Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha

Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, in Rome this Sunday.

 And here in Utah, a celebration out in the Uintas — Sunday, Oct. 21, 11 a.m. at Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Mission, #1, 14 Duchesne County Road, Ft. Duchesne. Reception to follow at Saint Helen Catholic Church, 433 East 2nd North, Roosevelt. Blessed Kateri was born in 1656 in an Mohawk tribe.

She was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Tagaskouita, a Roman Catholic Algonquin who had been adopted into the tribe after capture. Ten years before, three Jesuit missionaries had been murdered in the Mohawk Valley (they were canonized in 1930). Nevertheless, a Catholic mission to the Mohawk Indians was started.

 When Kateri turned 18, Father Jacques de Lamberville arrived to take charge of the mission in her village. Despite his misgivings, her uncle allowed her to be baptized as long as she remained in the village. Following her Baptism, Kateri lived a pious and faith-filled life, spending hours in prayer and fashioning crosses out of twigs. She also refused to marry, believing that she was married to God and that no man could take God’s place in her heart. Her beliefs were met with ridicule, hostility and threats. Thus, two years after her Baptism, she fled to St. Francis Xavier Mission, a Christian Mohawk village in Kahnawake, Quebec. There, she received her first Communion on Christmas Day 1677. She also made a vow of perpetual virginity on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1679. In Kahnawake, Kateri was known for her faith and holiness. She taught prayers to children, cared for the elderly and the sick, and would often attend mass at sunrise and sunset. Kateri’s health deteriorated in the last years of her life. She died of tuberculosis on April 17, 1680, shortly before her 24th birthday, and was buried at St. Francis Xavier Mission. Her final words were: “Jesos Konoronkwa” (“Jesus, I love you”).

Year of Faith website

The Vatican has created a special website for the Year of Faith,

http://www.annusfidei.va/content/novaevangelizatio/en.html

which is a convenient site for links to many resources for the new evangelization. Check out, for example, the 'We Believe' tab which has links to major Church documents and the 'News' tab has current presentations, e.g. from the Synod of Bishops.

2012, The Year of Faith

The text of Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic letter announcing the Year of Faith can be found
at the Vatican website:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20111011_porta-fidei_en.html

Here's section 11 from that letter:

11. In order to arrive at a systematic knowledge of the content of the faith, all can find in theCatechism of the Catholic Church a precious and indispensable tool. It is one of the most important fruits of the Second Vatican Council. In the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, signed, not by accident, on the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Blessed John Paul II wrote: “this catechism will make a very important contribution to that work of renewing the whole life of the Church ... I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith.”

It is in this sense that that the Year of Faith will have to see a concerted effort to rediscover and study the fundamental content of the faith that receives its systematic and organic synthesis in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here, in fact, we see the wealth of teaching that the Church has received, safeguarded and proposed in her two thousand years of history. From Sacred Scripture to the Fathers of the Church, from theological masters to the saints across the centuries, the Catechism provides a permanent record of the many ways in which the Church has meditated on the faith and made progress in doctrine so as to offer certitude to believers in their lives of faith.

In its very structure, the Catechism of the Catholic Church follows the development of the faith right up to the great themes of daily life. On page after page, we find that what is presented here is no theory, but an encounter with a Person who lives within the Church. The profession of faith is followed by an account of sacramental life, in which Christ is present, operative and continues to build his Church. Without the liturgy and the sacraments, the profession of faith would lack efficacy, because it would lack the grace which supports Christian witness. By the same criterion, the teaching of the Catechism on the moral life acquires its full meaning if placed in relationship with faith, liturgy and prayer.