Rev. Luis Flores-Alva
Pastor

 

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha   Native American Ministry
Mission: Warm Springs      

    
    
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha
     The feast of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, whose name graces the chapel on the Warm Springs Reservation, a mission of St. Patrick's Church in Madras, occurs on July 14.
     Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha was born to a Mohawk chief, Kenneronkwa, and a Catholic Algonquin woman, Kahenta, in 1656.  The family lived in the Mohawk fortress of Ossernenon, near the current city of Auriesville, New York.  After her brothers and parents died in a smallpox epidemic which left her face heavily scarred, Kateri lived with her chieftain uncle, who discouraged her Christian leanings and took away the rosary her mother had given her.  Defiant, she refused to consider marriage and pursued her religious bent, despite the ridicule of her tribe.
     Kateri was zealous in practicing physical mortification, often putting thorns on her bed.  After the settlement was burned down by rival tribes, Kateri and her family moved to the north bank of the Mohawk river.  There at the age of 20 she was baptized by a Jesuit priest, Father Jacques de Lamberville.  She took the name Kateri, which is a Mohawk version of Catherine.
     When the persecution from her own people became unbearable, Kateri fled to a settlement of Native American Christians, where she devoted herself to prayer, penance and caring for the sick and elderly.  Kateri took a vow of chastity in 1679 and died a year later at the age of 24, with these words on her lips:  "Jesus, I love You."
     Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be honored with beatification.  Pope John Paul II elevated her to this status on June 22, 1980.  Although there have been reported miracles through her intercession, Kateri's canonization as a Saint awaits the Church's verification of at least one of those incidents.

(from The Diocesan Chronicle, July 4, 2010)