July 16, 2023

Join Msgr. Kieran Harrington and Katie Ruvalcaba  in this captivating podcast episode as they delve into the extraordinary life and profound example of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. Discover the remarkable journey of this Native American saint and how her faith continues to inspire millions today. Gain valuable insights into the importance of developing strong roots within our Catholic communities and explore the responsibility that all Christians have to be missionaries in the world. Delve into the transformative power of conversion and witness its impact across the globe. Don't miss this engaging conversation that explores faith, community, mission, and the incredible potential for spiritual transformation worldwide.

Frontiers of Faith is a podcast of the Pontifical Mission Societies, produced by Katie Ruvalcaba. Theme music by Ethan Steve.  Make sure to follow us on twitter at @Faith_Frontiers and at @FrontiersofFaith on Facebook and Instagram.  To support the work of the Pontifical Missions Societies please go to onefamilyinmission.org to donate.  

Transcript

Katie:
Welcome to Frontiers of Faith, a podcast of the Pontifical Mission Societies. I am Katie Ruvalcaba.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and I am Father Kieran Harrington.

Katie:
We are excited as we continue our journey along with you this week and explore the Sunday Gospel readings and invite you to view them through the lens of mission. Father, it is, let's see, the 14th now of July. How are things going for you?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
going great. I hope

Katie:
Still down

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
the

Katie:
there in Florida?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
summer never ends.

Katie:
Ugh.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
No, I am in Florida and it's hot, hot down

Katie:
And

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
here.

Katie:
yeah, summer doesn't end in Florida. You know, with summertime, you know, you may be familiar with this, you know, since it is kind of your job, a lot of parishes are getting visiting priests from the missions coming out. And a lot of people in the pews have a tendency to get a little squeamish when they get a visiting priest, mainly for one reason and one reason only, and it's the accent father. They think to themselves like, I can't understand what he's saying. This homily is rough. What would you say about that? What's your advice there?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Yeah, well, that is the case in many, many places where a priest is coming from Africa or Asia and is can be heavily accented, and it's difficult to understand. But you know, Katie, when I was a very young priest, I remember my first assignment was to a parish, St. Thomas Aquinas in Flatlands, Brooklyn. And there was a priest there, his name was Father Tom Lyons. He had been there for 20 some odd years, 25 years. He had just had a stroke. maybe two years before, and after his stroke, his speech was very, very much impaired.

Katie:
Mmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Not only was his speech impaired, but his cognitive abilities were also a bit impaired. So he was very sloppy, messy. And I remember the young girls would come in to get married, and I would take down all the information, and at the end they would say, you know, now, Father, I'd like Father Lyons to celebrate the mass, the wedding. And I remember thinking to myself, Are you kidding me? You can hardly hear, you can hardly understand what he's saying and he looks like a mess. And this happened quite a bit. And one time I asked the girl and she actually said, you know, he used to come to visit my grandmother in the hospital and

Katie:
Hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
he used to come to visit my father when he was sick and, you know, he was really, he was there for us. And at that point, it was very clear, you know, they couldn't understand what Tom Lyons was having to say at mass. but his life was the homily. And so

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
they didn't need to understand what he had to say. And that's what I would say about these priests who are coming from the mission territories. You know, their life is the homily. They are coming from awfully desperate circumstances. You know, I've been to quite a few places in the developing world. I've been throughout the Middle East where a lot of priests, really, their lives are risked for the living

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
out of the gospel. And that is also the case in places of Africa. Nigeria is the place that's most unsafe for Christians in the world today.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Think about how many priests come from Nigeria to the United States. If you think about India, how many priests who are coming from India, and when they're at home in India, they live with discrimination, usually at best, and persecution

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
sometimes. Terrible persecution. So to my mind, those priests who are coming this summer when they're speaking with sort of accents, keep in mind that it's not what they are saying that is

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
so significant, but it's their life, which is really a testimony to the scriptures and I think is really a testimony, particularly to the gospel today.

Katie:
Yes, absolutely. We're going to get to today's gospel, or well, this Sunday's gospel in just a second. But I really, I love what you're saying here. The life of the priest is what matters. I had the opportunity to see, this wasn't a visiting priest for Mission Sundays or anything like that, but he is a visiting priest from Sri Lanka that is at my grandparents' parish. And he is extremely difficult to understand as a homilist, but face to face, it's not so bad. And we got to hear about his story and his life. And I don't know if you remember just a few years ago, there was an attack in a church in Sri Lanka, and there were just these awful photos of terrible violence and devastation that happened, and many people were killed during the mass. And that was shortly after that, that he came to the United States. And so knowing that he has put so much of his life on the line for the gospel, and just seeing his presence there up in front of us, it's, I mean, as Catholics, we're not in the mass necessarily for the homily anyway. We're there for the real presence of Christ and the reading of the Word. But being able to see the example of somebody who's come in like that and overcome those things and still lives for the gospel is just incredible. I love what you said with that.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Don't discount the homily though, the word is important and breaking open the word is significant.

Katie:
Sure, sure.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
The liturgy is the entire action. So yes,

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
the source and summit is the consecration and

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
the offertory and consecration. But the whole point of the liturgy, and we're going to be celebrating the Eucharist, the year of the Eucharist, and we have a Eucharist to Congress coming up next year. and

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
in the Neapolis, the whole purpose of the Eucharist in my view, as I understand it, you know, think about what you call it. You call it the Mass.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Why would you, why do you call it the Mass? It's actually the Eucharist. Why do we call it the Mass? We call it the Mass because of the last words in the prayers of the Eucharist, which are in Latin, Eta, Misa, Misa meaning sent, thus you are sent, the

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
go forth, you are being sent. And it's the whole nature of the Eucharist is that I've received Holy Communion so that I can be Holy Communion in

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
the world among the people whom I serve. When you receive communion, Katie, the whole point of it at Mass is that you receive communion so that when you come home and you're faced with mounds of laundry or your children complaining, that you can be Christ to them at that moment.

Katie:
Yes. Usually the prayer that I like to say with my kids in the pew right after receiving the Eucharist is, Lord, enter every cell of my body that I might become more of you and less of me. Help me to see you in others and recognize you better than my own reflection. So it's always

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Beautiful.

Katie:
my hope is that we can, in like a very weird scientific thing, you know, what you eat, you are what you eat, it becomes part of your cells, it becomes part of who you are. you know, was it St. Catherine of Siena who ended up just subsisting on the Eucharist at some point in her

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
All

Katie:
life

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
right,

Katie:
and she just

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
yeah.

Katie:
became Christ, which is incredible. Speaking of St. Catherine of Siena, do you happen to know whose feast day it is today that took her name from St. Catherine of Siena?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Well, how about I give you the Appalachian, the lily of the Mohawks?

Katie:
There you go, that's our girls. Today is the feast day of Saint Kateria Tekakwitha. Sorry, I had trouble with that last name there. And yeah, do you wanna tell our listeners a little bit about her?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
I mean, you know what we know about her

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
is that she is a young girl who comes to know Christ and she is fairly badly disfigured because of smallpox.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And it is upon her death that, and one of the miracles attributed to her death is that she is miraculously healed. and is healed of that. So the disfigurement is all gone away. And this is why we typically see her very beautifully arrayed, but she was very disfigured throughout life. And you think for a moment about, you know, Katie, again, you're all over social media, aren't you? You're like one of these, you're on these Twitch and Instagram

Katie:
Well...

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and all these other places. Well, I mean, you're all over the... So you know that actually the social media platforms, there are some problems that young women face especially,

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
right? Because related to body image and everything else. So you can imagine and the shaming that

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
goes on in these places. You know, so you could think about how important appearance is to folks and that's not just a phenomena today.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
So you can imagine what suffering that disfigurement might have caused her. And yet she knew Christ, she devoted herself to Christ, and

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
is with him now for all eternity.

Katie:
Yeah, one of the things that I think is so interesting and wonderful about St. Kateri is she, so when she converted to Catholicism, there's obviously not a huge quantity of native Catholics at that point in history. The reading that we had, what, two weeks ago, talked about uniting with Christ instead of your father and your mother. And her parents ended up passing away. She ended up with an adoptive uncle father type situation who was trying to find her a husband. And because she wanted to serve Christ, but she didn't want to lose her native roots. So what she does is goes and lives in Montreal with a group of native Catholics. So she's able to continue her heritage and to love Christ in a way that is unique to her people without having to sacrifice that love of Christ. And I just think that is so interesting that especially when we're talking about missions, obviously she's an American native, but she was... the result of Jesuit missionaries who came here. Her conversion was a result of Jesuit missionaries. And one of the things that people think a lot is that converting to Christianity requires that you lose everything about your heritage and the things that make you unique as a people. And I think St. Kateri just really puts that to lie. She stayed with her native peoples while loving Christ.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
You know, I'm not making a plug here, but Martin Scorsese, of course, just did a film, what is it, The Killers of the Flower Moon?

Katie:
Mmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And the story is really about the exploitation of American Indians. But what's interesting about that is the woman who is the central figure in the film, as many of the Indians, she was Catholic.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And that she accepted, and that's something, we kind of look at them as other, and you... You can, you know, what we don't realize is that in this country, a lot of Catholics were persecuted in the United States

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
when our country was founded. And in some measure, the Native American peoples experienced a lot of persecution as Native Americans, but also as Catholics. And so, so I think that is something that we need to keep in mind, and especially as we talk about Kateri Takeweetha today.

Katie:
Yes, an excellent, excellent point. And you know, if you have, if you'd like to get some more information on St. Kateri, she shares tons of things available online. There's a great catholic.org article about her with some really great video. You should definitely check them out. But we are here to talk about the gospel this week as well. Well, all of the readings, but mostly the gospel. We've got kind of a long one, so I want to, I want to get that read for you. Okay. This

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Great.

Katie:
week is the... 15th Sunday in ordinary time. So when you are at mass this Sunday, July 16th, don't forget it's the 15th Sunday. You know, I'm a big ordinary time fan. I always make jokes about the ordinary time being the best time, but yeah. Anyway, just a big fan of ordinary time. It's a time for us to love Christ without there being a feast or a fast. Like just the everyday love of Christ is my favorite thing. So I'm gonna always call it the best Sunday of the year. Okay. This week's gospel is from Matthew chapter 13. I'm going to read you the long version, verses 1 through 23, but you'll likely get a shorter version in mass, but I like the good stuff in this one, so we're going to stick here. On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying, A sower went out to And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. But when the sun rose, it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell in rich soil and produced fruit, a hundred or 60 or 30-fold. Whoever has ears ought to hear. The disciples approached him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables? And he said to them in reply, because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has more will be given and he will grow rich from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look, but they do not see and hear, but do not listen or understand. Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says, you shall indeed hear, but not understand. You shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people. They will hardly hear with their ears. They have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts and be converted, and I heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. Here then the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it. And the evil one comes along and steals away what was sown in his heart. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy, but he has no roots and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches chokes the word and it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or 60 or 30 fold." That's one of, that's such a good gospel. I'll let you go ahead.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Yeah, you know, having been to the Holy Land and walked in some of these places where Christ has spoken, you can see how that parable, how this preaching of Christ would have made so much sense

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
to the people of that time. So when you're in that circumstance, it really can make so much sense. But I think it also can speak to us. You know, so often, so often we all have to contend with misunderstandings. And sometimes in our own life when there is a misunderstanding, it's sort of an intentional misunderstanding, right? Like we are looking for the problem.

Katie:
Mm, yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Does that make sense that we're looking actually to create a problem? If you think about maybe having a fight with your mother-in-law or your...

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
you know, sister-in-law or whatever it is. We're looking for a circumstance. We want to read into something that has happened. And the scriptures, when we read the scriptures, we think about there are two ways of interpreting scriptures, but typically we think about exegesis as a way of understanding what is the meaning of the text. What is the history behind the text? What's the literary form? What's the allegory present? we would think about as exegesis. Ha ha ha!

Katie:
Don't die, Father.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
We think of, you know, when we read the scriptures, we look to understand the meaning of the scriptures. We do this, typically we think about it as exegesis, historical criticism, maybe literary criticism, whatever it might be. It's trying to understand what's in the text and apprehend what's in the text. But there's also a thing called exegesis. I read into the text what I want to see in the text.

Katie:
Oh.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And that's what... So I am looking at that, I read the text, and then I'm imposing a meaning on the text that's not really there. And that's what Jesus is criticizing the Pharisees and the scribes of the day doing,

Katie:
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
right? That they're trying to impose a meaning that is not in what he is saying. They're trying to distort what it is that he is saying. And I think that that's the challenge for so much of us. And you know, as again, Katie is a parish priest, one of the big priorities for parishes is the care of those who are coming into the church, converts. And typically this is done through what's called the RCIA, right, of Christian Initiation of Adults. And in some parishes, it's all done differently in different places, but it's supposed to be a process by which someone enters the church. What many priests bemoan is that when people come into the church, they come in and then they leave. And statistically this is borne out. And you can see that sort of in the passage here. So, but I think the answer to this passage is really seen in Isaiah, which is the first reading.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And it's what Jesus, the words of the Lord would say, my word goes out like the rain, and it does not come back without bringing grace, right? I mean, the actual word is, is my word goes forth from my mouth. and it will not return to me void,

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
but she'll do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it." And that's the hope, right? Is that when we hear God's word, it somehow brings a change and conversion. But again, we have to allow this to happen in our life.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
We have to cooperate with what God is doing.

Katie:
Exactly. And practically, I came in through RCIA. So that speaks so much to my experience. The people who came in with me, this is very much, at least in my experience, had been the people who fell on rocky ground with little soil where you kind of come in hot and heavy, very excited to join the church after that first year, spending all that time in that community with those people. But then those, you know, five, six, eight people that came into the church with you at the same time end up going to different masses. You don't see them as often. And then if you're not getting into the community, if you're not growing roots in that community, if you're not learning to grow in your faith to love Christ outside of just the mass, just outside of your weekly RCIA meeting, it's very easy to die away. And so as the laity of the church, we talked last week about how mission is really, a lot of the work of the laity needs to be there. This is something. that I think all of us can look at. We don't need to view our mission field just as supporting the missionaries overseas, but rather saying hi to the new family at Coffee and Donuts and making sure that you're building up a culture in your community that allows people to grow in their faith, to be authentically Catholic around you and to love them, to just make sure that they're aware that they are the priority here, that this is the treasure of the church right there.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Yeah, you know, from my perspective, I think that there are two aspects that we keep in mind. It's that we're called to be disciples, which is a follower of Christ. Like,

Katie:
Mmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
you

Katie:
Indeed.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and I are both called to be a follower of Christ, but we're also called to be a missionary disciple, which means that we are called to be sent out from the place where we're comfortable to those places which have not yet heard about Christ. So, I think that... you know, there is an aspect to our Christian vocation, which is, for you, Katie, is, you know, I have to be concerned about witnessing as a disciple to my husband and to my children and to my extended family, to my work colleagues. But as a missionary, you are also called to go outside that whole group of folks and testify to who Christ is. You know, One story that's often told is the senator from Utah, Senator Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
When he was sent on his missionary experience, he was sent to France and Paris to be a missionary. If you were to ask him, and he has spoken about this, how many converts did he make in Paris, France to being a Mormon? None.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
But you know what? He became a better Mormon.

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And so for us, what we're called to do is testify to who Christ is. It's not so much that someone is going to become a Christian because of something I say or something that I do, but as I testify to who Christ is, I become a better Christian. And I think that is, this is the nature of being, that's the fruitfulness that is being spoken of. It's not the outcome. that we're trying to get, like, I got how many converts I've made.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
It's really about the fruitfulness, it's about my being more authentically Christian and being an icon of Christ, so when people see me, they see Christ in me. That's what really I think the scriptures are. But you know, as you know, and the reason why this passage I think relates to so many people is because we all could see that, you know, sometimes the anxieties of my life... can choke off the living out of the gospel. What are the anxieties that most people face? Maybe it's because I have to make a living.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
In order to live, I have to have a certain amount of money. I have to make all these sorts of payments. Maybe it's health, maybe it's work, maybe it's the relationships. There are a lot of things that kind of come into your life and my life. And the challenge for us is is not to allow these things to become the priority. Not that they're not important,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
but they can't become the priority, the overwhelming priority in our life, that they become the sole way, the prism by which I am making the decision. That really, the way I have to make my decision is, what is God calling me to do? That's the first question. What is God asking of me in this circumstance, and how can I prudently put that into effect in my life? is the second concern.

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
What most people I think do is they place all these concerns first, and then they give God last. No, God is the first priority. What is it that God asks? And then what do I do? You know, you have five children.

Katie:
I have five children.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Okay, so think about when you had your third child and

Katie:
literally

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
how...

Katie:
had to stop

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Okay.

Katie:
and figure out which kid that was. I was like, well, all right, Millie, we're good, let's go.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
I am pretty confident that when you had your third child, you were probably saying to yourself, can I do this again?

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
This is a lot, this is a lot. And a lot of folks will say, I can't do this.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And then they take steps not to do it. But part of what... we're full to do is say, you know, it's not what I can do. It's what's God asking me to do. And can I cooperate with what God's plan is going to be for me? And

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
I think that if once we start to live our life that way, then we see the blessings. Doesn't mean that there aren't challenges, right? And so when you have five kids, I know you've got a lot of challenges, right?

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And they're challenges, they're gifts that keep on giving. But... what you do is you surrender yourself so that somehow God can work in the midst of your circumstances and I think that that's where the fruit can be developing. Whereas if you would have said, I mean think about how much poorer your life would be if you didn't have those two children.

Katie:
Yeah, one of my sons has been at Edge Camp all week this week, and he's like my rowdiest kid. And my goodness do I miss that kid. He's the one I'm constantly having to tell to get out of the fridge, and he's the one I miss. But what you're saying is so true, especially when it comes to, do you ever see people say, oh, you have five kids, you must have your hands full? And I always think one kid is a lot of kids. And I think of parenting or the love that you can have for your children. People like to think of it as a pie, and you're giving out slices. And it's absolutely not correct. The analogy that I think of is a t-shirt. If it's like a t-shirt that fits you kind of snugly and you put it on and like that t-shirt fits. But if you gain a bunch of weight while you're in there, you stretch that t-shirt out, it gets bigger and it fits over your body. And it just keeps, it's a t-shirt that stretches infinitely. It's always the same t-shirt, but it just expands to hold what it needs to hold. And so, you know, your capacity for caring for your children will stretch to what you need to be and your capacity to love the children of God will expand to what it needs to be, what God needs from you. But extremely important to that, at least from a practical standpoint, is spending time in God's word, spending time, you know, I have a friend who likes to say that the keys to becoming a saint are eat God, pray, and read the Bible, like eat, and the other, that eat, pray, love thing. You eat God, you need to pray, and you need to love his people and his word. And so you're going to, like, if you're spending those times in there, you're letting your whole life, your whole worldview be formed by the gospel, then it becomes a whole lot easier to embrace the people of God, to embrace not just your own family, but the people in the mission fields, the people in your own parish, all of those things. It expands to allow you to do that. Can I direct you to the part of this gospel that just... really hit my heart hard and I want to hear your thoughts on it. He says, amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. And I think of our people that Christ died for out in the mission fields who have never heard of God, never heard of Christ, don't know anything about it. But like St. Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they rest in you. There's We have this great blessing as Americans, as people who have a parish priest who can come and pray for us. And we have constant access to the sacraments. It's four times on Sunday. If it doesn't work for you one time, it'll work another. And these people would give their life to have a priest that's there just one Sunday, just every Sunday, just once. And I just think of that and think of the incredible blessing that we have to be able to see that and that there's these people over here who long for it but don't have it. And that's what the mission field is, right?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
You know, if you're in your parish and you see an image of Moses or the prophet Isaiah, sometimes you'll see these, or David, you know, what you'll notice is these images do not have a halo.

Katie:
Oh.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
So that does not mean they're not in heaven. They

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
are in heaven, right? Because this is what Jesus does. When he dies, he goes to heaven and he goes to hell and brings those who are righteous with him to heaven.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
they don't have a halo because they haven't encountered Christ in this world. This is also the case, I think, for those who you're mentioning in the mission territories. Those who do not know Christ, why do they not know Christ? They do not know Christ because they have not had the opportunity to have an encounter with him yet. It's not that they may not have heard his name,

Katie:
right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
but they haven't had the authentic encounter where someone says, this is who this person is, let me introduce you to him.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Let me, if you, to meet him, to know him, to be able to meet him and to know him, and then to make a decision

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
as to whether or not you choose to love him. And sometimes people can't do that because of their own religious tradition, right? They are so rooted in their own religious tradition that they are incapable of meeting Christ.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
right so sometimes it is because of their cultural circumstances

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and that's why the Christians in those places really play an important role because the

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
only encounter they are going to have a Christ is not in something that you say about him

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
but the way in which you live about him you know

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
we were talking last week about India and you know Gandhi of course is reputed to have said that of all the religions in the world, the one that he thought was far superior would be Christianity. The problem for him was he had never met a Christian.

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And this is the difficulty, this is the challenge for you and me,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
is that how authentic are we in living out what Christ has called us to live?

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
That's really the challenge. That's what it is to of the apostles. The apostles, why do I believe? Why is it that Kieran Harrington believes in Jesus Christ? I believe because of people like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Thomas, and it's their testimony. Now you would say, well come on, Kieran, I mean they're 2000 years ago. And my point would be, well this is what they've written about it and they were willing to die

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
because of it. They were willing to give their life in testimony. So not only does the message resonate.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
not only does the message resonate with me, but the witness of these people dying because of their testimony to that reality,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
right? It's not like there are ideological fanatics who've died to a, they're saying, I met this man who died and rose from the dead.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And they were willing to die rather than deny that testimony,

Katie:
right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
that's why I believe. And so, When people encounter Christians, I think about the Ugandan martyrs. When someone encounters, you know, the Ugandan martyrs, a great story about the Ugandan martyrs, of course, is that the king of Uganda, he invites these missionaries to come to his country to teach the people so they would not be in ignorance, because he understands that education is going to transform the economic reality.

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
What his son was not prepared for was this education. also brought them into contact with the person of Jesus Christ, which then changes their decision making.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And so now they no longer will do things which they believe to be immoral, which means to objectify another person. When the king tells them to objectify another person, they don't do it, and as a result, he puts them to death. Why did they come to know Christ? Because of the witness of the missionaries. Who gives witness now to the people in Uganda? Those Ugandan martyrs. It is the example of Christians who live the gospel message that is what is compelling to others to come to know Christ. And that's where we have a responsibility to be disciples, to live as Christ called us to live, but not simply to stay in our discipleship because Jesus calls his disciples to go out and say, leave, take nothing with you.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and go out because you don't need anything other than what I will give you. The words that I will put into your mouth, the experiences that the grace is going to be from what I give you when you go out. That's really the experience of missionaries. Just one last thing I would say is


Katie:
Yes, absolutely. And that's a great point to end on. I don't think we can even hop beyond that. So this week, guys, while you are out at the mass, make sure you receive Jesus, and then you are prepared to go out, be sent and be Jesus, and keep that light burning for the missions. Father, you have anything else to say?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And be generous to the missions, give to the missions, not from your surplus, but from your need,

Katie:
from your

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
you

Katie:
poverty.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
know, from your poverty. You give to the missions and you can choose whatever missionary, you know, if you want to give to the Pontifical missions, it's one family in mission, but give to whomever because it is a matter of making sure that you are going beyond that place of security and relying totally on what God is offering.

Katie:
with your time, talent, treasure, and prayers. Support the missions. And thank you for hanging out with us again this week, and we hope that you have an amazing week. Please make sure you keep the light burning for the missions and pray for us. Thank you.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Thanks, Katie.