*“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."
