| Native Canadian pilgrims arrive in Rome for canonization of Kateri Tekawitha | ||||
| Posted: Friday, October 19, 2012 11:10 pm | ||||
 Email  http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=21267 | ||||
|
To see a film and further live broadcasts about Blessed Kateri Tekawitha go to Sait & Light TV here: http://saltandlighttv.org/kateri/
Thanks, Nivard.
And more for the Canonisation.
D....
And more for the Canonisation.
D....
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Nivard ...Sent: Friday, 19 October 2012, 17:15
Subject: BBC E-mail: The first Native American saint
From: Nivard ...Sent: Friday, 19 October 2012, 17:15
Subject: BBC E-mail: The first Native American saint
Nivard ... saw this story on the BBC News website and thought you should see it.
** The first Native American saint **
The Catholic Church is about to canonise its first ever Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha. She died over 330 years ago, but her story still inspires and captivates.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/magazine-19996957 >
19 October 2012 Last updated at 11:45
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Kateri
Tekakwitha: First Catholic Native American saint
By Cordelia Hebblethwaite
 |
| Statue of Kateri Tekakwitha at shrine to her in Fonda, New York |
On Sunday, the Catholic Church will canonize its
first ever Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha. Sometimes known as Lily of
the Mohawks, she died more than 300 years ago, but is thought by some to have
performed a miracle as recently as 2006.
"It's a third-class relic," says gift
shop manager Joanne Wiesner, wide-eyed as she holds a small Kateri Tekakwitha
prayer card in her hand.
Embedded within the card is a little piece of cloth
which has touched a fragment of bone, a first-class relic, from the soon-to-be
saint.
"I get goose bumps every time I think about
it," says Wiesner.
The prayer cards are selling like hot cakes at the
Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, set amid the beautiful wooded
hills of what was once Mohawk land.
It was in a village here, then called Ossernenon,
that Kateri Tekakwitha - a Native American Mohawk woman - was born in 1656.
This was a time of huge upheaval, violence and
disease, says Allan Greer, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who has
written a history of her life, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the
Jesuits.
Know your relics
·
First-class relic- a piece of bone, flesh or hair of a saint or venerated person
·
Second-class relic - an item of clothing or object used
by them
·
Third-class relic - something that has touched a first
or second class relic
There was fierce fighting between rival Native American
communities - Kateri's mother was an Algonquin who had been captured in a raid
by the Mohawks.
But Dutch, English and French colonialists were
also competing for control of the territory, bringing with them both guns and
disease. When a smallpox epidemic struck, it killed her parents and younger
brother. She survived, but the disease left her face scarred and her sight
seriously impaired. The Mohawk word "Tekakwitha" roughly translates
as "the one who walks groping her way".
Seeing so much death and disease in their midst,
the Mohawks believed French Jesuit missionaries were responsible, and held them
accountable.
 |
| Friar Mark Steed |
It's the land where the Mohawk people lived - it's
a sacred place”
Just a few years before Kateri was born, three were
caught, tortured and then brutally killed in her village (they were themselves later canonised).
But when Kateri was young, a peace deal was struck
with the French, and part of the deal was that missionaries would be allowed to
work within the communities.
By this point, Kateri was living over the river in
a small village called Caughnawaga, which is the only Mohawk village anywhere
to have been substantially excavated.
Set on a hill for protection, so that the Mohawks
could see their enemies coming, coloured poles today mark the plots where they
lived in traditional longhouses, with bunks to the side, and fires inside to
cook and keep warm in the bitter winters.
"It's a place of peace and healing," says
Friar Mark Steed, who is in charge of the site, known as the National Kateri
Tekakwitha Shrine, in the village of Fonda.
"This is where she lived. It's the land where
the Mohawk people lived. It's a sacred place," he says.
"Being on this land is like being in a
church."
It is a short walk through the woods to the echoey
well and the water where Kateri Tekakwitha was baptised into the Catholic
Church at the age of 20, on Easter Day 1676.
She is sometimes said to have been one of the only
members of her community to convert to Catholicism, but up to half of her
village may have converted, according to Allan Greer.
For some, it was as much a practical and strategic
move, as a religious one, he says.
"The Mohawks were walking a delicate balance
trying to align themselves with allies, without becoming dependent.
"It was a kind of diplomatic alliance in many
ways."
But Kateri appears to have been penalised for
converting. Her uncle, the chief of the village, is said to have been unhappy
with her decision, and her refusal to marry a Mohawk man he had selected for
her.
Kateri ended up travelling 200 miles (320 km) by
foot and canoe to a Jesuit-run Native American missionary village near
Montreal, called Kahnawake.
There she proved herself to be pious in the
extreme.
She took a lifetime vow of chastity, and subjected
herself to a harsh regime of self-punishment, which included walking barefoot
in the ice and snow, placing hot coals from the fire between her toes until
they cooled, and lying on a bed of thorns.
It meant a lot to learn about this young Mohawk woman - she is one of us”
Sister Kateri Mitchell
Jesuit missionary Pierre Cholenec, who lived in the
Kahnawake community at the time, wrote: "She tortured her body in every
way she could think of: by toil, by sleepless vigils, by fasting, by cold, by
fire, by irons, by belts studded with sharp points, and by harsh disciplines
with which she tore her shoulders open several times a week."
The Jesuits felt she was going too far, says Orenda
Boucher a Mohawk academic and researcher from Kahnawake, which is still a
Native American community today.
Mohawk men would conduct all sorts of tests of
strength and willpower before going into battle, she says, and Kateri
Tekakwitha was probably influenced by this, effectively fusing her native
beliefs with her newfound faith - practising what Greer calls a kind of "intense
indigenous Catholicism".
Kateri Tekakwitha died when she was just 24 years
old - and it was upon her death that reports of miracles began.
Jesuits at the scene said that the scars on her
face vanished entirely, and soon after, a number of people reported seeing
visions of her.
The Jesuits believed her to be a saint and
catalogued all they could of her life, making her the most well-documented
indigenous person in the history of the Americas, says Greer.
 |
| Inside the Church at the National Kateri Tekawitha Shrine in Fonda |
But some Mohawks in Kahnawake today are ambivalent
about their ancestor, says Boucher. Many people don't identify with her story
of life as a virgin - it's a culture where motherhood and caring for children
is seen as central to a woman's role - and some associate her with the
bitterness of colonisation, loss of land, and Mohawk tradition.
Many in the community there are in fact moving back
towards their traditional beliefs, and away from the Catholic Church, says
Boucher.
She stood up for what she believed in, and she
stood strong”
Bob RenaudArtist
But there is a sizeable Native American Catholic
contingent in the US -680,000 according to the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, out of a total population of 2.5 million, and
in some areas, the vast majority of Native Americans are Catholic.
And for decades, a dedicated group of Native
American Catholics across the US have been praying - first for her
beatification, which came in 1980, and since then for her canonisation.
"It meant a lot to learn about this young
Mohawk woman. She is one of us," says Sister Kateri Mitchell of the
Tekakwitha Conference, a body that represents Native American Catholics in the
US.
"People have become very intrigued about her
life - how this young woman of the 17th Century has influenced the lives of so
many in the 21st."
Sister Kateri visited the shrine many times with
her parents as a child, and played a part in the recent reported miracle that
secured Kateri Tekakwitha's canonisation.
This was in 2006, when Jake Finkbonner, a
five-year-old half native Lummi boy from Washington state fell playing
basketball and hit his lip against some metal, contracting a potentially deadly
"flesh-eating" bacterial infection, necrotising fasciitis.
Sister Kateri Mitchell put the word out for people
to pray to Kateri Tekakwitha for his recovery. She then went to his bedside in
the hospital in Seattle with a piece of Kateri's wrist-bone - a first-class
relic - which she placed against his body, and together with his parents,
prayed.
Jake, now 12, still needs some medical attention,
but he made a recovery considered by some, including the Vatican, to be
miraculous.
At a retreat at the Auriesville shrine almost
everyone has a story of help or healing that they attribute to Kateri
Tekakwitha - from helping a small burn to heal, to curing someone's mother's
kidney disease, or helping a girl born blind to see.
Even some Catholics are sceptical about miracle
stories, but since December when Pope Benedict XVI announced that Kateri
Tekakwitha would be canonised, busloads of curious visitors have been arriving
at the shrines.
"When I came here, it was a very quiet place.
And I like things quiet," laughs Friar Mark Steed at the shrine in Fonda.
"Then all of a sudden they make this
announcement that she's going to be a saint, and the world explodes around
you."
He says he wants to avoid a "circus"
developing around the shrine, and to keep it as a simple place of prayer - one
that is also true to the saint's Mohawk roots.
"As a child I remember just being in awe of
that place. I've always had a spot in my heart for Native American
history," says teacher and artist Bob Renaud, who lives just over 100
miles (160 km) north in Carthage, and who has painted images of Kateri
Tekakwitha - one of which looks set to become part of the Vatican collection.
"There's a special feeling you get at that
place. You can definitely feel the spirit.
"She stood up for what she believed in, and
she stood strong.
"She's local. She's not in France - she is of
America. We are pretty honoured to have her so close."
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