If you get pulled over for speeding, you might have several excuses to use, but did you ever say that you didn’t know you had to obey the speed limit? As the saying goes, ignorance of the law is no excuse. That is what Moses is telling the people in the first reading. The laws of God are not difficult to understand. Anyone with a conscience should be able to live with them.

By the time of Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees had added many more laws. The scholar who questioned Jesus about eternal life knew what was important: loving God with all your being and loving your neighbor as yourself. If he had stopped there, he would have been all right. But by asking “Who is my neighbor?” he implied that there are limits to love. That’s why Jesus used the parable of the good Samaritan to show that love is as simple as helping someone in need.

Even today, we find people making excuses for not doing what God asks of us. We want someone else to interpret it for us, hoping they will find a loophole we can use to ignore God’s commands. We judge people who need help, saying they choose to be poor or homeless. We say that between work and family obligations, we have no time to give to the community. We sign our kids up for so many sports that we don’t even go to church on Sundays. We always have time to watch our favorite TV shows, but there’s never enough time for daily prayers.

Before you start beating yourself up with guilt, remember that God expects us to take care of our families, to spend time with our children, and even to take time to rest and relax. If we are willing to look at our lives and bring them to God, asking for guidance, we are making the first steps to keep God’s law of love. Even Jesus, whom Paul describes in the second reading as the image of God and source of all creation, had to die on the cross to show God’s love to the world. Jesus understands the difficult choices we make. Ask for his help and you shall receive.

-Tom Schmidt, Diocesan Publications

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SAINT KATERI TEKAKWITHA (1656-1680) – July 14

Though the New York State Thruway runs close by the North American Martyrs’ Shrine, traffic’s roar never pierces the peace enveloping Auriesville—Ossernon to Native Americans—in the lovely Mohawk Valley, where Kateri Tekakwitha was born barely ten years after the martyrdom of Isaac Jogues and his Jesuit and lay companions. Daughter of a Christian Algonquin mother and non-Christian Mohawk chief, Kateri’s parents died in a smallpox epidemic widely blamed on the missionaries. Moreover, many Native Americans had experienced exploitation at the hands of “Christian” traders and trappers, further discrediting the faith Kateri embraced in baptism, then pledged to live even more intensely in vowed virginity. Misunderstanding led to harassment, prompting her move to a Christian village farther north along the Saint Lawrence River. Despite this, Kateri’s faith remained undaunted, her selfless charity undiminished. Both before and after her death at twenty-four, this young “Lily of the Mohawks” drew countless converts to Christ by the fragrance of her goodness. Through us, does “the aroma of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15), attract others to the beauty of his gospel?

-Peter Scagnelli, Diocesan Publications