Christianity is a religion of paradox. One God in three divine persons. Fully divine and fully human. Virgin and mother. As so it goes. In our Gospel for this evening, the Lord sets forth what is, at least existentially, Christianity's central paradox: you save your life by losing for His sake.
As to the most fundamental paradox- that of the Most Holy Trinity- what makes the three divine persons one God is love. In Greek, agape, which refers to self-giving, self-sacrificing love. Divine revelation tells us that "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16). Losing one's life for Christ's sake and that of the Gospel can only be done by and through agape, which is kenotic (see Philippians 2:5-11).
Today the Church in the United States celebrates the Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekawitha. Saint Kateri ("Kateri" being a variant of the name Catherine was her baptismal name) was a member of Mohawk tribe. Tekawitha, which apparently means she who bumps into things, is her Mohawk name.
She is known in popular Catholic piety as the Lily of the Mohawks. For Catholics, the lily is associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Being born 1656 and having died in 1680 of smallpox, Saint Kateri lived her entire life in the seventeenth century.
Saint Kateri Tekawitha, Used under a Common Use License
At age 19, Tekawitha converted to Christianity. Shortly afterwards, she took a vow of perpetual virginity. She lived the remaining nearly five years of her life in a Jesuit settlement near present-day Montreal, Canada. Along with another Native American convert- Marie Thérèse Tegaianguenta- Kateri attempted to begin a Native religious order for women. The Jesuit missionaries rejected their idea.
One of these missionary priests, a certain Father Cholonec, wrote down what Kateri said about her virginal consecration: “I have deliberated enough. For a long time, my decision on what I will do has been made. I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary, I have chosen Him for husband, and He alone will take me for wife.”
While Kateri was never formally consecrated a virgin by a bishop, the Jesuits described her in early biographies as the slightly erroneous “first Iroquois virgin,” by which they meant first Native American virgin. She is the patroness of the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins. She was declared a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Saint Kateri Tekawitha is one of four protagonists in Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers, which kind of builds on the paradox from our Gospel- you win by losing. Saint Kateri Tekawitha remains a beautiful witness to just what the Lord means in today’s Gospel as a woman, as a Native American, and as a Christian.
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