Footprints 2004:
Phone: (780) 455-2700Fax
(780) 455-7639
Email: edwind@ammsa.com
Phone: (780) 455-2700
Fax
(780) 455-7639Email: edwind@ammsa.com
[Footprints] Kateri Tekakwitha
Cheryl Petten
More than 300 years have passed since Kateri Tekakwitha lived
her brief life, but even today people across North America look
to her for strength and guidance.
Kateri was born in 1656 in Ossernenon,
a Mohawk village located near present day Auriesville, New York.
Her father was a Mohawk chief; her mother an Algonquin woman
who had been captured by the Mohawk. While her father hadn't
converted to Christianity, her mother had, and she taught her
daughter to pray in the Christian way.
When Kateri was only four, the community was ravaged by smallpox
and she was the only member of her family to survive. But while
the disease didn't claim her life, it did take its toll on the
young girl. She was left weakened and was covered in scars. The
disease had also affected her eyesight, and she was given the
name Tekakwitha, which means "she who stumbles into things."
She was adopted by her father's brother, who assumed the role
of chief.
Kateri was born at a time and place where living as a Christian
was difficult. Many Mohawks distrusted the Jesuit missionaries
who came among them, blaming them for bringing the sickness that
spread through their communities. Mohawk opposition to Christianity
was strengthened by politics. This new religion found support
among the Hurons, who were bitter enemies of the Mohawks and
the missionaries working to bring their religion to the region,
the French Jesuits.
The Mohawk had aligned themselves with the English and Dutch.
A number of missionaries had been killed by the Mohawks at Ossernenon,
the last in 1646, just 10 years before Kateri was born.
Following the smallpox epidemic that claimed so many lives, Kateri
and her people abandoned Ossernenon and settled across the Mohawk
River at Caughnawaga, near present day Fonda, New York. Despite
the physical toll smallpox had taken on her, Kateri was a hard
worker and her adoptive parents had high hopes for finding her
a good husband who could support them in their old age. Kateri,
however, had other plans, and showed no interest in marriage.
When French missionaries visited the village, Kateri's uncle
was their reluctant host. It was during that visit that Kateri
chose the path she would follow. Soon after the visit, Jesuit
missionary Father Jacques de Lamberville arrived to set up a
permanent mission and, although her uncle had forbidden her to
speak to the missionaries, an opportunity soon presented itself
and Kateri told de Lamberville of her desire to be a Christian.
Kateri converted to Christianity in 1676 and was baptized on
Easter Sunday. She was given the Christian name Katherine.
Kateri's devotion to her religion was astounding, even to the
missionaries she turned to for teaching and guidance in her new
faith. She spent as much time as she could in the chapel, spending
almost the entire day there on Sundays and holy days.
The fact that she so openly embraced Christianity did not sit
well with Kateri's family or other members of the community.
People would throw rocks at her as she made her way to chapel,
calling her "the Christian." And because she refused
to do any work on Sundays, keeping the Sabbath holy according
to Christian practices, on that day her aunts would give her
no food.
A story often told about young Kateri demonstrates her unfoundering
commitment to her beliefs. One day, while Kateri was alone in
the longhouse, a young man from the community, angry with her
because of her beliefs, burst in and threatened to kill her if
she did not renounce her religion. As he stood over her, war
club in hand, she calmly told him he could take her life, but
not her faith. Then she lowered her head and waited for the blow.
Her calm and conviction shook the would-be attacker and he fled
without harming the girl.
The following year, in an attempt to escape the persecution inflicted
upon her because of her beliefs, Kateri fled her village, traveling
200 miles through the wilderness to find refuge in the St. Francis
Xavier mission in another community named Caughnawaga-present-day
Kahnawake, Que-populated by Mohawk people who were much more
accepting of the religion brought by the Jesuit missionaries.
That Christmas, Kateri made her first communion.
Kateri spent much of her time caring for the sick and elderly
among her people, and those around her were touched and inspired
by her goodness and devotion. But Kateri herself felt the need
to do penance for her weakness and her sins, and this penance
was often painful for the young girl. Not allowing herself even
simple comforts, she would mix ashes into her food, and once
slept on a bed covered in thorns. At one point she branded herself
with hot coals, offering up her suffering to God.
In 1679, she visited a convent in nearby Ville-Marie (now Montreal)
and was so impressed with the way the nuns lived their lives
that on her return to Caughnawaga she asked to set up her own
convent. Her request was refused, but still she chose to take
the vow of chastity, which she did on March 25, becoming the
first Native American woman to do so.
Then, in the winter of 1679, Kateri's always precarious health
began to worsen, a decline that was no doubt hastened by the
extreme penances she put herself through. She began suffering
from headaches and stomach pains, and her strength dwindled.
For months she was unable to move from her bed. And then, on
April 17, 1680, she received communion for the last time, whispered
to those around her that she would remember them in heaven, professed
her love to Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and slipped away.
It is said that 15 minutes after her death, the smallpox scars
that had marked Kateri for most of her life disappeared completely,
replaced by a radiant beauty. Those who witnessed this event
believed it was a sign that she was truly special, and felt the
transformation occurred at the moment Kateri saw God.
Many people reported seeing visions of Kateri appear to them
after her death, and in the years following, many miracles were
attributed to her, with gravely ill people being cured by touching
the cross she had held on her deathbed or when given powder that
had come from her tomb. Even today, people have claimed miraculous
recoveries after praying to Kateri.
Kateri was venerated by Pope Pius XII in 1943; and in 1980, in
front of hundreds of Native Americans who traveled to Rome to
witness the event, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II, the
first Native American to be declared Blessed. In order for her
to be canonized and declared a saint, another miracle attributed
to Kateri must first be proved.
There are shrines to Blessed Kateri in the Mohawk Valley-the
national Shrine of the North American Martyrs, the national Kateri
Shrine on the American side of the border and the Blessed Kateri
Tekakwitha shrine in Kahnawake, where Kateri's tomb can be found.
Her name also graces a number of schools on both sides of the
border, and her name has been adopted by the Tekakwitha Conference,
an American-based organization dedicated to unifying Native American
Catholics and helping them to find a balance between Catholicism
and Native spirituality.
The Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks, is the patron
of the environment, people in exile, people ridiculed for their
religious beliefs, orphans, and of World Youth Day. In Canada,
the Feast of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha is celebrated on April
17, the anniversary of her death. In the United States, it is
commemorated on July 14.