Today the church remembers a 17th Century saint, the first Native American that the church officially canonized: St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks.

St. Kateri was born to an Algonquin mother who was a practicing Christian and a Mowhak Turtle chief, who was not a Christian. When she was just four years old, a smallpox epidemic took both of her parents and her brother, leaving her with damaged eyesight and noticeable scars on her face. She was taken in by her uncle, who did not approve of her mother’s faith.

At the age of 18, St. Kateri secretly started studying with Jesuit missionaries, and she decided to be baptized and assume the name “Kateri” in honor of St. Catherine of Siena.

A year after her baptism, French conquerors came through and massacred her people and burned their village. St. Kateri escaped by taking to the St. Lawrence River. She was taken in by a First Nations tribe down river who happened to be Christian, and she dedicated her life to prayer and the care for the sick.

At the age of twenty-three St. Kateri contracted tuberculosis, and died shortly before turning twenty-four. Her final words were reportedly, “Jesus–Mary–I love you.”

She was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1980, the first First Nations saint to be canonized (though, truly, many are canonized in the hearts of those who know their stories). She is often referred to as Lily of the Mohawks.

St. Kateri is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes those who have walked the most unjust roads are the perfect companions for those in need. St. Kateri’s life was ravaged by white invaders who brought their diseases, guns, and unbridled ambition to take over a land and subjugate a people they had no claim to, often in the name of religion and the church.

But, like her Jesus whom she loved so much, St. Kateri was a model for them of true discipleship.

-historical bits gleaned from Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove’s Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

-icon written by Barbara Brocato

Attention my Finnish friends! Attention!

Today the church remembers a Finnish Bishop who studied under Martin Luther himself: St. Mikael Agricola, Bishop of Turku, Renewer of the Church, and Mystic.

Born in Uusimaa (the Fins think “why use one vowel when you can use two?), he went to school in Viipuri and then Turku. He was a good student and due to his scholarly achievements, he was sent by his Bishop to Wittenberg to study under Luther and Malanchthon.

After his graduation, Luther wrote him a letter of recommendation (apparently those have been necessary in the schola forever) and he became Assistant to the Bishop at Turku, eventually succeeding him in the bishopric without seeking Papal approval (a big no-no).

As Bishop St. Mikael undertook extensive Lutheran reforms throughout Finland, encouraging greater participation and catechesis of the laity. Toward this end, he developed an orthography, the basis for modern Finnish spelling, and prepared a book of ABC’s, a prayer book, a New Testament translation, a translation of the Mass, and a collection of Finnish hymns.

Truly, he was an educator as well as a theologian.

After being sent to Russia as part of a delegation to negotiate a peace between Russia and Sweden, he fell ill on the return trip. He died the night of Palm Sunday in 1557 after having been Bishop for only three years.

Though much of his work was in the practical changes needed for an informed church, he was a deeply spiritual person who held ancient mysticism in high regard.

He is widely commemorated in Finland to this day.

St. Mikael is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that you don’t have to be in a position for very long to make a huge difference.

-historical bits gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

Today the church remembers a contemporary saint who took wrestling with demons, both in his heart and in his country, seriously: St. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, Gadfly of the Nazis.

Born at the turn of the 20th Century in Breslau, St. Dietrich grew up in the intellectual circles of Germany. He studied hard, was trained as a scholar and theologian, and as a young pastor he moved to both Barcelona (where he was assistant pastor at a German-speaking congregation) and then to New York City where he was a visiting lecturer at Union Seminary.

It was during his time in New York that he felt his guts calling him to return home to Europe, the belly of a waking beast, and fight for the soul of his people from the inside. As the Nazi party ascended in 1933, the growing anti-Semitism was alarming to him as a person of faith. From 1933-1935 he served as the pastor of two small German congregations in London, but became the voice of the Confessing Church, the Protestant resistance to the Nazi party’s coopting of the national church. He made his way back to his homeland with both conviction and trepidation.

In 1935 St. Bonhoeffer organized a new underground seminary to train theologians in the art of subversive resistance (because the Divine is subversive!), and he began publishing the thoughts flowing from his heart in this difficult, hidden work. Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship describe the role a Christian is called to play in times of turmoil, and he encouraged his fellow believers to reject the “cheap grace” that smacked of moral laxity.

In 1939 St. Dietrich was introduced to a cadre of political exiles who sought to overthrow Hitler. Working with other church leaders throughout the world, including the Bishop of Chichester, St. Bonhoeffer tried to broker peace deals, but to no avail. Hitler could not be trusted to keep his word, and so the Allies would only accept unconditional surrender.

Bonhoeffer was arrested on April 5th, 1943, shortly after proposing to the love of his life. An attempt on Hitler’s life had failed the previous year, and documents were discovered linking St. Dietrich to the plot.

After a short stay in the Berlin jail, Bonhoeffer was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, and then on to Schonberg prison. There he wrote letters to his best friend and his fiance, and conducted pastoral duties for the prisoners there.

On Sunday, April 8th, 1945, just after he concluded church services, two men with weapons emerged from the forest, not unlike the soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane. They said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us!”

Bonhoeffer, putting up no fight, said to his fellow prisoner, “This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.”

He was hanged in Flossenburg prison on April 9, 1945.

St. Bonhoeffer wrestled deeply with evil in the world. He was a pacifist theologian, and yet he involved himself in the plot to destroy Hitler because he felt that to not do so would be a greater evil than the man’s death.

St. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church (everyone?!), that wrestling with evil must be something everyone does with honesty and conviction, and that sometimes it comes at a price that can be quite high.

Grace is free, but not cheap.

-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-note that sometimes I use the phrase “saint” in the Protestant definition of the word: someone who has died in the faith. Bonhoeffer is not canonized by any official means, just within the hearts of those of us who trust subversion to be the ways of the Divine

-icon written by Kelly Latimore. You can buy his amazing work at https://kellylatimoreicons.com/

Today the church remembers a slew of 16th Century artists: Durer, Cranach the Elder, Grunewald, and Michelangelo. Though one could go in-depth on all of them, I’m going to focus this year on the one who is (probably) least well-known, and yet so influential: St. Matthias Grunewald, Artist and Secret Reformer.

We don’t know much about St. Grunewald. His name is even a fabrication, thought up by a 17th Century biographer for the enigmatic artist. His original surname was Gothardt, and he often added his spouses surname (Neithardt) to his signatures.

He spent most of his life in the upper Rhine area, and most of his professional career was under the patronage of the Bishop of Mainz and then Albrecht of Brandenburg. His artistic bent was (like most of his contemporaries) religious in nature, and he found the crucifixion and the resurrection as particularly curious events for visual exploration.

Though he was under the patronage of Rome, Grunewald was a professed admirer and supporter of the Reformation movement sweeping through the world of his day.

Many may not be familiar with his name today, but his works are worth checking out. I find them grotesquely fascinating; not as playful as Cranach’s and not as Gothic as Durer, but more mystical (perhaps) like an older Dali.

You might also want to check out the Grunewald Guild in Washington State, a community dedicated to careful artistic exploration. A number of colleagues spent time there in college and/or seminary, stretching their artistic muscles (or forming them from scratch): https://grunewaldguild.com/about-the-guild/

Finally, because finding a painting or an icon of St. Grunewald has proven unsuccessful, below is his depiction of the Resurrection. I thought it appropriate as we head toward Easter.

St. Grunewald is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that art has always held hands with religion. The church was one of the first incubators for stunning creativity…and could be today, by God, if they keep dogma from squashing invention.

-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-opinions mine