A New Saint

Kateri Tekakwitha, pronounced ‘gaderi degagwitha’ in Mohawk, also known as Catherine Tekakwitha, was the first Native American to be beatified by blessed Pope John Paul II in 1980.  She will be canonised a saint by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21 2012.

Also known as ‘The Lilly of the Mohawks’ she was born in the Mohawk village of Gandaouague in northern New York around the year 1656, the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Tagaskouita, a Roman Catholic Algonquin.

On her death in 1680 scars from the smallpox she suffered as a child, vanished causing Pope Pius XII to declare this a miracle, but this was not the only reported miracle attributed to Blessed Tekakwitha. Among others was a miracle cure of Joseph Kellogg, a non Catholic who after being captured by natives suffered smallpox which could not be cured.  Joseph became a Catholic and after Jesuits exposed him to relics from Tekakwitha’s grave he was cured.  Other miracle cures included the hearing of a priest being recovered and a nun in Montreal another woman is said to have recovered from a kind of pneumonia.  In the case of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, there is no shortage of miracles.

A bronze statue of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha kneeling in prayer, created by the artist Cynthia Hitschler, is featured along the devotional walkway of Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine, La Crosse, Wisconsin.