for July 14
Memorial of St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Kateri Tekakwitha was a Native American woman who was canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

Kateri was born in 1656 somewhere along the Mohawk River in New York State, 40 or 50 miles east of present-day Albany. The site is marked by what up until recently was the Jesuit Martyrs Shrine in Auriesville, NY.

Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother was an Algonquin woman who had been captured in a raid and then adopted and assimilated into the tribe. When Kateri was four years old, her family was wiped out in a smallpox epidemic, which left Kateri facially scarred and with impaired vision.

Kateri lived at a time of great turmoil and challenge in the culture and lives of Native Americans in the later half of the 17^th century. It was a time of unremitting tribal warfare and encroachment by the European powers on the territories of the native peoples. She was attracted to Christianity from an early age and was deeply influenced by the French Jesuit missionaries who worked among her people. At age 19 she was baptized with the name “Catherine” after St. Catherine of Siena. Kateri is the Mohawk form of the name. She became ever more absorbed in her Christian faith in the form in which it was passed down to her, with the extreme penances and fervent pieties of the day. Especially striking in contrast to her surrounding culture was her adamant refusal to enter into marriage.

Kateri’s health was never robust and the physical circumstances she endured were harsh. She fell ill at the age of 23 or 24 and passed away in the year 1680.

The Jesuit missionaries had played a major role in her life of faith and after her death, right up to the present day, the Society of Jesus has held her in high regard and deep affection. Jesuits were instrumental in advocating devotion to her over the centuries and promoting her path to sainthood.

It is difficult in today’s world for us objectively to evaluate the practices of the Jesuit missionaries at that time and the kind of religious influences they exerted upon the Native American peoples. Racial prejudices, contempt for alien cultures, economic exploitation, rivalries between the western powers and political imperialism were forces that eventfully wreaked havoc upon Native American peoples.

The figure of Kateri Tekakwitha serves as a tribute to grace, however. In chaotic circumstances, despite the superstitions of the age and the primitive conditions that brought such turmoil into people’s lives, Kateri found her way to fall in love with God and open her heart to divine grace. Ironically, perhaps this is the most effective way for us to relate to Kateri, bridging the gap that extends over the centuries. Many years from now, when people look back at us and see in our time a raging pandemic with acts of senseless violence and warring cultures, they may want to ask how we found our way to God in the midst of our chaotic circumstances and limited understandings. We could do far worse than imitate Kateri who struggled against all odds at a dark time to emerge through it all as a saint.
—Walter F. Modrys SJ.

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.