20 March 2024 - homily for Wednesday of the 5th week of Lent - Sister Catherine Spalding - John 8:31-42

     Catherine Spalding was born in 1793 to a Catholic family in Maryland.  Her family moved to Kentucky when she was 3 years old.  After her mother died and her father abandoned the family, she and her siblings moved in with her and aunt and uncle. At the age of 19, in 1813, Catherine entered a newly formed religious order for women in Kentucky named the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. Catherine became the superior of that order.  Although the original intention of the order was education, and they founded many schools and orphanages, they also worked as nurses and did other charitable works. During an outbreak of cholera, the sisters displayed great courage in caring for the sick. Some of the sisters from this order founded the Catholic school in Yazoo City in our Diocese named St Clara academy. Some of these sisters who served in Yazoo City died of yellow fever and are buried in the cemetery there. Sister Catherine Spalding was particularly devoted to the orphanages that the order founded.  She died on March 20, 1853.  

      In the Gospel today, Jesus’ words today reflected a division between those Jews who believed in him and who tried to follow his teachings and those who wanted to destroy him. Jesus sometimes spoke in language that confounded and confused the people. He spoke about the people being set free, but they cannot get beyond the surface of the words, thinking that God had already set the Jews free in their liberation from slavery in Egypt. We listen to words, we try to understand them, but sometimes we hear them from our own perspective, not in their true context. I think of how the word “fear” is used in Jewish scripture. We hear the word “fear” in our 21st century modern American mentality, and we think of how we are scared and afraid of something, afraid of punishment or violence or retribution. But to the Jewish mind, fear of God meant to have awe and wonder and respect for him. Let us open our mind and hearts to God.  Let us try to learn the original intent of the word of God, of how it speaks to us today.