"Who do people say that I am?"

There may well be bigger and more beautiful Katharine Drexel-funded churches on Indian reservations, but I do really love St. Paul's in Marty, South Dakota, not all that far from here, on the Yankton Sioux reservation.

Behind the giant crucifix is a gallery of souls, some of them identifiable to congregants, some simply generic, all lending adoration to Jesus. Around them is a wide belt of geometric designs associated with Plains tribes, those designs festooned in unmistakably Native colors.

Down in the right-hand corner, there is life-size statue of Tekakwitha, the only Native sainted by the church, a beautiful young woman who died as a young woman. There's a quilt over the table in front, in all likelihood something created by someone from the church. More vivid Native designs decorate the rug hung over the pulpit. 

Katharine Drexel would be a saint had she never tallied the required miracles. Her lifelong work among African- and Native-Americans is a wonder. That today there seems to be something distasteful about the very image of white missionary-types lording it over people of color is understandable but misguided and sadly unjust. 

Everything about St. Paul's is beautiful. 

A series of small framed prints run around the sanctuary telling the story of Jesus. You have to look to see them--they're that understated; but if when you find them, you can't help but see--if you're white like I am--that the subjects, by all means, are not. They're Native--not Yankton Sioux, but almost gaudily Native.

Each of the prints is scripted with a short explanation--this one is Joseph and Mary presenting Jesus in the temple. Explanations are given in English and in the language of the artist.

Here's another. this one of the coming of the Magi.

Here's another: 

And this:

Years ago, I asked one of religious at St. Paul's about them. She's spent her whole life at Marty, a dedication that is in and of itself saintly. I wondered what Yankton Catholics thought when those paintings were placed around the sanctuary. Did people say anything about suddenly looking at stories they must have imagined since they were children being represented her as Native people? Did they find it jarring? Were they thrilled?

"No one said anything much," she told me, but then she hunched her shoulders because she did remember, she said, that one woman mentioned to her that the crucified Jesus was almost fully naked. She said it as if it might have been somewhat scandalous to adorn the church with. . .well, you know. 

I couldn't help but giggle. My mother would certainly have reacted in the same way. Sometimes racial differences simply don't exist. 

But more fascinating, perhaps, is the possibility that Yankton congregants didn't say much because the drawings only restated what the people already imagined those biblical stories looked like. They always seen Jesus as one of their friends; the prints weren't much different than the images their imaginations had created long ago.

The beauty of all this--or so it seems to me this Lenten Friday-- is that entire story is more about Jesus than it is about my surprise or their lack thereof. His love is always there, no matter what he wears. 

And He's always more mysterious than we can and do imagine.