Vigils Reading – St Kateri Tekakwitha

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, just a few miles west of present-day Auriesville, New York. Her Mohawk name, Tekakwitha, means “she who bumps into things.” Kateri was the daughter of Mohawk Chief Kenneronkwa. Her mother, Tagaskouita, was an Algonquian woman who was

adopted and assimilated by the Mohawk before her marriage… When Kateri was about four years old, her parents and younger brother died in a smallpox outbreak. Kateri survived the illness, but she was left with facial scars, damaged eyesight, and poor health. Kateri was adopted by her aunt…

When Kateri was about 10 years old, her village was attacked by the French. Kateri and her family were forced to flee into the woods. To end the fighting, the Mohawk agreed to allow French Jesuit missionaries into their territory. The missionaries hoped to convert the Mohawk to Catholicism… Kateri’s older cousin had converted and moved away a few years prior, so her uncle forbade her from speaking to the missionaries who visited their village. But Kateri’s uncle could not keep her away from the missionaries for long…

In the spring of 1674, Kateri told a visiting priest that she wanted to learn more about his religion… Kateri was baptized in 1676, at which time she took the name

Kateri in honor of Saint Catherine. After enduring six months of ridicule and accusations of witchcraft from neighbors in her village, Kateri took the advice of her spiritual advisor and moved to the Jesuit settlement of Kahnawake… located just outside of Montreal… a safe haven and spiritual community for Native men and women who had converted to Catholicism… Maria-Thérèse was a young Native

convert about the same age as Kateri, and the two quickly became very close friends. They explored their new faith together, and pushed each other to new extremes in their devotion. Claude Chauchetière was a Jesuit priest who had only just arrived from France… He became Kateri’s closest spiritual advisor.

Kateri, Claude, and Maria-Thérèse pushed their community to new spiritual heights. Claude instructed the two young women in every aspect of their faith, and

Kateri and Maria-Thérèse lead their peers in the enthusiastic adoption of each new practice. They experimented with ritual fasting… self-mortification… and asceticism… all with the intention of bringing themselves closer to God. Kateri was always the most extreme adherent of their new practices, and sometimes Claude had to step in to stop her before she did herself irreversible harm. When the young women learned about nuns, Kateri declared her intention of founding a convent. Claude marveled at her willingness to completely abandon her former life, and held her up as a model for the entire conversion mission in New France.

The extreme punishments Kateri inflicted on herself did not help her already poor health, and within a few years, Kateri’s body had been pushed to its limits. On August 17, 1680, Kateri died with the entire community of Kahnawake collected around her. Everyone who witnessed her death later swore that within minutes her smallpox scars disappeared, and her skin became radiant. They interpreted this as a miracle and a sign that Kateri was a saint, and built a chapel in her honor. Kateri’s story spread, aided by a book of her life written and published by Claude, and pilgrims

began to arrive to pray at her burial site. Some reported miraculous healings, and Kateri’s community of followers grew…. She was officially canonized as the first Native American saint in 2012. Today Kateri’s legacy is divisive. Catholics laud her as a beacon of their religion’s power to transform lives, while members of the Mohawk community see her as a victim of the forces of colonization. Regardless of the interpretation of her story, her life demonstrates the way life changed for Native women after the arrival of European colonists