FOR PROPHETS AND APOSTLES
But something has been troubling me lately. I cannot shake it. It is this whole idea of being a Professional Church Guy. The part that has me really afraid is not "Can I pay the bills this month" but rather, "I'm paying the bills by peddling the Gospel." I'm scared of that. Socrates thought the sophists were little more than prostitutes because they offered wisdom for money. Jesus told the Apostles in Matthew 10:8, "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give."
The first time I heard that name, I immediately fell in love with it and knew that, wife willing, my first daughter would be so called. It is unique without being crazy, and has deep traditional ties to it. My wife agreed to the name, and so our first born child, my first daughter was named Kateri.
Kateri Tekakwitha was the child of a Mohawk chief who captured his Algonquin bride in a raid. Kateri's mom had a deep spiritual life and was a Catholic. Her father kept the old ways, but both of them died when she was a young child by a small pox epidemic that ruined many in her town. She survived, but with scars all over her face and greatly diminished eye sight.
Though rejection of the Catholic French Jesuit missionaries was common by the rightfully suspicious Mohawks, Kateri was able to seek out the Jesuit instruction and become a Catholic herself. She was one of those rare people who so give themselves over to the Lord that they never stop growing and progressing in the spiritual life.
Maybe I do hate you.
Maybe forgiveness for what you have done to me is too easy for you.
