St. Kateri Tekakwitha

*“Today the Church needs saints. This calls for our combating our

attachment to comforts that lead us to choose a comfortable and

insignificant mediocrity. Each one of us has the possibility to be a saint,

and the way to holiness is prayer. Holiness is, for each of us, a simple

duty.” *St. Mother Teresa

Simon and Garfunkel sang *Mrs. Robinson*, the classic song from the movie *The

Graduate.* They lamented the lack of American heroes and sang, “Where have

you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

The true American heroes are not sport or entertainment figures, but

Catholic saints. We should turn our “lonely eyes” to them and follow their

good examples, virtues and works. They are our true friends and are alive

in heaven with God. They are models of holiness for us. They can help us

just like friends on earth by their prayerful intercession on our behalf.

They give us courage and hope.

July 14 is the feast of one of our saints of the states, St. Kateri

Tekakwitha. Let our nation turn its lonely eyes to her for courage and

hope. Pope Benedict XVI canonized her at St. Peter's square in Vatican City

October 21, 2012.

The blood of the martyrs is often the water that sprouts the seed of the

Catholic faith. The blood of the only martyrs of the United States, Saints

Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil and Jean de la Lande, watered the seed of the

faith in the Mohawk Village at Auriesville, New York. Kateri Tekakwitha was

born there in 1656, ten years after they were martyred there.

*Kateri's Baptism*

Kateri lived in the Mohawk Village with her uncle, the chief of the Turtle

Clan, after her parents died from smallpox when she was four. The smallpox

left her disfigured with impaired vision. "Tekakwitha" in Mohawk means "one

who puts things in order" or "one who feels her way", because Kateri had to

feel her way with her poor eyesight in the darkened lodges. She often

stayed in the Longhouse because the sunlight hurt her eyes.

She fell in love with Jesus and decided to remain a virgin. Virginity was

unheard of amongst the Indians and they pressured her to marry and to work

on Sunday, but she refused to do so. When they connived to have her lodge

visited by a young warrior in the hopes of their union, she turned him out.

Then the Indians treated her as a slave and put her to work for the village.

In 1666, the French attacked and burned down Kateri’s village. The Mohawks

built a new village on the north side of the Mohawk River at Fonda

(Caughnawaga), New York. Here Kateri first  heard of the Catholic faith

from Father Jacques de Lamberville, a French Jesuit, who occasionally

visited her village at St. Peter's Mission. He baptized her on April 18,

1676 and she took the name Catherine that the Mohawks pronounced “Kateri”.

The other Mohawks persecuted her for her faith. They mocked her devotion to

Our Lady and her recitation of the Rosary. Kateri was not deterred, but to

avoid the persecution she escaped in 1677 with some companions from the

village to Canada. She trekked north through New York and paddled Lake

Champlain to Sault Saint-Louis, a Christian Indian Mission near Montreal on

the St. Lawrence River. Her journey took over two weeks, traveling by foot

and canoe about three hundred miles through woods, rivers, swamps and lakes.

*The Lily of the Mohawks *

At the Mission, Kateri lived a life dedicated to prayer, penitential

practices and care for the sick and aged. Her day at the Mission began at 4

a.m. each morning in church where she remained for several hours of prayer

and Masses. She helped the sick and the poor. She formed a group called the

Slavery of the Blessed Virgin and they fasted and endured exposure to the

cold in the woods as acts of penance. On March 25, 1679, Kateri was

permitted to make a vow of perpetual virginity.

Kateri was a half-blind, pockmarked orphan Indian maiden. She was little

more than a slave in her own clan, but in God's eyes she was His pure

daughter and a model for her race. Many Indians followed her good example

and converted. Kateri received the Eucharist with the greatest devotion.

Father Pierre Cholenec, who prepared her for her First Communion said,

"Only God knows what passed between Himself and His dear Spouse."

Kateri attended daily Masses at 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and visited the Blessed

Sacrament five times daily, after her daily visitations to the sick and the

poor. During her own last sickness, she dragged herself to Mass until she

could no longer walk. She died at the age of 24 on April 17, 1680 in the

presence of Father Cholenec and all of her pox marks disappeared. He said

that at the time of her death Kateri's face "... so disfigured and so

swarthy in life, suddenly changed about fifteen minutes after her death,

and in an instant became so beautiful and so fair that just as soon as I

saw it (I was praying by her side) I let out a yell, I was so astonished."

Two hundred and ninety three years later on the very same date, April 17,

1973, young Peter McCauley's hearing was spontaneously restored through

Kateri's intercession. This was the miracle that led to her beatification

by Pope John Paul II on June 22, 1980.

Pope Benedict XVI canonized Kateri on October 21, 2012. He called St.

Kateri the "protectress of Canada and the first Native American saint" and

he entrusted to her "the renewal of the faith in the First Nations and in

all of North America."

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, who is of American Indian

descent, said, "I think many young people today are embarrassed about

embracing the Catholic faith because they live in a secular culture that's

hostile toward religious experience. St. Kateri also grew up in a place

where there was great hostility toward Christianity, but she resisted all

efforts to turn her away from her faith, so in some ways she would be a

model of fidelity in the face of persecution on religious freedom grounds."

Kateri’s Feast Day is July 14. Because of her purity, she is known as the

"Lily of the Mohawks."