So, I hadn't known that there was going to be mass this morning, but it is the 25 of November, St. Catherine of Alexandria's feast day. This is significant because I am in St. Catherine's (of Alexandria, not Sienna) parish.
I arrived during the homily about the time Father Michael was asking what gave St. Catherine the courage to confront philosophers and teachers of her day. The answer was her faith in God. He reminded us of the importance of being built in Jesus Christ as our foundation. Reminded us from St. Paul's epistles that in Christ we can do anything, in the context of living faithfully and confronting trials and vexations. He also brought in the early reading from Maccabees I which told of Antiochus sorrowful recognition that much of the ill that had befallen him was because his persecution of God's people, the Jews. Father Michael pointed out that it did not say he repented. When we repent, there is a turning away from past sin or error to something else. There is a change in direction. We can be sorry all our lives, but to repent takes more. He reminded us of the abundant grace God gives in the sacrament of confession to not continue in sin and even "to avoid the near occasion of sin."
God is so gracious. He even includes us in his work, like a gracious father who lets untrained and often clumsy little ones help on important tasks so that they can learn and grow and work alongside their father.
Father also reminded us during the course of the mass of a pious tradition concerning St. Catherine, that she would always come to the aid of those who asked. He also reminded us that, being under her specific patronage, we were at the top of the list. He encouraged us to take stuff to her for her to pray for us in our daily lives and in stuff dealing with the parish. She will intercede. The saints who have gone on before, that great cloud of witnesses, are eager to help and encourage us in the faith. This is what it means to believe in "the communion of saints."
When I got back out to the car, the cd, unbidden began to play "Hey, brother," and I opened my mouth in wonder at how appropriate to thinking of the communion of the saints. I could see them in the instrumental bridges, great martyrs and holy servants of God, preaching the word, being thrown to lions, chained, St. Jeremiah being left in that well, St. Joan with her banner leading the soldiers, St. Joan being burned at the stake, St. Stephen seeing the heavens open and "one like the son of man seated at the right hand of God, Stephen being stoned, St. Catherine confronting the philosophers, and many others trekking through wildernesses, witnessing miracles. I almost cried at, "What if I'm far from home?
Oh, brother, I will hear you call.
What if I lose it all?
Oh, sister, I will help you out."
Isn't that what the saints would say? "Let me pray for you. If you are far from home, brother, God still is near; call. If you lose everything, are you still in Jesus? Let me pray for you, that if you find nothing else, you find yourself in him."
"And if the sky comes falling down, for you there's nothing in this world I wouldn't do."
