Kateri Tekakwitha

LIFE AND VIRTUES

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Indian virgin of the tribe of the Agniers or Mohawks, of the Iroquois Indians, spent the first part of her life in the territory that is now in the state of New York, United States of America, and the rest in Canada where she died after a life of heroic virtue.

She was born in 1656 to a pagan Iroquois Indian and a very pious Christian Algonquin, both of the tribe of the Agniers Indians, residing in Ossernenon (Auriesville) in the state of New York.

The Indians of the Saint's tribe were the same who in the year 1642 had tortured and in 1646 put to death Saint Isaac Jogues.

The mother had received a good Christian education among the French colonists of Trois-Rivières in Canada, where, during a war between the Algonquins and the Agniers, she was captured by the latter and taken as wife by one of them. She preserved her faith until death and desired baptism for her children; but, before being able to procure for them the sanctifying grace, there being no missionaries among the Agniers, she died in a smallpox epidemic with her husband and son, leaving the little girl orphaned at the age of four years.

She too suffered from the same disease as her parents, but recovered and was cared for by her aunts and uncle, one of the chiefs of the tribe of the Agniers or Mohawks, which changed settlement three times during her childhood and adolescence and finally camped in the locality where the town of Fonda now stands.

From childhood Kateri had a gentle character. She was kind and docile, industrious and inclined to virtue and good humor. She attended to household chores and showed great skill in the manual works of young Indian girls.

At first, given the disfigurement of her face and the suffering in her eyes caused by smallpox, she sought seclusion in her own hut which little by little she learned to love because it offered her the means to avoid the idle gatherings and chatter of her peers, as well as the feasts of the tribe which in more than one respect could have offended her innate modesty.

When her relatives sought with subterfuges and threats to force her into marriage, she refused and resisted. She suffered with patience the ill treatment to which she was subjected by her family because of her opposition and finally overcame them with her docility and gentleness.

The Saint, who at the age of ten had had some fleeting contact with Catholic missionaries, desired baptism. As soon as the missionary of her village, Father Jacques de Lamberville, had seen her, he was edified by her life and by the excellent testimony also of those who detested her virtue. Therefore he prepared her for baptism, which he conferred solemnly on Easter day 1676, with the name of Kateri.

Especially after baptism the young Indian maiden became a model of piety, charity, humility, gentleness and the other Christian virtues. For her faith she had to suffer the ill treatment of her relatives, who attributed to laziness her observance of Sunday rest; but she bore with gentleness the jokes, invectives, threats and false accusations of those for whom her virtues proved to be a reproach.

In order to preserve the young neophyte from the corruption of the Indians and to facilitate her progress in virtue, Father Jacques de Lamberville sent her to the fervent colony of Christian Indians, known as the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier, at the Prairie de la Madeleine, opposite the city of Montreal in Canada.

The young woman succeeded in escaping the fury of her uncle and was able to complete unharmed the long and dangerous journey to the Mission. The Missionaries of Saint Francis Xavier considered the arrival of the Saint as one sent by God to edify all with her angelic life.

In the new residence she had the good fortune to live under the protection of a pious woman, who helped her to cultivate her Christian life. From her arrival at the Mission until her death she always sought what was most perfect and most pleasing to God and strove to do everything for Him, without selfishness and with the greatest gratitude.

Except for one single winter, when Kateri went with the others from the village to hunt for nourishment, she spent all her time working in her own cabin, praying and taking part in the pious conversations in an oratory of the Cross near the village and in the church. Her piety was so assured that her director allowed her to receive communion on the first Christmas after her arrival at the Sault (1677), a favor that was even exceptional since it was normally customary to test Indian neophytes for a long time before admitting them to the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Even during the season of the Indian hunt Kateri continued her exercises of piety.

In this period, falsely accused by another woman of having sinned with her husband, she bore such an accusation with such patience that even her accusers and those who at first believed her guilty repented of their fault and recognized that they had slandered her. Her virtue was recognized by all and she was received, although very young, into the Association of the Holy Family to which only the most fervent and the oldest among the Indians were admitted.

As regards virginity, Kateri did not want to yield to the insistence of her adoptive sister and a certain Anastasia, who had acted as a mother to her, who strove to make her embrace the married state. With the consent of the director (Father Cholenec S.J.), and, although advised by the same to consider the question of marriage for three days, she declared after a few minutes that she had renounced this in order to have Jesus Christ as her only spouse.

In making this decision she knew she risked living in misery, since an Indian girl depended on her husband for the house and her sustenance; but she was content to live poor for the love of virginity and of Our Lord.

The spiritual director, knowing her thoroughly, was so convinced of her purity, of her love for virginity and of her constancy that on March 25, 1679, after having given her holy Communion, he allowed her to commit with a vow of perpetual virginity, the first act of such kind known among the Indians of North America.

After having thus given herself to the Lord, the Saint refused the opportunity to go with her companions to the hunt during the following winter, to remain close to the church and receive the sacraments, although the spiritual director deemed it necessary to impose a restraint on her aspiration to lead an ever more austere and mortified life.

In her last and most painful illness, she gave a sublime proof of the heroism of her virtues and especially of her faith, hope, charity, humility, gentleness, patience, resignation and joy in sufferings.

She was held in such a concept of sanctity that the Missionaries believed it appropriate to bring her the holy Viaticum in her cabin instead of transporting her, as was customary, to the church for her last communion. Kateri with great piety received the last sacraments.

The words that closed her life were "Jesus, I love you". She had knowledge and mental lucidity until death, showing that she understood the pious aspirations that were suggested to her. She fell asleep sweetly in the Lord at three in the afternoon on April 17, 1680, Wednesday of Holy Week, at the age of just 24 years.

"ITER" OF THE CAUSE

The fame of sanctity of Kateri Tekakwitha was already a reality at the moment of her death and subsequently spread rapidly not only among the members of the Indian tribes of North America, but also among Christians both of Canada and of the United States, as well as those of Europe where the knowledge of this young Indian virgin was propagated. It remained alive through the centuries and, with the passage of time, increased everywhere.

a) In view of the beatification

In the years 1931-1932 the Ordinary Informative Process was instructed on the fame of sanctity, on the virtues in general and on the miracles of the Servant of God, as well as the Process on the "non cult".

The Session of the historical Consultors took place in the month of June 1938.

On May 15, 1939 the Decree on the Introduction of the Cause was signed.

On July 19, 1939 the Decree of dispensation from the Apostolic Process on the fame of sanctity was issued.

The Position on the virtues was drawn up in 1940 and on November 26, 1940 the Antepreparatory Congregation took place, followed by the Preparatory Congregation on November 10, 1941 and the General Congregation on the virtues on June 9, 1942.

The Decree on the virtues was issued on January 3, 1943.

In the years 1942 and 1945 two Processes were held on presumed miracles, respectively in the Dioceses of Hamilton (Canada), and Marquette (USA). Subsequently all the necessary steps were taken up to the Decree of validity and the Medico-Legal Judgments: after which there were no other acts.

On May 25, 1973 the Postulator delivered to the Prefect of the Congregation a Report in which he advanced the proposal to proceed to the beatification of Kateri Tekakwitha on the basis of the ancient miracles.

On August 23, 1973, Pope Paul VI ordered that the question be submitted to the judgment of the Cardinals and, having obtained a favorable opinion, on December 19, 1977 he manifested the intention to proceed to the beatification with the dispensation from the two miracles, on the basis of a solid and proven existence of the "fama miraculorum", it being a relevant figure of the origins of the Church of North America.

The Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, on March 15, 1980, therefore granted the dispensation from the specific proof of the miracles and, having demonstrated the ample and documented "fama dei miracoli", celebrated the rite of beatification in St. Peter's on June 22, 1980.

b) In view of the canonization

In the spring of 2007 some documents were transmitted to the Postulator of the Cause concerning an extraordinary case of healing of the child Jacob Finkbonner from "necrotizing facial fasciitis" which occurred in Seattle (USA) and attributed to the intercession of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

The decision was made to ask the Archbishop of Seattle to conduct a Diocesan Inquiry into the presumed miracle.

In the meantime the Archbishop, on his own initiative, had laudably provided to obtain all the medical documents referring to the case, had contacted 4 specialist Physicians, members of the "Craniofacial Surgical Team" of the "Children's Hospital" of Seattle and had asked them to provide him with all the due information on the case. From September 2007 to May 2008 the Diocesan Inquiry on the presumed miracle was instructed in the Curia of Seattle.

It was followed by a Supplementary Inquiry which took place from August 28, 2008 to June 26, 2009.

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints recognized their juridical validity with a decree of February 12, 2010.

The Medical Consulta, which met on September 15, 2011, unanimously pronounced on the "scientifically inexplicable" healing of the child Jacob Finkbonner.

The Congress of Theologians, which met on November 8, 2011, recognized that the inexplicable healing is to be attributed to a divine intervention through the intercession of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha as a consequence of the invocation by the faithful.

The Cardinals and Bishops, in the Ordinary Session of December 13, 2011, judged the case in question as a true miracle, attributed to the intercession of the Blessed.

The Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the relative decretum super miraculo.