Two Young Saintly People

As I sat in the Church of San Agustin during a celebration of the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha this past November, 2012, I couldn't help but think of one of the other six people just canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church, Pedro Calungsod.  The two new saints had much in common.

Calungsod was a teenager (probably 17) from the Visayan Islands of the central Philippine islands.  He joined a Jesuit missionary who went from there to Guam in 1668.  A few years later both he and his Jesuit leader suffered martyrdom for their faith.  A recent photo article in the Philippine-American VIA Times Newsmagazine, May of 2013, focused on the "enshrinement" of Calungsod at a parish church in Chicago, where there is a large Filipino population.  It was the kind of joyous celebration that Filipinos love.  Calungsod was celebrated as a model "of our youth," as the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago said in his message.

I was hearing that same message in the ceremony at San Augustin in the Isleta Pueblo.  Kateri Tekakwitha was martyred for her faith at the age of 24 in the Colony of New York, when the English ruled the colonies.  She had become a Catholic at the age of 20, influenced by the example of some Jesuit missionaries.  She refused to give up her new religion and marry.  She has been known as the Lily of the Mohawks for this reason.  In his homily about her, the Archbishop of Santa Fe held her up as an example to all young people for her commitment and courage.  The Archbishop had chosen the 400-year-old Church of San Agustin in the Isleta Pueblo as New Mexico's official Shrine of Kateri Tekikwith, the first Native American saint.  The church was filled with Native Americans of all ages. 

I was, by the way, present at the enshrinement of Kateri Tekakwitha at the invitation of a friend, a Norbertine priest named Joel Garner.  Father Joel had just become Abbot Joel of the Norbertines in Albuquerque where they serve Hispanics as well as Native Americans.  I am fortunate to travel quite a bit.  Perhaps if I stayed put more I would be more regular with my blog entries, but I would have less to write about.