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KATERI TEKAKWITHA |
| Kateri Tekakwitha will some day soon be a Saint in our
Catholic calendar. She was called Blessed on June 22nd, 1980, in
Rome in a ceremony by Pope John Paul II. Her memory is kept every
year on July 14th.
She was born in 1656 on the south bank of the Mohawk river in a village called Ossernenon. She had a younger brother. Her mother was an Algonquin, a Christian. Her father was Mohawk, not baptized. Already as a child she showed her beautiful personality. Her family named her TEKAKWITHA, which in Mohawk means "puts things in order". Both her father and mother died of small pox, along with her little brother. Among Native people children are never left without a family, homeless. Her uncle and wife took her into their home and reared her according to the Mohawk belief. Although Tekakwitha had not been baptized, she had strong memories of her mother and of the stories she told. She lived with the stories about Jesus and the Angels. It was the old way of listening and memorizing things from childhood. The stories stayed with her and shaped her in her way of serving the sick. Tekakwitha survived the small pox, but her face was scared, and for the rest of her life she was weak. The survivors of small pox moved to the north bank of the river to begin a new life in the village called Caughnawaga. At the age of eight, in keeping with tribal custom, Tekakwitha was paired with a boy of the same age, with a view to eventual marriage. Tekakwitha, however, made it clear that she did not want to marry, but desired to give her life to the Great Manitou (God) to whom she prayed frequently. Such a choice was new among the Mohawks, unheard of. Tekakwitha left the village and fled north to a place now called Sault St. Louis. It was at Sault St. Louis, when she was twenty, that she met Catholic Priests for the first time. The memories of her mother came back. She asked to be baptized. And so she was, on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1676. She was given the name Kateri, Indian for Catherine. In those frontier days the time between baptism and first communion was long, often lasting years; so it was not until Christmas of 1677 that Kateri received her Lord for the first time. Her life from then on was given to the aged and to children, teaching the young and nursing the old. But she had not long to live. On April 17th, 1680, Wednesday of Holy Week, she died at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon at the age of 24. Her last words were "Jesos konoronkwa", "Jesus I love you." In 1940 Father Justin Snyder, OSB, of Stephan Mission, SD, at the regular meeting of Dakota Missionaries moved that the Conference be given a new name and put under the guidance and protection of Kateri Tekakwitha. The Tekakwitha Conference has grown enormously since then. In 1987, in Phoenix, Pope John Paul II came to the meeting for an afternoon. 15,000 Catholic Indian men/women/children greeted him. A Mescalaro Apache Holy Man, Sidney Baca, gave him the traditional blessing with the Eagle Feather and Sweet Grass. The Pope responded, "I have greatly looked forward to this visit with you, the original peoples of this vast country. I thank you for inviting me to be with you and for sharing with me some aspects of your rich and ancient culture..... As your representative spoke I traced in my heart the history of your tribes and nations..... Here your forebears worshiped the Creator and thanked him for his gifts. In contact with the forces of nature they learned the value of prayer, of silence and fasting, of patience and courage in the face of pain and disappointment..." And more. Kateri Prayer Circles are on every Reservation and in many cities where Indian People have places of prayer. Kateri is a popular name for baby girls at their baptism. A PRAYER: "Lord God you called the virgin blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, to shine among the Indian People as an example of innocence of life. Through her example may all peoples of every tribe, tongue and nation, having been gathered into your Church proclaim your greatness in one song of praise. We ask this through Jesus your Son and our Lord. Amen." For all information about Kateri Tekakwitha write: |