saint of the week

KDKA-TV used to do this thing about home town heroes.  Once, they even came to our Camp Helping Hand and showed some teens cleaning up a neighbors yard.  It was a great boost for our youth group!

Unfortuneately though, our society likes to make heroes out of sports figures not kids with rakes.  Some times the sports figures are, mostly though, they are not.  Scott (my husband for those of you who are new to saint of the week)  hates to sit next to me at Pirate games.  I do not clap when the fielder move two steps to catch a fly ball.  I think that is their job.  They are being paid millions to do it, why should I clap?  Does anyone clap for you, I ask my accoutant husband, when you balance the books?  Does anyone clap for the teachers when a student learns?  When the mail lady puts the mail in the box, do I clap?  No.  That is her job. (If she ever put a Publisher's Clearing House check in my mailbox however, I would not only clap, but I would offer to drive the truck for the remainder of her route!) 

But there are heroes among us.  My friend Ann, who was born with cerebral palsy is a hero in my book.  I don't think she has missed the March for Life in 30 years.  When she zips her wheel chair down the side walk for mass on Sunday, I am sure that she doesn't feel very hero-like.  She's never caught a fly ball or made a 3 pointer. I've been to her house.  She does not have a wall of medals. But she has it.  The it that makes her a hero.

 

Katherine Drexel had it.  Believe it or not, she is an American Saint, born here in Pennsylvania. Her feast day is this week. Most of the time, we seem to hear about heroes who were mistreated or neglected in their youth.  Katherine was not. She had a wealthy family who loved her.  She was educated.  Yet, she saw beyond her comfort to the discomfort of others.  She saw the plight of the American Indians and the Blacks.  She became a sister of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  She used her inheritance to set up schools for the Indians and Blacks.  Xavier University is one such example. 

She had so much it that she was canonized in the year 2000, just 45 years after her death.

Talk about a Home town Hero.

 

A line from the "Cat in the Hat Comes Back" by Dr. Seuss is sticking in my head.  It was something like, "Don't ask me what it is, we may never know."

I hope that we do know.  I hope that we reach out and grab it with both hands.

I hope that we look beyond what people are wearing.  I hope that we look beyond the immediate to the eternal.  I hope that we look hard and long at ourselves this lent.  I hope that some time in our lives we kneel before God and say, "You're It!"

and then run like crazy. . . . ..

to Him.

This is a really real picture of St. Katherine Drexel.