mistake and there is no justification for the

use of "Jehovah" nowadays (cf. ibid., 446).

3:16-22. The Lord comes back again to the subject of Moses' mission; despite

all the obstacles, it will be a success. "The elders of Israel" (v. 16),

that is, the chiefs of clans, representing the whole community, will be

happy to hear what Moses has to say. The words "I have observed you" (v. 16:

literally, "I. have carried out an inspection among you") are significant

because they indicate the key thing--God's is a friendly presence; but it is

also a demanding presence which expects an account of the use we made of

gifts received (cf. 32:34; Jer 9:24; Hos 4:14). The three days' journey (v.

18) would not take them to Sinai but it was enough to get them away from

Egypt. Later, three days will become a number symbolizing divine action. See

the note on 6:10-13.

The pharaoh, unlike the elders, will refuse to let the people go-making it

clearer that the Israelites will attain their freedom only if God comes to

their rescue.

The "despoiling" of the Egyptians (v. 22) is by way of compensation for the

years they have spent with nothing to show for it (cf. Gen 15:14; Wis 10:17)

and also as a sort of booty of war (cf. Ex 11:2-3; 12:35-36): God comes out

the victor in the struggle against the pharaoh, and he gives the sons of

Israel a share in the booty. It may also be meant to signal festive joy: the

Israelites are to dress up to celebrate the victory God has given them.

***********************************************************************
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

From: Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus Thanks His Father (Continuation)

--------------------------------------

(At that time Jesus declared,) [28] "Come to Me, all who labor and are

heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take My yoke upon you, and

learn from Me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find

rest for your souls. [30] For My yoke is easy, and My burden is

light."

***********************************************************************

Commentary:

28-30. Our Lord calls everyone to come to Him. We all find things

difficult in one way or another. The history of souls bears out the

truth of these words of Jesus. Only the Gospel can fully satisfy the

thirst for truth and justice which sincere people feel. Only our Lord,

our Master--and those to whom He passes on His power--can soothe the

sinner by telling him, "Your sins are forgiven" (Matthew 9:2). In this

connection Pope Paul VI teaches: "Jesus says now and always, `Come to

Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' His

attitude towards us is one of invitation, knowledge and compassion;

indeed, it is one of offering, promise, friendship, goodness, remedy of

our ailments; He is our comforter; indeed, our nourishment, our bread,

giving us energy and life" ("Homily on Corpus Christi", 13 June 1974).

"Come to Me": the Master is addressing the crowds who are following

Him, "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew

9:36). The Pharisees weighed them down with an endless series of petty

regulations (cf. Acts 15:10), yet they brought no peace to their

souls. Jesus tells these people, and us, about the kind of burden He

imposes: "Any other burden oppresses and crushes you, but Christ's

actually takes weight off you. Any other burden weighs down, but

Christ's gives you wings. If you take a bird's wings away, you might

seem to be taking weight off it, but the more weight you take off, the

more you tie it down to the earth. There it is on the ground, and you

wanted to relieve it of a weight; give it back the weight of its wings

and you will see how it flies" (St. Augustine, "Sermon" 126).

"All you who go about tormented, afflicted and burdened with the burden

of your cares and desires, go forth from them, come to Me and I will

refresh you and you shall find for your souls the rest which your

desires take from you" (St. John of the Cross, "Ascent of Mount

Carmel", Book 1, Chapter 7, 4).

Catholic Culture

Collect:
Lord God, you called the virgin, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, to shine among the native American people as an example of innocence of life. Through her intercession, may all peoples of every tribe, tongue, and nation, having been gathered into your Church, proclaim your greatness in one song of praise. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Recipes:

» Fire Baked Fish
» Mohawk Corn Bread

Activities:

less

Prayers:

less

July 14, 2005

Memorial of Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha, virgin

Old Calendar: St. Bonaventure, bishop and doctor

Kateri was born in 1656 near the town of Auriesville, New York, the daughter of a Mohawk warrior. She was baptized by Jesuit missionary Fr. Jacques de Lambertville on Easter of 1676 at the age of twenty. She devoted her life to prayer, penitential practices, and the care of the sick and aged in Caughnawaga near Montreal (where her relics are now enshrined). She incurred the hostility of her tribe because of her faith. She was devoted to the Eucharist, and to Jesus Crucified, and was called the "Lily of the Mohawks." She died in 1680 and was beatified June 22, 1980 — the first native American to be declared "Blessed. — Magnificat, July 2003

Before the reform of the General Roman Calendar in 1969 today was the feast of St. Bonaventure whose memorial is now celebrated on July 15. St. Camillus de Lellis' feast was celebrated on July 18 before 1961.

Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha
[Pronounce: Gah-deh-lee Deh-gah-quee-tah]
The blood of martyrs is the seed of saints. Nine years after the Jesuits Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf were tortured to death by Huron and Iroquois Native American nations, a baby girl was born near the place of their martyrdom, Auriesville, New York. She was to be the first person born in North America to be beatified. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin, taken captive by the Iroquois and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawk clan, the boldest and fiercest of the Five Nations. When she was four, Kateri lost her parents and little brother in a smallpox epidemic that left her disfigured and half blind. She was adopted by an uncle, who succeeded her father as chief. He hated the coming of the Blackrobes (missionaries), but could do nothing to them because a peace treaty with the French required their presence in villages with Christian captives. She was moved by the words of three Blackrobes who lodged with her uncle, but fear of him kept her from seeking instruction. She refused to marry a Mohawk man and at nineteen finally got the courage to take the step of converting. She was baptized with the name Kateri (Catherine) on Easter Sunday.

Now she would be treated as a slave. Because she would not work on Sunday, she received no food that day. Her life in grace grew rapidly. She told a missionary that she often meditated on the great dignity of being baptized. She was powerfully moved by God's love for human beings and saw the dignity of each of her people. She was always in danger, for her conversion and holy life created great opposition. On the advice of a priest, she stole away one night and began a two-hundred-mile walking journey to a Christian Native American village at Sault St. Louis, near Montreal.

For three years she grew in holiness under the direction of a priest and an older Iroquois woman, giving herself totally to God in long hours of prayer, in charity and in strenuous penance. At twenty three she took a vow of virginity, an unprecedented act for a Native American woman, whose future depended on being married. She found a place in the woods where she could pray an hour a day and was accused of meeting a man there! Her dedication to virginity was instinctive: She did not know about religious life for women until she visited Montreal. Inspired by this, she and two friends wanted to start a community, but the local priest dissuaded her. She humbly accepted an "ordinary" life. She practiced extremely severe fasting as penance for the conversion of her nation. She died the afternoon before Holy Thursday. Witnesses said that her emaciated face changed color and became like that of a healthy child. The lines of suffering, even the pockmarks, disappeared and the touch of a smile came upon her lips. She was beatified in 1980.

Saint of the Day, Leonard Foley, O.F.M.

Patron: Ecologists; ecology; environment; environmentalism; environmentalists; exiles; loss of parents; people in exile; people ridiculed for their piety; World Youth Day.

Symbols: lily (a symbol of her purity); a cross (a symbol of her love of Jesus Christ); or a turtle (a symbol of her clan).

Things to Do:

This website is dedicated solely to information regarding Blessed Kateri.
A wonderful place to make a pilgrimage is the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs. The Shrine is situated in the heartland of New York State, in the Diocese of Albany. The Shrine is the site of the America's first and only canonized Martyrs: St. Rene Goupil (1642), Jesuit brother; St. Isaac Jogues (1646), Jesuit priest; and St. John Lalande (1646), lay missioner. Here also is the birthplace of the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, born at Ossernenon in 1656, just ten years after these Martyrdoms.
Read more about Bl. Kateri in this article, The Lily and the Cross.
For even more information you may order Kateri Tekakwitha: Mohawk Maid and/or Kateri Tekakwitha, Mystic of the Wilderness from Amazon.com.

Homily of the Day

Homily of the Day

Title:	Humility is Truth
Author:	Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
Date:	Thursday, July 14, 2005

Ex 3:13-20 / Mt 11:28-30

We human beings have an uncanny knack for making simple things complicated. We go from San Francisco to Los Angeles by way of Hong Kong. We respond to simple questions with answers befitting a Philadelphia lawyer. And we stonewall a friend when a simple "I was wrong" would fix everything.

And the result of it all is a heart saddened and rarely at rest. Why do we make things so complicated? Sometimes it's plain and simple bungling. We don't even notice the question before we back into the wrong answer. But other times it's a ham-handed way of hiding from things we don't want to face. And what a long way around to a solution that is!

Jesus offers us a better and (for us 21st century technocrats) a more efficient solution: "Learn from me," he says, "for I am gentle and humble of heart."

The humble heart always faces the truth: We are dust (in Latin, humus). So there's no point in wasting time dissembling. Cut through the smoke screen, face whatever is there, as Jesus would, and respond in words and deeds of one syllable. It's remarkable what power the truth has if we own it. So face it, and simplify your life!

A Voice in the Desert

Thursday July 14, 2005 Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (Exodus 3:13-20) Gospel (St. Matthew 11:28-30)

In the first reading today, as Moses speaks to God in the burning bush, he asks the question: If the Israelites ask Your name, what am I to tell them? Whom am I to say sent me? and the Lord reveals His Holy Name to Moses. His name is Yahweh – I am who am. He said, Tell them I AM sent you. This tells us something about the very essence of God. God is. Because God is eternal, He has no beginning and He has no end.

In eternity, remember, there is not a succession of moments or even of seconds. Therefore, there is no before and there is no after; there is no future and there is no past. Everything in eternity is present always, and so eternity is constantly present. That is a concept we cannot understand because we live in time. All we can do is look back or look forward. The present lasts but an instant for us, but for God the present is always. God simply is.

This is why Saint Paul would be able to say of Jesus: He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change because He cannot change. That is a wonderful thing. It means that unlike us, who are constantly growing and changing (we learn new things and we do new things), this is not the way it is with God. God knows everything and He knows it perfectly. There is absolutely nothing lacking in God. God is absolute perfection. If there was something lacking in God, or if He changed in any way, then why worship Him? If He were imperfect, you may as well look in the mirror and worship yourself because you too are imperfect. Maybe He would be more perfect than we are, but He would still be imperfect and therefore He still would not be worthy of worship. But God is perfect. God is absolute. In God, everything exists.

Now more wonderful than all of that is that God is perfectly simple. This is why He wants us to come to Him with that childlike faith – because God is perfectly simple. So if we try to argue with God and try to convince Him and try to do all the complex things that we attempt, they do not work. First of all, we cannot change His mind because His Will is perfect. Secondly, it is by simplicity, by humility, that we draw ourselves to God and Him to us. We are not going to convince Him by any kind of rational argument because there is no convincing God since He is perfect. The truth is exceedingly simple. We need simply to strive for that simplicity.

Our Lord tells us to come to Him. We know His Holy Name. He wants us to come to Him because we are burdened. We are burdened far less by our daily work and far more by all of the things that weigh upon us. In this society that is so imbued with all of the noise and all of the sinful inclinations, all of us are burdened by it. So where do we go to find the load to be lightened, to find the help that we need? Only to the Lord. But we need to go in simplicity. We need to become like Him. That is why He tells us that we can take His yoke upon ourselves. His yoke is the Cross. Yet, at the same time, if we are willing to take up the Cross, we will find our burden lifted. We will take on His burden. But His burden is light; it is simple because it is pure and it is true and it is love. If we are willing to take His yoke upon ourselves, to carry His burden, He tells us that we will find rest, that we will find peace for our souls. There is great peace in knowing that you are doing what is right. There is great joy in being conformed to the truth.

That is what Our Lord has for us, and then, of course, the joy of eternity that follows where we will be able to glory in Him and in His Holy Name forever. We see that it is completely for us a win-win situation if we will simply allow ourselves to become like Him. He Who is Almighty is perfectly simple. That is something we need to learn, to shun all the nonsense this world tries to push at us, to stop trying to become like everyone else, and instead to become like the only one of whom it matters that we are like – and that is God. When we look at Who created us, when we look at Who sent us into this world, when we look at the vocation, the mission, which is ours and we ask ourselves, "Who sent me?" He has revealed Himself to us. He is the One Who sent us, and it is to do His work, to do His Will. We are to conform ourselves to Him so that we will become like Him. As we become like Him, we will become perfect. And in becoming perfect, we will be able to love perfectly forever.

* This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

The Word Among Us

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Meditation
Matthew 11:28-30

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

This simple invitation can bring into our minds the image of a loving father holding out his arms to us and welcoming us into his embrace. And that’s exactly what God wants to do for us. He wants to lift off everything that weighs us down, causes us to be downhearted, or separates us from him.

Remember what it felt like when you came home from school and your mother or father would take off your backpack, give you a big hug, set out a plate of cookies and milk, and ask you about your day? In a sense, that’s what Jesus is inviting us to do with him right now.

Jesus is so very gentle with us. He wants to enfold us in his love so that we feel safe enough to tell him what is in our hearts. He wants to convince us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light—because he carries it for us. Too often, we feel the need to carry our burdens ourselves and to do everything right so that Jesus and his Father will love us. But that kind of thinking is backward. Jesus’ yoke is easy because he first carried it for us when he carried the cross. He loved us enough to take our burdens. All he asks now is that we bring them to him and let him bear them with us.

Every day, we can know the grace of Jesus lightening our load if we could just spend time at his feet as Martha’s sister Mary did. She didn’t worry about all that she had to do. Her chores could wait a little while longer, and they would feel a lot less burdensome—if only she spent time with Jesus. We have a God who loves us so immensely that even if we give him just ten minutes, he will bless us a hundredfold. God is crazy about us. Nothing gives him more pleasure than to speak words of love and grace to our hearts.

“Thank you, Jesus, for loving us so much that you go out of your way to comfort us and lift our burdens. Help me to give you my heart and my burdens so that you can fill me with your inexpressible joy.”

Exodus 3:13-20; Psalm 105:1,5,8-9,24-27

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