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Kateri Tekakwitha ( in
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
), given the name Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), is a
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
and
virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
who was an
Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
. Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, on the south side of the
Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...
in present-day New York State, she contracted
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
in an epidemic; her family died and her face was scarred. She converted to Catholicism at age nineteen, when she was baptized and given the Christian name Kateri in honor of
Catherine of Siena Catherine of Siena (Italian: ''Caterina da Siena''; 25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and on the Catholic Church. ...
. Refusing to marry, she left her village and moved for the remaining five years of her life to the
Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...
mission village of
Kahnawake The Kahnawake Mohawk Territory (french: Territoire Mohawk de Kahnawake, in the Mohawk language, ''Kahnawáˀkye'' in Tuscarora) is a First Nations reserve of the Mohawks of Kahnawá:ke on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Queb ...
, south of
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on the St. Lawrence River in
New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
, now
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. Kateri Tekakwitha took a vow of perpetual
virginity Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
. Upon her death at the age of 24, witnesses said that her scars vanished minutes later, and her face appeared radiant and beautiful. Known for her
virtue Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standard ...
of
chastity Chastity, also known as purity, is a virtue related to temperance. Someone who is ''chaste'' refrains either from sexual activity considered immoral or any sexual activity, according to their state of life. In some contexts, for example when mak ...
and
mortification of the flesh Mortification of the flesh is an act by which an individual or group seeks to mortify or deaden their sinful nature, as a part of the process of sanctification. In Christianity, mortification of the flesh is undertaken in order to repent for s ...
, as well as being shunned by some of her tribe for her religious conversion to
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, she is the fourth Native American to be venerated in the Catholic Church. She was
beatified Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
in 1980 by
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
, and canonized by
Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
at
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on 21 October 2012. Various miracles and supernatural events are attributed to her intercession.


Early life and education

''Tekakwitha'' is the name the girl was given by her Mohawk people. It translates to "She who bumps into things." She was born around 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon in Northeastern New York state. A nineteenth-century claim that Auriesville developed at the site of Ossernenon has been disproved by archaeological findings, according to Dean R. Snow and other specialists in Native American history in New York. She was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Kahenta, an
Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...
woman, who had been captured in a raid, then adopted and assimilated into the tribe. Kahenta had been
baptized Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...
Catholic and educated by French missionaries in
Trois-Rivières Trois-Rivières (, – 'Three Rivers') is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice River, Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence River, Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Sain ...
, east of Montreal. Mohawk warriors captured her and took her to their homeland. Kahenta eventually married Kenneronkwa. Tekakwitha was the first of their two children. A brother followed. Tekakwitha's original village was highly diverse. The Mohawk were absorbing many captured natives of other tribes, particularly their competitors, the
Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
, to replace people who died from warfare or diseases such as measles and chickenpox. While from different backgrounds, such captives were adopted into the tribe to become full members and were expected to assimilate as Mohawk fully. The Mohawk suffered a severe smallpox
epidemic An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics ...
from 1661 to 1663, causing high fatalities. When Tekakwitha was around four years old, her baby brother and both her parents died of smallpox. She survived but was left with facial scars and impaired eyesight. She was adopted by her father's sister and her husband, a chief of the Turtle Clan. Before the epidemic, in 1659, some Mohawk had founded a new village on the north side of the river, which they called Caughnawaga ("at the wild water" in the Mohawk language). Survivors of Ossernenon moved to that village. The Jesuits' account of Tekakwitha said that she was a modest girl who avoided social gatherings; she covered much of her head with a blanket because of the smallpox scars. They said that, as an orphan, the girl was under the care of uninterested relatives. According to Mohawk practices, she was probably well taken care of by her clan, her mother and uncle's extended family, with whom she lived in the
longhouse A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often rep ...
. She became skilled at traditional women's arts, which included making clothing and belts from animal skins; weaving mats, baskets, and boxes from reeds and grasses; and preparing food from game, crops, and gathered produce. She took part in the women's seasonal planting and intermittent weeding. As was the custom, she was pressured to consider marriage around age thirteen, but she refused.


Upheaval and invasions

Tekakwitha grew up in a period of upheaval, as the Mohawk interacted with French and Dutch colonists, who were competing in the lucrative fur trade. The Mohawk initially traded with the Dutch, who had settled in Albany and
Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...
. The French traded with and were allied with the
Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
. Trying to make inroads in
Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
territory, the French attacked the Mohawk in present-day central New York in 1666. After driving the people from their homes, the French burned the three Mohawk villages on the south side of the river, destroying the longhouses, wigwams, and the women's corn and squash fields. Tekakwitha, around ten years old, fled with her new family into a cold October forest. After the defeat by the French forces, the Mohawk were forced into a peace treaty that required them to accept Jesuit missionaries in their villages. The Jesuits established a mission near Auriesville, New York. While there, the Jesuits studied Mohawk and other native languages to reach the people. They spoke of Christianity in terms with which the Mohawk could identify. In his work on Tekakwitha, Darren Bonaparte notes the parallels between Mohawk and Christian belief elements. For instance, the Jesuits used the word ''Karonhià:ke,'' the Mohawk name for Sky World, as the word for heaven in the
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
in Mohawk. "This was not just a linguistic shortcut, but a conceptual bridge from one cosmology to another." The Mohawk crossed their river to rebuild Caughnawaga on the north bank, west of the present-day town of
Fonda, New York Fonda is a Village (New York), village in and the county seat of Montgomery County, New York, Montgomery County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 795 at the 2010 census. The village is named after Douw Fonda, a Dutch-Am ...
. In 1667, when Tekakwitha was 11 years old, she met the Jesuit missionaries Jacques Frémin, Jacques Bruyas, and Jean Pierron, who had come to the village. Her uncle opposed any contact with them because he did not want her to convert to Christianity. One of his older daughters had already left Caughnawaga to go to Kahnawake, the Catholic mission village across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. In the summer of 1669, several hundred
Mohican The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...
warriors, advancing from the east, launched a dawn attack on Caughnawaga. Rousing quickly to the defense, Mohawk villagers fought off the invaders, who kept Caughnawaga under siege for three days. Tekakwitha, now around 13 years old, joined other girls to help priest Jean Pierron tend to the wounded, bury the dead, and carry food and water to the defending warriors on the palisades. When reinforcements arrived from other Mohawk villages, the defenders drove the Mohican warriors into retreat. The victorious Mohawk pursued the Mohican warriors, attacking them in the forest, killing over 80, and capturing several others. Returning to Caughnawaga amid the widespread celebration, the victors tortured the captive Mohicans—thirteen men and four women—for two afternoons in succession, planning to execute them on the third. Pierron, tending to the captives, implored the torturers to stop, but they ignored him. Pierron instructed the captives in Catholic doctrine as best he could and baptized them before they died under torture.


Feast of the Dead

Later in 1669, the Iroquois Feast of the Dead, held every ten years, was convened at Caughnawaga. Some
Oneida people The Oneida people ( autonym: Onʌyoteˀa·ká·, Onyota'a:ka, ''the People of the Upright Stone, or standing stone'', ''Thwahrù·nęʼ'' in Tuscarora) are a Native American tribe and First Nations band. They are one of the five founding ...
came, along with
Onondaga Onondaga may refer to: Native American/First Nations * Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League * Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capita ...
led by their famous
sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
Garakontié. The remains of Tekakwitha's parents, along with the many others who had died in the previous decade, were to be carefully exhumed so that their souls could be released to wander to the spirit land to the west. According to a 1936 book about Tekakwitha, Pierron attacked the Feast of the Dead's beliefs and logic. The assembled Iroquois, upset over his remarks, ordered him to be silent. But Pierron continued, telling the Iroquois to give up their "superstitious" rites. Under Garakontié's protection, Pierron finished his speech. He demanded that to secure continued friendship with the French, the Iroquois give up their Feast of the Dead, their faith in dreams as a guide to action, and the worship of their war god. At length, the assembled Iroquois relented. Exchanging gifts with priest Pierron, they promised to give up the customs he had denounced. Garakontié later converted to Christianity.


A chief converts

In 1671, Mohawk chief Ganeagowa, who had led his warriors to victory against the Mohican, returned from a long hunting trip in the north to announce he had become a Christian. He had come upon the Catholic Iroquois village set up by Jesuits at La Prairie, southeast of Montreal. There he made friendly contact with priest Jacques Frémin, who had served as a missionary in Mohawk country. Influenced by the Iroquois villagers' Catholic faith and his wife Satékon, Ganeagowa received instruction for several months from Frémin, who accepted him into the Church.


Family pressures

By the time Tekakwitha turned 17, around 1673, her adoptive mother (her father's sister) and aunt (uncle's sister) had become concerned over her lack of interest in marriage. They tried to arrange her marriage to a young Mohawk man by instructing him to sit beside her. They indicated to Tekakwitha that the young man wanted to marry her. Accordingly, they pressured her to offer him a certain dish made with corn. Iroquois custom regarded this as a woman's sign of openness to marriage. Tekakwitha fled the cabin and hid from her family in a nearby field. Tekakwitha was said to have been punished by her aunts with ridicule, threats, and harsh workloads. But Tekakwitha continued to resist marriage. Eventually, her aunts gave up their efforts to get her to marry. In the spring of 1674, at age eighteen, Tekakwitha met the Jesuit priest Jacques de Lamberville, who was visiting the village. Most of the women were out harvesting corn, but Tekakwitha had injured her foot and was in the cabin. In the presence of others, Tekakwitha told him her story and her desire to become a Christian. After this, she started studying the catechism with him.


Conversion and Kahnawake

Lamberville wrote in his journal in the years after her death about Tekakwitha. This text described her before she was baptized as a mild-mannered girl and behaved very well. Lamberville also stated that Kateri did everything she could to stay holy in a secular society, which often caused minor conflicts with her longhouse residents. These conflicts suggested that there was no violence, which contradicts future texts. Judging that she was ready, Lamberville baptized Tekakwitha at the age of 19, on
Easter Sunday Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...
, April 18, 1676. Tekakwitha was renamed "Catherine" after St. Catherine of Siena (Kateri was the Mohawk form of the name). After Kateri was baptized, she remained in Caughnawauga for another six months. Some Mohawks opposed her conversion and accused her of sorcery. Lamberville suggested that she go to the Jesuit mission of Kahnawake, located south of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River, where other native converts had gathered. Catherine joined them in 1677. Tekakwitha was said to have put thorns on her sleeping mat and lain on them while praying for her relatives' conversion and forgiveness. Piercing the body to draw blood was a traditional practice of the Mohawk and other Iroquois nations. She lived at Kahnawake the remaining two years of her life. She learned more about Christianity under her mentor Anastasia, who taught her about the practice of repenting for one's sins. Father Cholonec wrote that Tekakwitha said: The Church considers that in 1679, with her decision on the
Feast of the Annunciation The Feast of the Annunciation, in Greek, Ο Ευαγγελισμός της Θεοτόκου, contemporarily the Solemnity of the Annunciation, and also called Lady Day, the Feast of the Incarnation ('), or Conceptio Christi ('), commemorates the ...
, Tekakwitha's conversion was truly completed, and with regard to biographies of the early Jesuits, she is regarded as the "first Iroquois
virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
". Although Tekakwitha is rather often regarded as a
consecrated virgin In the Catholic Church, a consecrated virgin is a woman who has been consecrated by the church to a life of perpetual virginity as a bride of Christ. Consecrated virgins are consecrated by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical ...
, she could, owing to European
white supremacism White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
in the Church, never receive the Consecration of Virgins by a bishop. Nevertheless, the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins took Kateri Tekakwitha as its patroness.


Mission du Sault St. Louis: Kahnawake

The Jesuits had founded Kahnawake for the religious conversion of the natives. When it began, the natives built their traditional longhouses for residences. They also built a longhouse to be used as a chapel by the Jesuits. As a missionary settlement, Kahnawake was at risk of being attacked by the Iroquois Confederacy members who had not converted to Catholicism. (While it attracted other Iroquois, it was predominantly Mohawk, the prominent tribe in eastern New York.) After Catherine's arrival, she shared the longhouse of her older sister and her husband. She would have known other people in the longhouse who had migrated from their former village of Gandaouagué ( Caughnawaga). Her mother's close friend, Anastasia Tegonhatsiongo, was clan matron of the longhouse. Anastasia and other Mohawk women introduced Tekakwitha to the regular practices of Christianity. This was normal for the women in the village, with many of the missionaries being preoccupied with other religious tasks. Pierre Cholenec reported that "all the Iroquois who come here and then become Christians owe their conversion mainly to the zeal of their relatives". Kahnawake was a village set-up like normal Iroquois villages, moving from location to location after running out of natural resources, such as timber and fresh game. The village was originally not wholly French but with northward migration towards Canada started by the Five Nations, the village was starting to gain more and more Native members. According to ''Greer'', the happenstance of this village coming together and gaining traction was not due to any specific reason. The Five Nations all happened to start migrating north around the same time, without any communication between them. In Kahnawake, there was representation from multiple tribes and when the French came, there were people from different ethnicities. The village was recognized by
New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
as well, it was given autonomy to deal with the problems that would arise. They were also able to form a friendship with New York through this autonomy. The trade that occurred in Kahnawake was the standard in that area, with most of it being furs and pelts. The division between the
French Church , native_name_lang = fr , image = 060806-France-Paris-Notre Dame.jpg , imagewidth = 200px , alt = , caption = Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris , abbreviation = , type ...
and the Natives was clear-cut in the village, with few interactions between the two groups. With the two groups being distanced from each other, Chauchetière noted the unity that the Native group seemed to have. There was an outbreak of war between the different tribes that Kahnawake was dragged into that lasted around two and a half years.


Chauchetière and Cholenec

Claude Chauchetière and
Pierre Cholenec Pierre Cholenec (June 29, 1641 – October 30, 1723) was a French Jesuit missionary and biographer in New France. He ministered to First Nations in Canada, First Nations in present-day Canada, particularly at the village of Kahnawake south of Mont ...
were Jesuit priests who played important roles in Tekakwitha's life. Both were based in New France and Kahnawake. Chauchetière was the first to write a biography of Tekakwitha's life, followed by Cholenec, in 1695 and 1696, respectively. Cholenec arrived in New France in 1672, before Chauchetière. Cholenec introduced whips, hair shirts and iron girdles, traditional items of Catholic mortification, to the converts at Kahnawake. He wanted them to adopt these rather than use Mohawk ritual practices. Both Chauchetière and Tekakwitha arrived in Kahnawake the same year, in 1677. He later wrote about having been very impressed by her, as he had not expected a native to be so pious. Chauchetière came to believe that Catherine Tekakwitha was a saint. Jesuits generally thought that the natives needed Christian guidance to be set on the right path. Chauchetière acknowledged that close contact with and deeper knowledge of the natives in Kahnawake changed some of his set notions about the people and differences among human cultures. In his biography of Kateri, he stressed her "charity, industry, purity, and fortitude."Leslie Choquette, Review: Allan Greer, ''Mohawk Saint''
H-France Review, Vol. 5 (October 2005), No. 109; accessed 25 July 2012
In contrast, Cholenec stressed her virginity, perhaps to counter white stereotypes at the time characterizing Indian women as promiscuous.


Penances

Tekakwitha believed in the value of offered suffering. She did not eat very much and was said to add undesirable tastes to her food. She would lie on a mat with thorns. There was a custom among some Native American peoples of the time of piercing oneself with thorns in thanksgiving for some good or an offering for oneself or others' needs. Knowing the terrible burns given to prisoners, she burned herself. Her spiritual counselor, Anastasia, seems to have encouraged her penances. With her friend Marie-Thérèse, Tekakwitha readily took up penances. Her health had always been poor, and it weakened. Marie-Thérèse sought the help of Chauchetière. He scolded the young women, saying that penance must be used in moderation. He told the two that they must have him approve their penances lest they become unreasonable. Tekakwitha listened to the priest. From then on, Tekakwitha practiced whatever penance the priest would allow her, but nothing more.


Friendship with Marie-Thérèse

Upon her arrival in the Christian community, Catherine befriended Marie Thérèse Tegaianguenta. They prayed together often. Marie Skarichions told Catherine and Marie-Thérèse about religious women. Through their mutual quest, the two women had a strong "spiritual friendship," as described by the Jesuits. The two women influenced a circle of associates. When they asked the Jesuits for permission to form a group of native disciples, they were told they were too "young in faith" for such a group. The women continued to practice their faith together.


Death and appearances

Around
Holy Week Holy Week ( la, Hebdomada Sancta or , ; grc, Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, translit=Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, lit=Holy and Great Week) is the most sacred week in the liturgical year in Christianity. In Eastern Churches, w ...
of 1680, friends noted that Tekakwitha's health was failing. When people knew she had but a few hours left, villagers gathered together, accompanied by the priests Chauchetière and Cholenec, the latter providing the
last rites The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortall ...
. Catherine Tekakwitha died at around 15:00 (3 p.m.) on
Holy Wednesday In Christianity, Holy Wednesday commemorates the Bargain of Judas as a clandestine spy among the disciples. It is also called Spy Wednesday, or Good Wednesday (in Western Christianity), and Great and Holy Wednesday (in Eastern Christianity). I ...
, April 17, 1680, at the age of 23 or 24, in the arms of her friend Marie-Therèse. Chauchetière reports her final words were, "Jesus, Mary, I love you." After her death, the people noticed a physical change. Cholenec later wrote, "This face, so marked and swarthy, suddenly changed about a quarter of an hour after her death and became in a moment so beautiful and so white that I observed it immediately." Her smallpox scars were said to disappear. Tekakwitha purportedly appeared to three individuals in the weeks after her death; her mentor Anastasia Tegonhatsiongo, her friend Marie-Therèse Tegaiaguenta, and Chauchetière. Anastasia said that, while crying over the death of her spiritual daughter, she looked up to see Catherine "kneeling at the foot" of her mattress, "holding a wooden cross that shone like the sun." Marie-Thérèse reported that she was awakened at night by a knocking on her wall, and a voice asked if she were awake, adding, "I've come to say good-bye; I'm on my way to heaven." Marie-Thérèse went outside but saw no one; she heard a voice murmur, "Adieu, Adieu, go tell the father that I'm going to heaven." Chauchetière meanwhile said he saw Catherine at her grave; he said she appeared in "baroque splendor; for two hours he gazed upon her" and "her face lifted toward heaven as if in ecstasy." Chauchetière had a chapel built near Kateri's gravesite. By 1684, pilgrimages had begun to honor her there. The Jesuits turned her bones to dust and set the ashes within the "newly rebuilt mission chapel." This symbolized her presence on earth, and her remains were sometimes used as relics for healing.


Epitaph

Tekakwitha's gravestone reads: The first account of Kateri Tekakwitha was not published until 1715. Because of Tekakwitha's unique path to
chastity Chastity, also known as purity, is a virtue related to temperance. Someone who is ''chaste'' refrains either from sexual activity considered immoral or any sexual activity, according to their state of life. In some contexts, for example when mak ...
, she is often referred to as a
lily ''Lilium'' () is a genus of Herbaceous plant, herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large prominent flowers. They are the true lilies. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in mu ...
, a traditional symbol of purity associated with the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
since the medieval period. Religious images of Tekakwitha are often decorated with a lily and cross, with feathers or turtle as cultural accessories alluding to her Native American birth. Colloquial terms for Tekakwitha are ''The Lily of the Mohawks'' (most notable), the ''Mohawk Maiden'', the ''Pure and Tender Lily'', the ''Flower among True Men'', the ''Lily of Purity'' and ''The New Star of the New World''. Her tribal neighbors referred to her as "the fairest flower that ever bloomed among the redmen." Her virtues are considered an
ecumenical Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...
bridge between Mohawk and European cultures.


Veneration

For some time after her death, Kateri Tekakwitha was considered an honorary yet unofficial patroness of Montreal, Canada, and the Americas' Indigenous peoples. Fifty years after her death, a convent for Native American nuns opened in Mexico. They prayed for her and supported her
canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...
. Indian Catholic missions and bishops in the 1880s wrote a petition initiating the veneration of Kateri Tekakwitha. In that petition, they stated that she was pure and holy and a gift unto the Native Americans. They asked for the venerations of Tekakwitha and the Jesuits
Isaac Jogues Isaac Jogues, S.J. (10 January 1607 – 18 October 1646) was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, call ...
and Brother René Goupil, two Catholic missionaries who had been slain by the Mohawk in Osernnenon a few decades before Kateri's birth. They concluded their petition by stating that these venerations would help encourage Catholicism among other Native Americans. The process for Kateri Tekakwitha's canonization was initiated by United States Catholics at the
Third Plenary Council of Baltimore The Plenary Councils of Baltimore were three national meetings of Catholic bishops in the United States in 1852, 1866 and 1884 in Baltimore, Maryland. During the early history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States all of the diocese ...
in 1885, followed by Canadian Catholics. Some 906 Native Americans signed 27 letters in the US and Canada urging her canonization. On January 3, 1943,
Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his e ...
declared her
venerable The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism. Christianity Cathol ...
. She was beatified as Catherine Tekakwitha on June 22, 1980, by
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
. On December 19, 2011, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints certified a second miracle through her intercession, signed by Pope Benedict XVI, which paved the way for pending canonization. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI decreed that Tekakwitha be canonized. Speaking in Latin, he used the form "Catharina Tekakwitha"; the official booklet of the ceremony referred to her in English and Italian as "Kateri Tekakwitha." She was canonized on October 21, 2012, by Pope Benedict XVI. In the official canonization rite booklet, "Catherine" is used in the English and French biographies and "Kateri" in the translation of the rite itself. She is the first Native American woman of North America to be canonized by the Catholic Church.Cappella papale for the canonization of the blesseds: James Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, John Baptist Piamarta, Maria of mt Carmel Sallés y Barangueras, Marianne Cope, Kateri Tekakwitha, Anna Schäffer
/ref> In 2022, the
Episcopal Church of the United States The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop o ...
gave final approval to a feast dedicated to Kateri on 17 April on the
liturgical calendar The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and whi ...
. Kateri Tekakwitha is featured in four national shrines in the United States: the National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in Fonda, New York; the
National Shrine of the North American Martyrs The National Shrine of the North American Martyrs, also dedicated as the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, is a Roman Catholic shrine in Auriesville, New York dedicated to the three Jesuit missionaries who were martyred at the Mohawk Indian village o ...
in Auriesville, New York; the
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a large minor Catholic basilica and national shrine in the United States in Washington, D.C., located at 400 Michigan Avenue Northeast, adjacent to Catholic University. ...
in Washington, D.C.; and The National Shrine of
the Cross in the Woods The Cross in the Woods is a Catholic shrine located at 7078 M-68 in Indian River, Michigan. It was declared a national shrine by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on September 15, 2006. At 55 feet tall, it is the second l ...
, an open-air sanctuary in
Indian River, Michigan Indian River is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Cheboygan County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,950 at the 2020 census. The CDP is located in Tuscarora Township between Burt Lake and ...
. The latter shrine's design was inspired by Kateri's habit of placing small wooden crosses throughout the woods. One statue on the grounds shows her cradling a cross in her arms, surrounded by turtles. A statue of the Saint is installed outside the
Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré The Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (french: Basilique Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré) is a basilica set along the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, east of Quebec City, and one of the eight national shrines of Canada. It has been credited by ...
in Quebec, Canada. Another is installed at the
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi ( es, Catedral basílica de San Francisco de Asís), commonly known as Saint Francis Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is the mother church of the Arc ...
in
Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
. Kateri Tekakwitha has been featured in recently created religious works. In 2007, the Grand
Retablo A retablo is a devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. More generally ''retablo'' is also the Spanish term for a retable or reredos above an altar, whether ...
, a 40-foot-high work by Spanish artisans, was installed behind the main altar of the
Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano is a Catholic parish in the Diocese of Orange in California. The parish church is located just northwest of Mission San Juan Capistrano in the city of San Juan Capistrano, California, United States. Complete ...
in
Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
. It features Catherine Tekakwitha, Junipero Serra,
St. Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers ...
, and
Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...
. A bronze statue of Kateri Tekawitha kneeling in prayer was installed in 2008, created by artist Cynthia Hitschler, along the devotional walkway leading to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Crosse, Wisconsin. The shrine in La Crosse considers Kateri an especially fitting patron saint; as its website explains, "As a Native American, Saint Kateri is one of the first flowers of heroic sanctity in North America; more, her sanctity was nurtured and strengthened by a strong devotion to Mary, especially through the Holy
Rosary The Rosary (; la, , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), also known as the Dominican Rosary, or simply the Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or b ...
." *A life-size statue of Kateri is located at the National Shrine Basilica of
Our Lady of Fatima Our or OUR may refer to: * The possessive form of " we" * Our (river), in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany * Our, Belgium, a village in Belgium * Our, Jura, a commune in France * Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a government utility regulat ...
in
Lewiston, New York Lewiston is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 15,944 at the 2020 census. The town and its contained village are named after Morgan Lewis, a governor of New York. The Town of Lewiston is on the western bord ...
. *A bronze figure of Kateri is included on the bronze front doors of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. *The Maryknoll Sisters at
Ossining, New York Ossining may refer to: * Ossining (town), New York, a town in Westchester County, New York state *Ossining (village), New York, a village in the town of Ossining * Ossining High School, a comprehensive public high school in Ossining village * Ossi ...
have had a statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha on their grounds since 1939. It was a gift from the family of Mary Theodore Farley, a Sister of Maryknoll. The statue honors the Maryknoll Sisters' origins as a U.S. mission congregation. *A statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha was installed in the courtyard of St. Patrick's church in the St. Stanislaus Kostka parish of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
. *A garden section of the Holy Cross Chapel Mausoleum in North Arlington, New Jersey, has been dedicated to the memory of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, a life-size bronze statue of the saint releasing a flight of doves was installed here. *A Place of Hope Shrine of St. Kateri is located in Paris, Stark County, Ohio. It was dedicated by Victoria Summers (Oneida) to honor the miracles of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. *A larger-than-life statue of St. Kateri stands in
St. Vincent de Paul Vincent de Paul, CM (24 April 1581 – 27 September 1660), commonly known as Saint Vincent de Paul, was a Occitan French Catholic priest who dedicated himself to serving the poor. In 1622 Vincent was appointed a chaplain to the galleys. Afte ...
Catholic Church in
Rogers Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...
,
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
. *A mosaic image of St. Kateri is on the wall of St. Mary of the Cataract Catholic Church in
Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...
, New York. *A bronze statue by artist Kaye Guerin Marks, based on the drawing by Father Chauchetière, is located at Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Church in
Sisseton Sisseton is a city in Roberts County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 2,479 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Roberts County. Sisseton is the home to a number of tourist attractions, including the Nicollet Tower, and ...
, South Dakota. *A bronze statue is located in the courtyard at Saint Joseph Husband of Mary Catholic Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. *There is a bronze statue of St. Kateri at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Page, Arizona. *There is a stained glass window of Kateri Tekakwitha in the 2007 Mary Queen of Peace chapel at the Church of Christ the King, Tulsa, Oklahoma


Miracles

Joseph Kellogg was a Protestant child captured by Natives in the eighteenth century and eventually returned to his home. Twelve months later, he caught smallpox. The Jesuits helped treat him, but he was not recovering. They had relics from Tekakwitha's grave but did not want to use them on a non-Catholic. One Jesuit told Kellogg that if he would become a Catholic, help would come to him. Joseph did so. The Jesuit gave him a piece of decayed wood from Kateri's coffin, which is said to have made him heal. The historian Allan Greer takes this account to mean that Tekakwitha was known in 18th-century New France, and she was already perceived to have healing abilities. Other miracles were attributed to Kateri: Father Rémy recovered his hearing, and a nun in Montreal was cured by using items formerly belonging to Kateri. Such incidents were evidence that Kateri was possibly a saint. Following the death of a person, sainthood is symbolized by events that show the rejection of death. It is also represented by a duality of pain and neutralization of the other's pain (all shown by her reputed miracles in New France). Chauchetière told settlers in La Prairie to pray to Kateri for intercession with illnesses. Due to the Jesuits' superior system of publicizing material, his words and Kateri's fame were said to reach Jesuits in China and their converts. As people believed in her healing powers, some collected earth from her gravesite and wore it in bags as a relic. One woman said she was saved from pneumonia ("grande maladie du rhume"); she gave the pendant to her husband, who was healed from his disease. On December 19, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI approved the second miracle needed for Kateri's canonization. The authorized miracle dates from 2006, when a young boy in Washington state survived a severe flesh-eating bacterium. Doctors had been unable to stop the disease's progress by surgery and advised his parents he was likely to die. The boy received the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick from a Catholic priest. As the boy is half Lummi Indian, the parents said they prayed to Tekakwitha for divine
intercession Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of praying to a deity on behalf of others, or Intercession of saints, asking a saint in heaven to pray on behalf of oneself or for others. The Apostle Paul's exhortation to Saint Timothy, Timothy sp ...
, as did their family and friends, and an extended network contacted through their son's classmates. Sister Kateri Mitchell visited the boy's bedside and placed a relic of Tekakwitha, a bone fragment, against his body and prayed together with his parents. The next day, the infection stopped its progression.


Controversy

Mohawk scholar Orenda Boucher noted that despite extensive support for the canonization of Tekakwitha, some traditional Mohawk see her as a connection to the worst aspects of colonialism. They do not believe that she embodied or reflected traditional Mohawk womanhood. Yet, the same article quotes
Russell Roundpoint Russell may refer to: People * Russell (given name) * Russell (surname) * Lady Russell (disambiguation) * Lord Russell (disambiguation) Places Australia *Russell, Australian Capital Territory *Russell Island, Queensland (disambiguation) **Ru ...
, director of the Mohawk history and cultural center at Akwesasne, who said her sainthood is "not a contentious issue by any stretch of the imagination," and that the "Mohawk people are very proud of the fact that she has attained such a high level." American Protestants directed a negative response towards Tekakwitha's veneration. Historian
Allan Greer ''The People of New France'' (french: Brève histoire des peuples de la Nouvelle-France, links=no) is a book of Canadian history during the 17th and 18th centuries written by Allan Greer and published by the University of Toronto Press in 1997 and ...
, who studied connections between Tekakwitha and anti-Catholicism in America, stated that Catholics needed her in a society that viewed the Church as foreign. Protestants were afraid that U.S. saints' canonizations would bring more Catholic power into America, while the Catholics wanted to solidify the Church more into society. Protestant newspapers such as the
Methodist Review Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
warned its readers to beware of these canonizations.


Cultural references

The historian K. I. Koppedrayer has suggested that the Catholic Church fathers'
hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...
of Tekakwitha reflected "some of the trials and rewards of the European presence in the New World." She captured the imagination of some observers. Based on accounts from two Jesuit priests who knew her, at least 300 books have been published in more than 20 languages on the life of Kateri Tekakwitha.Darren Bonaparte (Mohawk), "A Lily Among Thorns: The Mohawk Repatriation of Káteri Tekahkwí:tha"
presented at 30th Conference on New York State History, 5 June 2009, Plattsburgh, New York, accessed 25 July 2012
American composer Nellie von Gerichten Smith (1871-1952) created an opera entitled ''Lily of the Mohawks: Kateri Tekakwitha'' (text by Edward C. La More). Also, Tekakwitha has been featured in late 20th-century novels and at least one from the 21st century, which have explored the role of religion and colonialism in the New World: *
Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...
, ''
Beautiful Losers ''Beautiful Losers'' is the second and final novel by Canadian writer and musician Leonard Cohen. It was published in 1966, before he began his career as a singer-songwriter. Set in the Canadian province of Quebec, the story of 17th-century ...
'' (1966); * William T. Vollmann, ''
Fathers and Crows ''Fathers and Crows'' is a 1992 historical novel by the American author William T. Vollmann. It is the second book in the seven-book series '' Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes''. ''Fathers and Crows'' explores the encounters an ...
'' (1992), the second novel of the ''Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes'' series, includes her as a character, together with French colonists and priests. * Victor O'Connell, '' Eaglechild'' (2016) a modern story in which a Spanish countess travels to Quebec to ask the saint to be the spiritual head of mother's council designed to raise her only child as part of her grand scheme to make restitution for the harm done to the aboriginal peoples of the Americas by her family and other colonists. A climactic scene in the plot of the novel takes place in the church at Khanawake, raising issues about customary adoptions. Novelist
Diane Glancy (Helen) Diane Glancy (March 18, 1941) is an American poet, author, and playwright. Life and career Glancy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to a Cherokee descent (non-enrolled) father, Lewis H. Hall, and an English-German-American mother. At a ...
(who is of Cherokee descent) was the first Native American writer to make Tekakwitha the main focus of an historical novel, ''The Reason for Crows''. In an episode of the French animation series ''
Clémentine ''Clémentine'' (pronounced ) was a 1985 French animated television series (in co-production with Japan). The series consisted of 39 episodes which featured the fantastic adventures of a 10-year-old girl (Clémentine Dumat) who uses a wheelchai ...
'', the time-traveling main character Clémentine Dumant meets and befriends a younger version of Tekakwitha. She is portrayed as a shy teenager who is isolated and harassed by her peers after her conversion, but with Clémentine's help, she earns their love and respect. Brooklyn-based Irish singer-songwriter Niall Connolly includes a song titled ''Lily of the Mohawks'' on his 2013 album, ''Sound''. The song was inspired when he noticed an image of Kateri Tekakwitha on the door of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City. Kateri Tekawitha is referenced in the 2017 novel ''Future Home of the Living God'' by
Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian ...
, as an inspiration for the main character Cedar Hawk Songmaker.


Legacy

After Tekakwitha's beatification in 1980, Paula E. Holmes, in the late 1990s, interviewed several elderly Native American women about their childhoods and hearing stories from their ancestors about Tekakwitha. One woman retold her time in a church where her grandmother told her that she prayed to Kateri for her. One semiretired nurse from New Mexico told Holmes about her aunt's fondness of Kateri and how people would travel to New York to learn about her. The nurse's cousin told Holmes how her mother kept pictures of Kateri wrapped in fur and gave her a Tekakwitha medal. Holmes then stated that Kateri is "as part of their Indian familiar and familial heritage." Clarence A. Walworth (d. 1900) was one of the strongest proponents of Tekakwitha's veneration. Because Walworth was so interested in Native American history, he researched Tekakwitha's life and promoted her cause with his niece,
Ellen Ellen is a female given name, a diminutive of Elizabeth, Eleanor, Elena and Helen. Ellen was the 609th most popular name in the U.S. and the 17th in Sweden in 2004. People named Ellen include: * Ellen Adarna (born 1988), Filipino actress * Elle ...
. He then personally financed a $1,000 granite monument in Kahnawake out of a gesture for international co-operation for her veneration. In traditional fashion, numerous churches, schools and other Catholic institutions have been named for her, particularly since her canonization, including several Catholic elementary schools. Among these are St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener, Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Elementary School in
Markham Markham may refer to: It may also refer to brand of of clothing which originates from South Africa which saw it's establishment in 1873. Biology * Markham's storm-petrel (''Oceanodroma markhami''), a seabird species found in Chile and Colombia * ...
, St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Elementary School in
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilt ...
, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic School in Orléans (
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
), and St. Kateri Tekakwitha School in
Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
, Alberta. In the United States, St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Churches are Dearborn, MI and Buffalo, TX. in Saint Kateri is the patron saint of
John Cabot Catholic Secondary School John Cabot Catholic Secondary School is located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is a separate Catholic high school within the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. The school mascot is the Colt. History In 1997, the Dufferin-Peel t ...
in
Mississauga Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...
. The St. Kateri Tekakwitha School in
Niskayuna, New York Niskayuna is a town in Schenectady County, New York, United States. The population was 23,278 at the 2020 census. The town is located in the southeast part of the county, east of the city of Schenectady, and is the easternmost town in the county. ...
was named after her canonization. The St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, located in adjacent
Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...
, was founded by merging the Our Lady of Fatima and St. Helen's churches in late 2012. A cluster parish was formed in
Irondequoit, New York Irondequoit is a town (and census-designated place) in Monroe County, New York, United States. As of 2019, the coterminous town-CDP had a total population of 50,055. Irondequoit is a suburb of the city of Rochester, lying just north and east of ...
, in 2010, taking the name Blessed Kateri Parish; the name was later changed to Saint Kateri after her canonization. Kateri Residence, an Archdiocese of New York Catholic Charities nursing home in Manhattan, New York, is named for her. The St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church in
Santa Clarita, California Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-largest city by population in Los Angeles County, the 17th ...
, holds a statue of her in the church. A statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha is placed at the steps of Holy Cross School at San Buenaventura Mission in southern California to honor the local Native American
Chumash people The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu ...
, who helped build and sustain the Mission until the 1840s. Tekakwitha is featured at
Camp Ondessonk Camp Ondessonk is a rustic, outdoor, Catholic youth camp run by the Belleville Diocese. It is located in the Shawnee National Forest of Southern Illinois, near Ozark, Illinois. The camp strives to remain a “last frontier” of sorts, where part ...
, a Catholic youth camp in
southern Illinois Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...
. One of the cabin units is named after her. She is one of the namesakes of Camp Ondessonk's honor society, The Lodges of Ondessonk and Tekakwitha. Since 1939, the
Tekakwitha Conference The Tekakwitha Conference is a Roman Catholic institution that supports Christian ministry among Native Americans, primarily through its annual meeting. History The Tekakwitha Conference began in 1939, when Bishop Aloisius Joseph Muench of the Rom ...
meets annually to support Native Americans' conversions into and practices of Catholicism. At each conference, people gather in Kateri Circles, named in honor of her, to pray together and become better Catholics. In 1991, the Conference reported 130 registered Kateri Circles. The chapel of Welsh Family Hall at the
University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...
, built in 1997, is dedicated to Kateri Tekakwitha. Tekakwitha Island (French: île Tekakwitha) in the St-Lawrence River, part of the Kahnawake reserve, is named after her. On April 4, 2021, on
Easter Sunday Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...
, the only Catholic Church at St. Theresa Point in Northern Manitoba, Canada, burned down. The only things that were left after the rubble was an image of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, almost completely intact as well as a Mary statue. In May 2021, a church that was built in St. Kateri's honour for the second time burned on the
Bay Mills Indian Community The Bay Mills Indian Community (BMIC) (Ojibwe: Gnoozhekaaning, lit. "Place of the Pike"), is an Indian reservation forming the land base of one of the many federally recognized Sault Ste. Marie bands of Chippewa (aka Ojibwa). The largest section ...
in the
Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by ...
of
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
.U.P. Church Named After American Saint Destroyed for Second Time
(May 5, 2021)
MLive MLive Media Group, originally known as Booth Newspapers, or Booth Michigan, is a media group that produces newspapers in the state of Michigan. Founded by George Gough Booth with his two brothers, Booth Newspapers was sold to Advance Publication ...
.


Portraits

''TEKAKWITHA. Nouveaux regards sur ses portraits.'' Web Robert DEROME. https://rd.uqam.ca/Tekakwitha/index.html


References


Further reading

*Beauchamp, W.M. "Mohawk Notes," ''Journal of American Folk-Lore'', vol. 8, Boston, 1895, pp. 217–221. Also, "Iroquois Women," ''Journal of American Folk-Lore'', vol. 13, Boston, 1900, pp. 81–91. *Béchard, Henri, S.J. ''The Original Caughnawaga Indians''. Montreal: International Publishers, 1976. *Béchard, Henri, S.J. "Tekakwitha." ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), vol. 1. *Bunson, Matthew and Margaret Bunson. ''Saint Kateri: Lily of the Mohawks'' (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2012) . *Cholonec, Rev. Pierre. "Kateri Tekakwitha: The Iroquois Saint." (Merchantville, NJ: Evolution Publishing, 2012) . *Cohen, Leonard. "Beautiful Losers," Published in 1966 by McClelland and Stewart. *Fenton, William, and Elisabeth Tooker. "Mohawk," in ''Handbook of North American Indians'', Volume 15: Northeast, edited by Bruce G. Trigger. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. *Greer, Allan. ''Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 *Hewitt, J.N.B. "The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul," ''Journal of American Folk-Lore'', vol. 8, Boston, 1895, pp. 107–116. *Lecompte, Edward, S.J. ''Glory of the Mohawks: The Life of the Venerable Catherine Tekakwitha'', translated by Florence Ralston Werum, FRSA. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1944. *Litkowski, Mary Pelagia, O.P. ''Kateri Tekakwitha: Joyful Lover''. Battle Creek, Michigan: Growth Unlimited Inc., 1989. *Newman, Andrew, ''Allegories of Encounter: Colonial Literacy and Indian Captivities'' (Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture/University of North Carolina Press, 2019), especially Chapter 4 (pages 111–137). *O Connell, Victor. ''Eaglechild'' Kanata Publications, Hamilton, Ontario 2016 *Sargent, Daniel. ''Catherine Tekakwitha''. New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., 1936. *Shoemaker, Nancy. "Kateri Tekakwitha's Tortuous Path to Sainthood," in Nancy Shoemaker, ed. ''Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women'' (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 49–71. *Steckley, John. ''Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women's Stories'', Canadian Scholars Press 1999 *Weiser, Francis X., S.J. ''Kateri Tekakwitha''. Caughnawaga, Canada: Kateri Center, 1972.


External links

*
Kateri Tekakwitha website


Catholic Forum

Lily of the Mohawks website

Conservation *
Barbara Bradley Hagerty, "A Boy, An Injury, A Recovery, A Miracle?"
NPR, 4 November 2011

''Montreal Gazette,'' 20 March 2010

by Daniel Fogel

October 21, 2012 * ttp://threerivershms.com/LilyDeath.htm "Sketch of Life of Indian Maid, Kateri Tekakwitha"from April 23, 1915 issue of the ''Recorder-Democrat'' a semiweekly publication, Amsterdam, NY
Account of location of Ossernon birthplace
written by Jesuit Fr. Loyzance (the original purchaser of the land at Auriesville) from ''St. Johnsville Enterprise and News'' November 28, 1934
Video showing the Shrine and Village
from 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Tekakwitha, Kateri 1656 births 1680 deaths American Mohawk people Converts to Roman Catholicism from pagan religions Native American Roman Catholics Religious figures of the indigenous peoples of North America 17th-century Christian saints People from Montgomery County, New York Canadian Roman Catholic saints American Roman Catholic saints Christian female saints of the Early Modern era Beatifications by Pope John Paul II Canonizations by Pope Benedict XVI Catholics from New York (state) Indigenous Roman Catholic saints of the Americas 17th-century Native American women Anglican saints 17th-century Native Americans Native American people from New York (state)