Put Out into the Deep
June 10 2025
This week, continuing the theme of confident witness, we consider that:
Saints mentor each other.
Who is your Catherine?
Sometimes there’s a huge number of saints who share a particular identity. For example, if you are named Catherine, there are at least thirteen saints like you—not to mention the five Blessed Catherines. You can learn how to be a holy Italian Catherine, like Catherine of Siena (and Catherine of Bologna and Catherine of Genoa); or a holy Korean Catherine, like Catherine Yi and Catherine Chong Chor-yom; or a holy American Catherine like Katharine Drexel and Kateri Tekakwitha, whose name is a variant of “Catherine” in the Mohawk language. You can learn to be the holy philosopher Catherine of Alexandria or an educator Catherine or mystic Catherine, a peacemaking Catherine or a priest-smuggling Catherine (Bl. Catherine Jarrige, who showed heroic spycraft during the French Revolution).
There are so many saints Catherine that one of them even befriended another. St. Catherine of Vadstena came from Sweden, but met St. Catherine of Siena in Rome, and the two Catherines became close friends. They learned from one another what a holy Catherine could look like!
Who are the gay Catholics you know?
But with other experiences, it can seem a lot more lonely. Some people already knew what “gay and Catholic” could look like when they began to wonder if that might be their own story. But others had few role models or ideas of what holiness could look like for an LGBTQ+ disciple.
The 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae explains the unique gift and responsibility that Catholic married couples bear:
"Among the fruits that ripen if the law of God be resolutely obeyed, the most precious is certainly this, that married couples themselves will often desire to communicate their own experience to others. Thus it comes about that in the fullness of the lay vocation will be included a novel and outstanding form of the apostolate by which, like ministering to like, married couples themselves by the leadership they offer will become apostles to other married couples. And surely among all the forms of the Christian apostolate it is hard to think of one more opportune for the present time."
This idea of “like ministering to like” is key to BCF’s Confident Witness retreats, in which we help form LGBT/SSA+ Catholics for leadership and mentorship in their local communities. You can register for information about our Confident Witness retreats here:
The first retreat will be in Boston this August 7 – 10. If you know anyone who wants to find “their Catherine,” or become the Catherine who can mentor others like them, please pass that link along!
Like ministers to like. By seeing discipleship lived out by people like ourselves, we begin to imagine how we might be disciples of Jesus. We begin to see how life in Christ can be a life surrounded by love.
Your Prayers and Ours
Please pray for Eve and her partner, who are pledging to become kin to one another this Saturday. They are following in the footsteps of their own role models and foremothers, Ruth and Naomi:
Wherever you go, I will go. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.
Eve & Keith