Sometimes it is hard to determine when a friendship actually began.  You meet someone, common interests are discovered, you begin talking and enjoying each other’s company and before you know it, you have a new friend!  The friendship just grows.  
 
I am not really sure when my devotion to St. Kateri Tekakwitha began nor when she became one of my favorite saints that I turn to for inspiration and intercession but the friendship is real.  
 
My mother (may she rest in peace) would always make sure to support the Black and Indian Mission appeal each year remarking how tragic the history of Native Americans has been.  My father (may he rest in peace) would tell my brothers and I that we have some Native American heritage in our family.  (My father’s father moved to East Tennessee from an area of Mississippi where the Choctaw nation once thrived.) When I served as Vocation Director for the diocese, I was able to arrange a visit to Rome to visit with (then) seminarian Michael Hendershott at the same time St. Kateri Tekakwitha’s canonization was held at St. Peter’s Basilica.  It was a beautiful, blue sky fall day on October 21, 2012 when I sat with priests and laity from around the world in a crowded square for the Mass and canonization of a number of saints one of whom was the Lily of the Mohawks.  I even helped to distribute communion to the vast crowd of faithful who were gathered.  I count that day as one of my best as a priest.  
 
When I first began to dream of a possible sister parish for St. Dominic Church that served a Native American community, it was only after a novena to St. Kateri that doors finally began to open that led to Little Flower Parish in Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet Reservation.  This sister parish relationship has now been going for more than three years and is an ongoing blessing for both communities.  I have visited Little Flower many times and hope to continue visiting. A beautiful statue of St. Kateri stands near the front entrance to Little Flower Parish.
 
Now, as I prepare for a change in assignments, I have just concluded a novena to St. Kateri.  St. Kateri remained faithful in her love for Christ and the Catholic faith even as she had to endure hostility and suspicion that forced her to leave her own village in order to journey to a different one where Christianity was accepted.  She made a vow of perpetual virginity and devoted herself to prayer and living according to the tenets of the faith.  She died at the young age of 23 or 24 with her final words being, “Jesus, Mary, I love you.”

In my novena I asked St. Kateri to pray for me that I always remain rooted in my commitment to Christ just as she was throughout her life and to walk with me during this time of transition as I leave one community to journey to another. Saints are good journey companions.

Some dear friends recently gave me the book, “From Strength to Strength” by Arthur Brooks. The book is about finding fulfillment and purpose in the second half of life (which I am now in) and realizing this is done by making use of a different skill set than what enabled one to achieve in the first half of life – what Brooks calls “crystallized intelligence”.

Brooks devotes one chapter in his book to cultivating your “aspen grove” which means those interlocking networks of friends, family and relationships that strengthen and sustain us. This cultivation is important and critical work and should be allowed the time and attention it deserves even in the midst of all of life’s other demands and responsibilities.

Our Catholic understanding of saints and their role in our lives is a beautiful component of our unique “aspen groves”. The saints along with our family and friends form that network that support, sustain and call us to growth. I like the idea of having St. Kateri and some other saints as part of my aspen grove.

In the side yard of the rectory at my current assignment, I have a 3 to 4 ft. statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. I will be taking the statue with me to my next assignment. I will find a place for her in the rectory yard and will cultivate the area around her statue and ask that she continue to walk with me.