“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest … My yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matt 11: 28, 30)
These are among the most inviting and comforting words of the Lord - yet they can seem elusive to us at times.
Today, let us ask the great saint whose memory we celebrate today, Kateri Tekakwitha, for her prayer, example, and guidance, for she indeed is a great one who lived them.
She is a North American saint, perhaps lesser known outside the U.S. and Canada where she lived, but to tell the truth, she is not sufficiently treasured here either! She lived in what is now central New York State and southern Quebec soon after the arrival of Christianity here 400 years ago. Early on in the evangelization of these parts, the Lord lifted up “the Lily of the Mohawks”, a living icon of giving oneself in love to the Lord, Jesus Who has loved and searched for us.
Her mother, of the Algonquin tribe in New York, was among the earliest converts to Christ. However, the Algonquin were defeated in battle by Mohawks, the most powerful tribe among the Iroquois nation and one of the chiefs took Kateri’s mother prisoner and then made her his wife. Then, when Kateri was 6, her mother, father, and brother died in a devastating smallpox epidemic. Kateri nearly died too but survived, scared with impaired vision for the rest of her life. Kateri’s uncle took her in. She had not yet been baptized. In her teens she became ever more devout in the Christian faith of her mother but encountered great resistance in the family and tribe to her growing desire not only to become Christian but to devote herself in consecrated virginity. Finally baptized at 19, she then went on to follow in footsteps of great mystics like Rose of Lima, Theresa of Avila and her great patron Saint, Catherine of Sienna.
What is remarkable is that she knew nothing of this mystical tradition in Europe of a life of becoming a spouse of Christ! She had not had anyone to teach her about uniting herself in love with Christ in His redemption of the world. She just loved.
So, while a great mystic, there is something of a simplicity of her witness that invites us! You may not have the same vocation as a “consecrated virgin”, mystically married to Christ as was Kateri! Yet you are called to love Jesus deeply and intimately too! Kateri can help each of us to embrace the particular way the Lord calls you to give your all-in love of Him to those who need you.
The great irony: this is the yoke that is easy and the burden which is light, because you carry it with the Lord!
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