Catholicism Pure & Simple Catholicism without compromise
Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!
Posted on October 9, 2020 by Catholicism Pure & Simple
reblog: Zero Lift-Off Only The Beginning
“Seek and You Will Find; Climbing to the Light of Hope”
by Lawrence Morra
God’s Mercy is Beyond All Earthly Imagination
We gain a glimpse of that Mercy by Jesus Christ on His Cross!
Oh God yes; so beautiful and true! It’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy or actually the turmoil of the wayward fallen world. As it is always so easy to make a mistake but much more difficult to correct or undo the wrong. The cost or consequence of our loss is like a heavy weight or anchor tugging and holding us back from climbing up out of the deep crevasse into which we have slipped, leaving us surrounded by so much challenge and harsh reality of our plight, but thankfully with the constant light and ray of hope above us toward which all of our greatest effort should be applied in a heroic climb to that only place of absolute truth and happiness which we have fallen from; our rightful place and home. We should be driven in our hearts to return there where all love awaits us. Amen.
I must mention here what added tremendous and remarkable inspiration that came my way as I was preparing to reblog this profound article by one of the Blog Site’s authors.
Oh my God; Kathleen… what a wonderful experience and pilgrimage that must have been to actually be involved and present in a blessed and holy event such as this! You are truly blessed to have been there and your faithful participation with all the others brings blessings and graces to so many! Thank you for being so strong in your faith and determined to follow the Lord’s will as you did and are doing now; you give me courage and show me how much more I can and must do! Pope Benedict XVI did a tremendous service for our Father in heaven and for humanity in carrying out his mission the beatification of Cdl. John Henry Newman.
So beautiful and empowering to all who will turn to our Lord in faith with hope and joy in their hearts. Thank you very much for this inspiring comment and the sharing of your blessed actual involvement in this beatification of Cdl. John Henry Newman and his ultimate sainthood. I was just in the process of preparing to reblog this amazing article of yours and this comment suddenly appeared from you! I was going through some old files looking for this specific one that I’m referring to here so that I can incorporate this highly significant story about another saint that I truly love and admire for her unbelievable devotion and beauty of heart! It has tremendous significance in my own life because of something that occurred in recent years, a personal turmoil, when on October 19th some years back I was attacked by evil which brought into focus some highly important facts and history that God obviously wanted me to be focused upon in my journey, which changed my course in a dramatic way in order to awaken me more clearly and profoundly to His will. She is as I see it associated not only with this time of the year and the major events that brought about the instituting of “North American Martyr Day” and how my severe experience also occurred on this precise day of October 19th and then a little while after that, my meeting a local Native American woman of the Catholic faith by divine intervention, who bears the same name of Kateri whom I’m speaking about here.
She the historical figure, “Kateri Tekakwitha (pronounced [ˈɡaderi deɡaˈɡwita] in Mohawk), given the name Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine[3][4] and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), is a Catholic saint who was an Algonquin–Mohawk laywoman Under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, she was beatified in 1980 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter’s Basilica on 21 October 2012.” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kateri_Tekakwitha for full bio.
I put this all together and as a reblog hopefully it will serve the purpose that our Lord wants it to.
Now I briefly outline what I see as highly important connections and parallels between this article about our beloved Saint John Henry Newman and two other saints. The first I’ve mentioned above in that brief bio and now I turn to the other, “St. Isaac Jogues, S.J. (10 January 1607 – 18 October 1646) was a missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, calling it Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake of the Blessed Sacrament). In 1646, Jogues was martyred by the Mohawk at their village of Ossernenon, north of the Mohawk River.
Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf and six other martyred missionaries, all Jesuit priests or laymen associated with them, were canonized by the Catholic Church in 1930;[1] they are known as “The North American Martyrs“. A shrine was built in their honor at Auriesville, New York, at a site formerly believed to be that of the Mohawk village. Their feast day is celebrated on 19 October in the General Roman Calendar, and on 26 September in Canada.” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Jogues for the full bio.
These two remarkable saints I had not been aware of until a fateful event occurred in my own life that immediately brought them into my consciousness. A consecrated woman of the Catholic Church that I met a short time after my fateful day, where she was doing some temporary work, pointed all of this out to me when she became aware of the date I was attacked! I have touched on this personal experience in previous writings but here I just want to mention my own ordeal only to promote worthy attention to these two saints who to me bring to the fore “The North American Martyrs and Saints” who show us by their devotional faith in Jesus Christ along with their personal sacrifice and offering of their entire lives; as a great illustration of what Saint John Henry Newman has pointed out by such great devotion to the will of God during his time on earth we can see by his own example, which was also how these other saints were able to overcome what I mentioned at the start; “so much challenge and harsh reality of our plight,” when we can plainly see from the historical record, and, what Saint John Henry Newman repeats in his most profoundly beautiful realization and recognition; by our Savior’s words from His own mouth on the cross at Calvary, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Saint Newman brings to our attention the reality of how dire the circumstance and consequence of our human plight is, but, how powerful the saving grace and MERCY of our Lord and Father in heaven actually is by saying this to all of us!
“O Lord, we urge Thee by Thy own dear words, “Lord and Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Teach them now, open their eyes here, before the future comes; give them faith in what they must see hereafter, if they will not believe in it here. Give them full and saving faith here; destroy their dreadful delusions, and give them to drink of that living water, which whoso hath shall not thirst again.” Amen.
So, now I say to all who hear and listen to our Lord’s merciful words from the cross that Saint Newman is precisely correct and by example in the same manner we see from these historical figures of great faith, how their steadfast perseverance of “FAITH” is what makes the difference and overcomes all difficulties or hardships this life or the devil himself may toss upon any of us; that we are able to overcome, there is no doubt about it!
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Lawrence Morra
Amendment Supplement
Dear Kathleen…I woke very early today doing what I do many times on such occasions asking God to help me see more clearly what I’m missing or perhaps what I should have done a better job with. On this occasion it was specifically about this blog and how yesterday I had to finish what I could and then return to it so I can finalize what I had started to say. Thankfully we can edit these works and so today I add this following script to the reblog. Thank you again for being so faithful to our Lord and having the dedication along with the key “perseverance” to do the work you do. Again I say, it’s an inspiration for me. God bless you.
Saint Kateri’s Shrine
Skennon ko:wa
This is an old Mohawk blessing. Pronounced She:kon (Say go) Skennon ko:wa (Skennin go wah), it means Hello, Great Peace be with you!
The River where Kateri was Baptized and spent much of her life and the exact location where Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf, “St. Isaac Jogues,” along with six other missionaries were martyred is what is now called the St. Lawrence River in New York into which their bludgeoned bodies were tossed. For me an interesting connection is how Kateri was canonized in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI and 2012 was the beginning of my personal journey or struggle with the aftermath of the attack/injury of October 19, 2011 on North American Martyr Day, and how a great American doctor a truly blessed instrument of God was there to help me at the beginning of 2012 during my fall through many years of having to fight the ensuing illness and the system for my own survival, even having to be my own attorney for my subsequent workers rights; I’m absolutely positive to serve God’s purpose and plan. And how she with her husband after my recovery moved to Canada within a short distance of this region where much of Saint Kateri’s life unfolded so long ago. The doctor was only there within my area like an angel, an instrument of God’s, when I most needed her to be; which meant the world to my recover and successful perseverance, over all obstacles! Even the simple fact that one of the authors of this Blog Site Kathleen was attending the blessed occasion and beatification of Cdl. John Henry Newman to his ultimate sainthood and as she stated “From my mother’s house in Kent (south east England) a bus load of parishioners had travelled overnight to Birmingham. It was miserable weather, drizzling with nonstop rain, and as we’d had to be there in Cotton Park hours before Pope Benedict XVI arrived, we were all pretty soaked through by the time the shout went out that he was arriving. As soon as the popemobile appeared the clouds cleared, seemingly miraculously, and the late summer sun shone down upon us. Yes, Pope Benedict gave a very moving homily at the beatification Mass; he said he had always been a great admirer of the erudite cardinal’s writings and charitable works.” These connections are ordained by God.
To me these many connections are all ordained and absolutely parts to the big plan as our Father in heaven divinely intervenes and allows many events or circumstances to unfold in order that His will can be done or carried out by His faithful! I can see how Saint Kateri suffered with a continuous physical affliction from the aftermath of having contracted and surviving the smallpox epidemic of her time; and how I after this attack/injury had struggled with a very difficult aftermath and now even a physical manifestation I deal with all shows me clearly that “perseverance” is the key to our time on earth and to never quit or allow the harsh realities to get in the way of our mission, which is to Love and Serve our Father in Heaven! If we do that to the best of our abilities then there is nothing to fear or be sad about at all, because just like beautiful Saint Kateri said with her last dying words, “There are reports of her appearing to three different individuals in the weeks following her death. In one instance, Kateri appeared kneeling and holding a wooden cross that shone like the sun. In another, a knock on the wall awakened a sleeping woman. She heard Kateri’s voice asking if she was awake and then Kateri said, “I’ve come to say goodbye; I’m on my way to heaven.” “Witness’s say that minutes after her death, Kateri’s scars disappeared and she became radiant and beautiful.” ncregister.com
Another site explains well her passing:
“It was during Holy Week of 1680, that Kateri’s health was failing. She performed extreme mortifications of the body, and offered it up. Soon the people around her knew she had only a few hours left, so the villagers gathered together, accompanied by the Priest to provide last rites. She died on Wednesday of Holy Week, April 17, 1680 around 3pm at the age of 23 or 24. She died in the arms of her friend Maria-Therese. Her final words were “Jesus, I love you”.
“The people around her noticed a physical change to her body. About 15 minutes after her death, her face that was so marked and scared by smallpox from her childhood, suddenly changed and became in a moment “so beautiful and white”. Three people, her mentor – her companion – and her Priest, all reported that Kateri had appeared to them in the weeks after her death. Her stepmother reported that she appeared “kneeling at the foot of her mattress, holding a wooden cross that shone like the sun”. Her companion Maria-Therese reported that she was awakened at night by a knocking on her wall, and a voice asked if she were awake, adding, “I’ve come to say good by, I’m on my way to heaven”. She was asked to go and tell the Priest she was on her way to Heaven. The Priest reported seeing Kateri at her grave, he said, “She appeared in splendor, for two hours. He gazed upon her, and her face lifted toward heaven as if in ecstasy”.
newmanconnection.com/faith/saint/saint-kateri-tekakwitha
People argue and fight each other claiming superiority or some special privileges over one another since the dawn of the human race, but, in actuality we are all part of the Greatest Story Ever Told and the Master Potter’s Plan. We should be humbled and ask, “What can I do for you Lord today; how can I better serve You and not the folly or foolishness of this conflicted confused world of sin which is fallen from on high?”
Lawrence Morra
This link will bring you to a site where a very good accounting can be found that will I’m sure allow you a glimpse into the actual life and times of Saint Kateri.
https://www.catholicregister.org/features/item/15266-st-kateri-tekakwitha-a-life-of-faith
Zero Lift-Off 
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