Katharine Drexel was a young heiress from Philadelphia when she and her sisters had a private audience with Pope Leo XIII in 1887. The young women had grown up in a home in which they had been part of regular, ongoing, personal sharing of their wealth with others in need all through their childhoods.
Katharine had long been concerned about the poverty and spiritual needs of Native Americans. They were so much a part of her concern that when she met with the Holy Father she asked him, “Please send someone to help them.” Pope Pius looked at her and said, “Perhaps you should be that someone.”
Katharine was so disturbed at that thought that she took to her bed for several days. Nonetheless, then she got up and accepted the Pope’s words as her call from God to do what she was asked to do. She founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in 1891. Their mission was to both Native and African Americans. She spent her fortune for that mission and lived her life as a sister within that order, dying in 1955 at the age of 96. Today she is a saint, canonized in 2000.
I always think of Katherine when I hear the line from today’s Gospel, “Again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Katharine Drexel made it through the eye of the needle.
That phrase shocked the disciples and led to a deep conversation with Jesus about discipleship. Peter noted they had left everything to follow Jesus, and asked in effect, “What do we get for that?” Jesus told them that eventually both they and those who follow who give up “houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” That sounded good! But then Jesus took the conversation even deeper to add, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
What did Jesus mean by that? For that matter, what exactly did Jesus mean it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? That image is very strong for me. It is such a strong image that Biblical scholars have explained it in a number of different ways. For consideration today, I am sticking with the simple image: trying to make a loaded camel into a thread which could fit through a needle’s eye.
As I ponder that, Gideon in today’s Old Testament reading is a help to me. Gideon did not have wealth or stature. He did not have to shed money or comfort to answer God, but, like Katharine Drexel, God called him to do a difficult thing. He had to let go of fear and a sense of himself as not important or capable. His camel was loaded with his sense of limitation.
To fully understand Gideon, it helps to look at the context of this story. Scripture now has fast-forwarded 200 years since Moses’ death (in our readings last week). The Israelites have offended God by worshiping the gods of the local peoples as they lived in the land God gave them. When Gideon appears in scripture, the Israelites have been repeatedly raided by the Midian and other peoples for seven years. They would grow their crops, but the Midian would come and destroy their produce just as they were harvesting it, thus starving them. When the story begins today, Gideon is trying to thresh some grain to be able to hide it before Midian marauders could come to burn the dry, ready-to harvest fields.
When God calls Gideon, he doesn’t have to let go of wealth. He has to let go of his sense of poverty and unworthiness: “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? My family is the meanest ( least wealthy and least regarded) in Manasseh, and I am the most insignificant in my father’s house.”
Nonetheless, like Katharine Drexel, Gideon determines that it is indeed God who calls him and answers yes. In a fascinating story in Judges 7, with just 300 men he defeats the Midian and other peoples starving Israel. He then rules Israel through a time of peace and prosperity for 40 years.
Let us return to the eye of the needle and Katharine Drexel. There is a lesser known piece to Katharine’s story. It was not giving up social status or wealth that caused Katharine distress. She wanted to be a contemplative. She did not see herself as a foundress. Interestingly, in 1937 she suffered a heart attack which led to her giving up her responsibilities as foundress and Mother Superior. From then until her death in 1955 Katharine gave her life to Eucharistic adoration as a contemplative, while others carried on the work she had begun. First, she was obedient and shed both wealth and her own holy desire so God could trim her to fit through the eye of the needle with which He wished to reach out to two special groups on the edge of his Church’s love. Last, she could be contemplative. Is that a deeper meaning for that conversation between Jesus and His disciples? Is it first we must be obedient and submissive as God unloads us of our camel’s burdens? An interesting consideration….
How is God working in your life to shed off the load of your camel and trim you to fit through His needle’s eye? Is it wealth…or your own dreams…or a sense of unworthiness…or??? What needs to come first in your life today? God has been working slowly in my life to trim me for some new work as I retire. It has been hard for me to see His hand—mostly because I expected Him to guide me now the way He has in the past. I am having to give up my perceptions and expectations—just as Gideon, the disciples, and Katharine Drexel did. I hope I soon am trim enough to fit through His needle’s eye!
Today, St. Ignatius prayer at the end his 30 day Spiritual Exercises seems a good one:
“Accept, O Lord, all my freedom. Accept my mind, my memory, my entire will. Whatever I am or possess, You have graciously given me. I give it all back to You to be completely governed by Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace, and I am rich enough and ask nothing more.”
