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October 2012

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Source of Pride

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By Jack Wintz, OFM

Brother Maynard Shurley, along with other Native Americans across our land, is delighted that Kateri Tekakwitha will be canonized this month.

When asked about the news of Kateri Tekakwitha’s October 21 canonization, Brother Maynard Shurley, OFM, replies, “It’s about time we have a Native American saint!” The 56-yearold Navajo friar saw the news as a great source of pride for all Native Americans when St. Anthony Messenger interviewed him in New Mexico last February.

Brother Maynard was born close to the Navajo reservation in a small town east of Gallup, New Mexico. He serves as the local minister or guardian of the small Franciscan friary at Tohatchi, New Mexico, on the reservation. He was recently elected to the provincial council of the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Brother Maynard speaks to the people in either Navajo or English, as needed. He walks easily between cultures.

Jack Wintz, OFM, is senior editor of this publication and editor of Catholic Update. He is also author of Friar Jack’s E-spirations, a free newsletter accessible at FriarJack.org.

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Matt Talbot: Matt can be considered the patron of men and women struggling with alcoholism.
<p>Matt was born in Dublin, where his father worked on the docks and had a difficult time supporting his family. After a few years of schooling, Matt obtained work as a messenger for some liquor merchants; there he began to drink excessively. For 15 years—until he was almost 30—Matt was an active alcoholic. </p><p>One day he decided to take "the pledge" for three months, make a general confession and begin to attend daily Mass. There is evidence that Matt’s first seven years after taking the pledge were especially difficult. Avoiding his former drinking places was hard. He began to pray as intensely as he used to drink. He also tried to pay back people from whom he had borrowed or stolen money while he was drinking. </p><p>Most of his life Matt worked as a builder’s laborer. He joined the Secular Franciscan Order and began a life of strict penance; he abstained from meat nine months a year. Matt spent hours every night avidly reading Scripture and the lives of the saints. He prayed the rosary conscientiously. Though his job did not make him rich, Matt contributed generously to the missions. </p><p>After 1923 his health failed, and Matt was forced to quit work. He died on his way to church on Trinity Sunday. Fifty years later Pope Paul VI gave him the title venerable.</p>

We are called to share in the infinite life and love of God. We are called by God to a relationship that is destined to transform us into his likeness, to “divinize” us. This is going to take some stretching, to say the least.

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