St. Caterina Tekakwitha (1656 – 1680)

Welcome to INSPIRING LIVES FOR THE YEAR OF FAITH, a series on the lives of Inspiring People and Witnesses of faith in the Catholic Church from around the world. These holy people lived their ordinary lives in extraordinary ways. They responded to God's invitation to use their unique gifts. They are examples of great holiness and virtue, and they invite us to follow their paths to holiness. Their unique stories inspire us to be rooted in our faith. God calls each one of us today to inspire our brothers and sisters and to be witnesses of our faith.
During the last three weeks we listened to the inspiring and heroic life of Saint Pedro Calungsod, one of the seven persons canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 21^st October 2012 at St. Peter’s square in the Vatican. These new saints of the church came from various walks of life – lay women, catechist, religious, priests and nuns. In the coming weeks we shall listen to their inspiring lives and witnessing to faith. They help us to look at our lives from God’s perspective especially now when we are celebrating the Year of Faith.
Calungsod was a lay Catholic, and a Catechist from Cebu, Philippines, who accompanied Jesuit missionaries to the Pacific Island Territory of Guam. He was martyred there in 1672. Calungsod was just 17 years of age when he witnessed to his faith by shedding his blood.
Today we shall listen to the heroic life of a lay woman and a Native American named Kateri Tekakwitha [ˈgaderi degaˈgwita], known as the Lily of the Mohawks. Tekakwitha was born to a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father in 1656 in upstate New York along the Hudson River. She was baptized by a Jesuit missionary in 1676 when she was 20, and she died in Canada four years later. In June 1980, she became the first Native American to be beatified, and in 2012 she became the first Native American/First Nations woman to be canonised..
Tekakwitha professed a vow of virginity until her death at the age of 24. Known for her virtue of chastity and corporal mortification of the flesh, as well as being shunned by her tribe for her religious conversion to Catholicism, she is the first Native American woman to be venerated in the Roman Catholic Church.
xxx
Kateri Tekakwitha, was born around 1656 in a Mohawk village near present-day Auriesville, New York. She was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Tagaskouita, a Roman Catholic Algonquin who had been adopted into the tribe after her capture. Kateri’s mother Tagaskouita had been baptized and educated by French missionaries in the east of Montreal. Mohawk warriors captured her and took her to their homeland. She eventually married Kenneronkwa.
Kateri's village was highly diverse, as the Mohawk were absorbing many captured natives of other tribes, particularly their competitors the Huron, to replace people who died from European diseases or warfare. Kateri was most likely born into the Turtle Clan. The Mohawk and other Iroquois had a matrilineal kinship system, in which children were born into the mother's clan and took their status from her. When she was young, her village moved to a different location. The Mohawk suffered from a smallpox epidemic from 1661 to 1663. Kateri's brother and her parents died in the epidemic, and she was left with scars and impaired eyesight. She was adopted by her maternal uncle, a chief of the Turtle Clan.
Kateri grew up in a period of constant change as the Mohawk interacted with French and Dutch colonists. In the fur trade, the Mohawk originally traded with the Dutch, who had settled in Albany and Schenectady. The French traded with and were allied with the Huron. Trying to make inroads in Iroquois territory, the French attacked the Mohawk in present-day central New York in 1666, destroying several villages and their winter stores.
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. While there, the Jesuits studied Mohawk and other native languages in order to reach the people. They spoke of Christianity in terms with which the Mohawk could identify.
The Mohawk rebuilt on the south side of the Mohawk River at what they called Caughnawaga. In 1667, when Kateri was 11 years old, she met the Jesuits who had come to the village. Her uncle was against 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 near Montreal.
The Jesuits’ account of Kateri 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. As an orphan, according to Mohawk practices, she was probably taken care of by her clan, her mother and uncle's extended family, with whom she lived in the longhouse. 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. She also took part in the women's seasonal planting and intermittent weeding. She was pressured to consider marriage around age 13, but she reportedly refused.
xxx
In the spring of 1675 at age of 18, Kateri met the Jesuit Father Jacques de Lamberville and started studying the catechism with him. Judging Tekakwitha ready for true conversion, Lamberville baptized her at the age of 20, on Easter Sunday, 18 April 1676. This is significant because, according to Jesuit policy, baptism was usually withheld for new converts until one was on his deathbed or until the missionaries could be certain that the convert would be committed.
After Catherine was baptized, she remained in Caughnawauga for only another 6 months. Some Mohawk opposed her conversion and accused her of sorcery and sexual promiscuity. Lamberville then 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.
Most of these early converts to Christianity were women. They lived in a way which they thought was integral to Christianity, dependent on charity. They devoted their bodies and souls to God and participated in mortification of the flesh. There were similar practices among Mohawk traditions, usually carried out by warriors. Despite opposition from the Jesuits, the women of the village continued to practice mortification, usually in groups, claiming it was needed to relieve their people of their past sins. The people of Kahnawake usually followed the directions of the Jesuits; at other times, they evaded their control. On the whole, they wanted to experience the sacred and spiritual life, and they were determined to do this with or without the Jesuits.
Tekakwitha was said to have put thorns on her sleeping mat and lay on them while praying for the conversion and forgiveness of her kinsmen. 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. When the women learned of nuns and female convents, they wanted to form their own and created an informal association of devout women. Tekakwitha once said, “I have deliberated enough. For a long time my decision on what I will do has been made. I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary….” By P.J. Joseph SJ