8 JULY 2022 – Friday of the 14th week of Ordinary Time – Matthew 10:16-23

    Scripture scholars estimate that Matthew’s Gospel was written approximately 50 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, which means that the Gospel was both written and heard in the context of the experiences of the Early Church, in the context of the persecutions and struggles they endured.  By stating that Jesus was sending out the disciples like sheep amongst wolves, he knew the opposition, cunning, and challenges that they would face in proclaiming the Gospel to the world.  The disciples in the Early Church were people of peace and reconciliation, renouncing violence and retribution, which is why they were like lambs amongst wolves.  There were some to whom the Gospel was proclaimed that wanted to destroy the disciples, seeing them as a threat to their own activities and ambitions. 

       Like me, many of you may have read the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne when you were in high school.  That novel was set amongst the Puritans in the American colonies of New England.  I remember us discussing the themes of sin, guilt, and repentance in connection with the novel with my high school American literature class, as well as learning about the Puritan worldview of life that was such a big influence in the American colonies. A year after that novel was published, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter Rose was born, in the year 1851. She grew up both in Massachusetts and in England, where her father served as US counsel.  She married when she was a young lady, but her marriage was not a happy one: her husband struggled with alcoholism and with holding down a job, and she lost her only child when he was 5 years old.  Yet, she and her husband converted to Catholicism when they were traveling in Italy.  It was her Catholic faith that brought her courage and strength.  She separated from her husband and devoted her life to carrying for those with incurable cancer, patients who were treated like lepers in the United States in the late 19th century. After her husband’s death in 1898, Rose Hawthorne became a Dominican sister.  She established the Dominican Congregation of St Rose of Lima, known as the Servants from Relief for Incurable Cancer.  They established a center for cancer patients in New York.  Rose Hawthorne become Mother Mary Alphonsa.  She served as a Dominican sister until her death on July 9, 1926. The Dominican priest who is defending Rose Hawthorne’s case for beatification stated that even thought she was a lady of culture, education, and social status, she lived amongst the poor and established a home for them where they could live in dignity, cleanliness, and comfort.  She and her religious sisters were humble servants to their cancer patients, showing them care, love, and concern.  Rose Hawthorne’s biography is entitled Sorrow Built a Bridge.  Out of our pain and sorrows, we can find our calling as disciples of Christ just as Rose Hawthorne did.  That is our mission.