Many of us probably read the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne when we were in high school or college. 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 had a great influence in the American colonies. A year after that novel was published, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter Rose was born in 1851. She grew up in Massachusetts and in England, where her father served as US counsel. She married as a young woman, but her husband struggled with alcoholism and work. Their son died when he was 5 years old. She and her husband converted to Catholicism after their travels to Italy. Her Catholic faith brought her courage and strength. She separated from her husband and devoted her life to caring for patients with incurable cancer, a disease that was greatly feared and misunderstood in 19th century America. After her husband’s death in 1898, became a consecrated religious sister with 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 took the religious name Mother Mary Alphonsa. She served as a Dominican sister until her death on July 9, 1926. She is in the process of canonization, having been declared venerable in 20014. I became familiar with her when I read a book about her life entitled Sorrow Built a Bridge.
As we are speaking about the life of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop and her work with cancer patients, our Gospel today speaks about Jesus sending out his 12 disciples as missionaries of his God News, with them having the task of bringing healing to the sick. We are all called bring to the message of Christ’s Good News to the world and to bring healing into the world in different ways. How are we doing that?
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