Rags to Riches (or the other way around)

This morning's 1st Reading at Mass is pretty amazing.  The Hebrews, reduced to absolute slavery in Egypt, are about to become "a people peculiarly [God's] own", to be "raised high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made."  A huge move up, from the bottom of the food chain to the very top!  This is the Cinderella story we all love to hear about.

But what if it went the other way?  What if the story was about someone on the top of the scale who ends up on the bottom?  Not very exciting.

How appropriate today, as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Katherine Drexel.  Part of Philadelphia society, she left it all to enter religious life.  The money that would have given her a guarantee of lifetime comfort and security (as well as make her quite a catch to any man seeking the same) went to establish schools, hospitals, orphanages, etc.

In this pop culture that adores and glorifies young women with no other skill other than being born with the last names of "Hilton" or "Kardashian", let's remember one of the good girls who won't be remembered for being married for 6½ minutes or the intellectual brilliance of the phrase, "That's hot", and is held up as a Saint of the Church.