I was dog sitting the other day. The dogs and I had coherent intuitive/sensing love conversations all the while. I had back and forth love communication with the beautiful maple tree in the yard. The rabbits, squirrels and I had Garden of Eden loving presence appreciation as we picked up each others peacefulness. The insects also knew our shared peace.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha “Lily of the Mohawks” (1656 – 1680)

St. Kateri was born near present day Auriesville, New York. Her mother, a captured Algonquin, was a Christian, while her father, a Mohawk chief, viewed the new religion with deep suspicion. Both parents died from smallpox when Kateri was four. Her own scarred face showed the marks of the disease, which also darkened her vision, causing her to stumble in the light. As a result her people called her Tekakwitha – “the one who walks groping her way.” When a Jesuit missionary arrived in her village in 1674 she requested baptism. She was given the name Kateri – a Mohawk version of Katherine.

Kateri’s conversion caused distress in her community, so much so her confessor feared for her safety and urged her to flee. Under cover of darkness she set off from her village by foot and traveled two hundred miles to a Christian mission near Montreal, where on Christmas Day, 1677, she made her First Communion.

Though free to practice her faith, she was still forced to grope her way in a world that supplied no clear models. She resisted the idea of marriage. When she proposed founding a convent, the idea was quickly dismissed. Nevertheless, in 1679 she made a public vow of chastity – the furthest she got with her dream of the religious life. Soon after, she fell ill and died on April 17, 1680, at the age of twenty-three. She was beatified in 1980 and canonized in 2012, with a feast day on July 14.

“I am not my own; I have given myself to Jesus. He must be my only love.” St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Give Us THIS DAY, July 2021, 152, July 14, Liturgical Press

I have written in the past about what I call the Convergence Point. I have defined the Convergence Point as the point in your mind where the unconscious part of your mind bucks up against the conscious part of your mind. The Convergence Point is where you tell your Self the absolute truth and grow by making a painful issue that you have held in the unconscious part of your mind, or even in part of your body, conscious. You bravely face this difficulty. You heal your Self by facing, analyzing and eventually resolving the problem. The healing for a particular issue is then ongoing. You honestly tackle your once unconscious problems one after another until you become quite conscious. You are developing your character. You become much more aware. You awaken. These unconscious problems were inhibitions that ran your life. These hidden parts of your Self made you behave as if you were an unconscious robot. You were pushed into robotic behavior that stemmed from the dark unconscious part of you which is sometimes called your shadow.

Now that you have awakened to your mind you begin to realize that other people are just like you and may be going through the awakening process the same as you. You have begun to be able to observe your own thoughts as if you were an onlooker observing the thoughts of your mind and also the feelings of your body. You are beginning to be conscious of your Self among others which is what awakening is all about. You are now seeing your Self in others. You are realizing that you are connected to other people by the collective energy that we share. You realize that you are not separate from others. You are becoming illuminated. You can eventually realize that you are connected and part of the energy of the whole cosmos.

When you are able to be as the afore mentioned you have met The Dweller At The Threshold. The dweller at the threshold is your True Self. It is your Supreme Self. Your True Self is the Image and Likeness of God described in the “Old Testament” and Christianity. Other traditions have different names for the Image and Likeness. It is your True Self “who” is awakening at the Convergence Point. After you have truthfully faced the hard issues about your particular and unique Self you have pretty much erased the Convergence point but there will always be something left until you are ready to become discarnate. You have become conscious. You are aware. You have awakened.

But one thing should be remembered: maya keeps us in ignorance and keeps us entangled in the world, whereas daya makes our hearts pure and gradually unties our bonds. God cannot be realized without purity of heart. One receives the grace of God by subduing the passions – lust, anger and greed. Then one sees God (161).

THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA, copyright, 1942, By Swami Nikhilananda, New York, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center 1969