Part Four:
[10]     [11]     [12]

Chapter 10
Her Burial and the Aftermath

In Kateri, the promise made by the Savior has been fulfilled: He who humbles himself shall be exalted, and if anyone serves Me, My Father will honor him. There were chiefs in the village of Sault St. Louis who had made a name for themselves in war and had been able diplomats. They had dealt with the governors of Canada on important business, and much was said about them during their lifetime. Most of their names have been forgotten since their death, however, while the name of Kateri Tekakwitha is known not only in Canada, but across the sea as well.

    The body of this pious young woman was buried at the foot of the cross by which she had loved to come and pray on the banks of the great river. In his life of Kateri, Fr. Chauchetière states that it was later placed in the village chapel. As the village has changed sites three times since this period, it is probable that her relics were placed in a box preserved in the sacristy. This box is still kept in the sacristy of the Sault St. Louis church; it contains part of her bones, as the head was given to the St. Regis Iroquois Mission, founded later on. This precious deposit disappeared when that church was destroyed by fire. Since the authentication of Kateri's relics, preserved in this box, was requested by Bishop Hubert of Quebec City and never returned to the Sault, it is only by oral tradition transmitted by the Sault St. Louis missionaries that we believe this box contains the relics of Kateri Tekakwitha. Fragments of these relics have often been distributed to priests and laymen in Canada, the United States and France if they expressed the desire to receive some.

 [Please do write to CT requesting a relic as this is not our domain: relics of any class are hard to get; this account was written in 1894 when there were far fewer people and the way of life was more simple. Today usually one religious order has the authority to distribute relics, which cannot be purchased as they are blessed; one has to have the knowledge of that order and its procedures, usually one acquires them because one knows someone who is closely connected in some manner, etc. We receive a myriad of requests on relics, none of which we can fulfill and most we cannot answer as to where they can be acquired. Nor are we a shrine for Blessed Kateri. Again we have so many requests for directions to shrines and where our gift stores are: we are an informational-devotional web site only, commerce free as our mission is reparational and restorative: we entrust our efforts to God relying on His good graces and remain non-commercial.-----The Web Master]

    We cannot say at what period the concourse of people stopped going to Kateri's tomb. We only know that this movement continued for several years and that the people's confidence in Kateri's intercession was rewarded by many miracles. There has been no question of miraculous occurrences due to Kateri Tekakwitha's intercession for a long time now, but the Iroquois virgin's reputation for sanctity is preserved to this day. Let us mention several items to support this fact.

    The following can be read in a historical notice concerning the parish of Laprairie. The only visible commemoration of the Iroquois presence near the Rivière du Portage and of the edifying life of Kateri Tekakwitha is found on the banks of the great river: a large cross, replacing the smaller one at whose feet Kateri loved to pray every day. The great solemnity took place on July 23, 1843, with a great number of Sault St. Louis Indians and neighboring Canadian inhabitants present, during which the cross that we see today was blessed. Three sermons were given that day: the Grand Vicar Fr. Hudon, canon of the Montreal cathedral, preached in English; Fr. Joseph Marcoux, a Sault St. Louis missionary, in Iroquois; and Fr. Martin, a Jesuit, in French.

     This cross was knocked down by the wind, and the inhabitants of Laprairie had another one made. It was blessed on Sunday evening, October 5, 1884, by Rev. Fr. Bourgeault, the Laprairie parish priest, in the presence of a great number of Indians from the Sault and Canadians from Laprairie and St. Constant. Rev. Fr. Burtin, O.M.I., then a missionary at Sault St. Louis and successor of Rev. Fr. Antoine, O.M.I. [who later became Canadian provincial and then Assistant Superior General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate] preached in French and Iroquois.

     A more imposing demonstration took place on July 30, 1890. Rev. Fr. Walworth [priest of St. Mary's Church in Albany, N.Y.] had often had occasion to visit the village of Funda on the north bank of the Mohawk River, once called the Caughnawaga; in New York State not far from Albany. Kateri had been Baptized in this village and had lived there before going to the other Caughnawaga located near Montreal. Fr. Walworth saw the modest wooden cross on Kateri's original burial site and thought of erecting a splendid monument in her honor to perpetuate the memory of this pious young woman. The tomb is a parallelogram in granite surmounted by a molding slightly larger than the stone surface and containing the following inscription:

KATERI TEKAKWITHA
Apr. 17, 1680
Onkweonweke Katsitsiio
Teotsitsianekaron

Which means:

KATERI TEKAKWITHA
April 17, 1680
Lily of the Mohawks

     [Word for word: "The beautiful flower that blossomed among the Indians"]

    The granite sarcophagus is surrounded by a lovely palisade and covered by a sloping roof made from large strips of bark. This is all surmounted by a great cross that can be seen from a distance and is at least 15 feet high. This monument, fruit of Rev. Fr. Walworth's generosity, cost around a thousand dollars.

     On Tuesday afternoon, July 30, 1890, three bishops [Msgr. Fabre, Archbishop of Montreal; Msgr. Gravel, Bishop of Nicolet; and Msgr. McNierny, Bishop of Albany, N.Y.], about 60 priests and a crowd of over 2,000 people-----French, English and Iroquois-----went by boat and by vehicle to La Tortue, near the Rivière du Portage. The Bishop of Albany, in whose diocese Kateri Tekakwitha was born and Baptized in Funda [formally Ossernenon], near Auriesville, was graciously invited to bless the monument. After the blessing, Rev. Drummond, S.J., spoke in French and then in English on the virtues of Kateri Tekakwitha, emphasizing the wisdom of her apparent folly and the power of her weakness. Rev. Fr. Burtin then made an allocution in Iroquois in which he exhorted the Indians present at the ceremony to imitate Kateri's virtues and remain attached to the Catholic Church, the only one that produces sanctity. The Indians sang several lovely hymns and one of them, Doctor Patton [Ignatius Ostawensrahes] read an address in Iroquois and then in English, to which the Bishop of Albany, who speaks French well, responded with enthusiasm.

    The address appears below:

    "To His Grace Msgr. McNierny, who has blessed this monument to Kateri; to Their Graces Msgr. Ed. Charles Fabre, our venerable Archbishop, and Msgr. Elphege Gravel, Bishop of Nicolet, and to Rev. Fr. C. A. Walworth, Rector of St. Mary's in Albany, who has raised the present monument to the glory of Kateri Tekakwitha.

"Monsignors, Reverend Father.

     "I come in the name of the Iroquois Nation of Caughnawaga to express our sentiments upon the occasion of the ceremony we have just witnessed. For, if there is anyone interested in this feast, it is first of all our people who glorify themselves in having possessed the heroine of the day, Kateri Tekakwitha, as one of them. She is the glory of our people. And this monument erected at her burial site and blessed by the Church will tell us and our descendants who Kateri was. It will recall her virtues and teach us that we should imitate her.
    This stone recalls to us the glories of the past: that is, the many striking miracles performed at her tomb. This stone is a gauge for the future and permits us to hope that we or our children will gather at this site once again to take part in new feasts in which we may honor our compatriot with the title of Blessed.

    "No doubt this has been the venerable intention of the priest to whose generosity we owe this monument. He manifested this desire by being one of the first to ask the American bishops that the cause of the beatification of Kateri Tekakwitha be taken before the Holy Father along with those of the Martyrs Fr. Jogues and Bro. René Goupil.

    "May he be pleased to accept our profound thanks in return for the new mark of predilection he has made to our good Kateri in having this monument erected. We also express our thanks to the prelate who has blessed it. It falls to him to consecrate the site of Kateri's death with the prayers of the Church. For, this lily that the Divine Master picked here to take into the Heavenly garden had been planted and had flowered in the Diocese of Albany. This lily had been cultivated by the reverend Jesuit Fathers to whom our ancestors are indebted for the True Faith. That is why it has given us such pleasure to hear a Father of the Company of Jesus present Kateri's eulogy to us.

     "Finally, today's feast has been uplifted by the presence of our venerable Archbishop and his colleague, the Bishop of Nicolet, of many clergymen and a great number of the faithful who have come from far away.

     "In the sight of diverse peoples united by the same sentiment of admiration at the foot of this monument to Kateri, the humble Iroquois Virgin, we recognize that the Catholic Church is the only one that produces sanctity. May we be ever more faithful to its teaching and direction! May God grant us this grace, for which we beseech the blessing of Msgr. the Archbishop."

THE IROQUOIS INDIANS OF CAUGHNAWAGA

    In this address, there is an allusion to the request addressed by the Jesuit Fathers to the Holy See for the introduction of the cause of beatification of Father Isaac Jogues, S.J., Lay Brother René Goupil, S.J., and Kateri Tekakwitha. The Fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore held in 1884 subscribed to this request by adding a formal petition.

    Will these desires and hopes be someday fulfilled? Will Kateri Tekakwitha be glorified by the Church and placed on the altars? That is God's secret, but it seems to us it is not in vain that Providence has allowed her tomb to be so glorious by her performance of so many miracles.

    According to Father Chollenec's testimony, one of the Jesuit Fathers of the mission saw the Blessed appear to him within the form of a rising sun as he was saying his morning prayers six days after Kateri's death. Fr. Chollenec writes: "'The priest saw a church turned upside down from top to bottom on his right, and some Indians burned at the stake on his left. This vision lasted for two hours. The Father did not want to say anything at first and only declared it long afterwards, once the events indicated by these signs had occurred and Kateri had begun to distinguish herself by miracles.

    "Three years after her death, in a terrible storm such as we have never seen, the earth trembled and the sky seemed to be all on fire, and the mission church was overturned. Three of our people were caught in this common ruin without any harm, and they attributed this favor to Kateri's merits . . . About the same time, three of our Indians-----a man and two women -----were caught in the fields by Iroquois who were unsuccessfully besieging our village. They took them as prisoners into their country and burned them at the stake out of hatred for the Faith as well as for the mission.

    "The following year, Kateri again showed herself to the Father with her body all resplendent, and at the same time he felt himself being told interiorly to distribute her holy picture to the people.

    "Finally, three years after her death, he saw her like the noontime sun, surrounded by a light so great that he could scarcely bear its brilliance, and he was told to paint her ,as he saw her. He made a likeness of her based on this model. Later on they made pictures which, although they are on paper and badly done, are so highly esteemed by the Canadians that we can scarcely fill their requests. Those who receive them thank you as though you were giving them precious stones, and they keep them in their houses with great care." ["Catherine Tegahkouita, la sainte sauvage sse," by Fr. Pierre Chollenec, S.J. "L'Eclaireur": (Beauceville, Quebec, 1914), pp. 34-35.]

Chapter 11
Some Miracles

Note: This chapter, as well as the above section, have been added to Fr. Burtin's biography of Blessed Kateri and are taken from various periodicals.

A miracle that occurred in the autumn of 1905 at Shishigwaning, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, is reported below. The miraculously healed woman was an Indian called Charlotte Wabigijik. The event was observed by many eyewitnesses, in particular Father T. Couture, S.J., a medical doctor and missionary at that location.

    Here are the facts, stated very simply as found in a letter by the missionary:

    An Indian woman had contracted a horrible disease from her daughter, and it was eating her alive. She had been suffering atrociously for eleven months. Sores ate at her throat and mouth. She had tried all the doctors' remedies, but to no avail: the disease just kept getting worse. The poor woman was pitiful. She could only eat and drink a little broth.

    In this condition she came to consult Father Couture as a doctor. The missionary told her that given the circumstances, he could not and did not want to act as a doctor. "But since men can't heal you," he added, "it is God's hour. Speak to Him through the intervention of Kateri Tekakwitha. Promise Him to live a more holy life and pray with confidence."

 These words made an impression on the poor woman. The idea pleased her, and she promised to begin praying to the great servant of God immediately. She started a novena in honor of Kateri Tekakwitha that very evening. One day, two days went by: no change. But the sick woman was completely cured on the third day of the novena. She has been feeling very well since that time.

    The missionary who recounts this event ends by saying: "As for me, I don't have the slightest doubt: there is an intervention of the Divinity-----a miracle-----in this sudden cure." [Cf. "Le Messager Canadien du Sacré-Coeur," April 1906.]

Infected Multiple Fracture

    Bernard Lavallée was an agricultural worker. He liked to go for a ride on his motorcycle in the fine Laurentian breeze now and then.

     On April 29, 1927, on the road to Lachute, he hit the ditch in order to avoid a weaving car. The bike overturned and vibrated for a long time against his left leg with heavy, jolting strokes before nearby residents finally arrived and turned the motor off. Unconscious, he was taken to Royal Victoria Hospital.

     He had bone bruises, two shredded muscles and a leg wound from which sand and gravel were removed.

     Lavallée was put on the operating table twelve times in four months. He had a metal and plaster apparatus to hold his dislocated bones together, but they continued to leak pus despite every care. A bone graft was performed and rot set into the wound. His leg became enormous and swollen with fluid.

     The twelfth operation was performed in front of medical students: this was a case worth seeing! The surgeon explained what sort of fracture he was working on as he cleansed the wounds, concluding in English [which Lavallée, who spoke little English, was well able to understand]: "We've tried everything possible. An amputation will probably be necessary."

  Lavallée was downcast as he returned to his bed. Lose his leg after so much suffering! He was desperate. He had been totally helpless for four months, but he could not resign himself to living with just a stump and two crutches.

    His aunt [Rev. Sr. Mary Joseph Lavallée, foundress of the Franciscan Oblates of St. Joseph] came to speak with him for a few minutes that evening. She told the sick man, "I'm bringing you a pretty little Iroquois maiden. We're going to pray to her together. You're going to begin a novena."

    It was very late: Lavallée was to return to the operating table for the thirteenth time the following day. His leg was more swollen than ever and he had lost all sense of feeling in his toes. A nurse passed wires though his ankle at regular intervals to clear out the blood-tinged hole from which the pus escaped.

Lavallée's aunt left. The swelling that tightened the pulley-and-plaster apparatus holding his leg caused him a painful effort, but he placed Kateri's picture on his thigh and said his Rosary as he tried to fall asleep and forget his ailments. And indeed, he did have a peaceful sleep . . . his first since his entrance into the hospital. And in the morning . . . "I could move inside the plaster, with almost four inches of leeway," Lavallée said. "My leg moved all in one piece. I jerked it in one direction or the other several times. I made the tip of my foot move. I felt ill at ease and was almost afraid."

    Amazed, the nurse did not make up the usual bandage. Everything had been full of pus the evening before, but now the gauze was dry. The nurse touched a scar that seemed to be firm, close to his foot.

   "I felt the touch," Lavallée told us, "and that surprised me." An intern came in and examined the leg. The plaster had become a big, loose tube which he broke off with a solid chisel.
    "The doctor caused me no pain at all, contrary to earlier pains each time anyone had touched the plaster," Lavallée said.

    His leg was red. There was no skin: just sore, raw flesh. After washing it down with ether, they took the sick man out into the sunshine. Many doctors and nurses came in a long line to examine the re-knit leg, saying nothing. Lavallée left the Royal Victoria on crutches three days later, on August 29. His left leg remained a little shorter than his right, and he had to have a thicker sole made for his left shoe.

      Greatly encouraged by his first success in his prayers, Lavallée promised his benefactress, "If you get rid of my crutches for me, I'll bring them to you at Caughnawaga."

     His crutches soon became unnecessary, along with his cane, and Lavallée entered the Convalescent Hospital where he served as a companion to the begging Sisters for several months. He carried baskets, going to and from Bonsecours Market on foot.

      The doctors at the Royal Victoria asked for him several times in order to study his case. They probed his scars, made him walk and carry weights.

     Lavallée went on a bicycle to bring his crutches to St. Catherine's.

    His cure has remained stable, and Lavallée now has his diploma as a heating furnace engineer. He can work standing on cement every day and gets tired just like everybody else.
   [Cf. "Kateri Tekakwitha," by Gilberte C. Bouvier. "Le Messager Canadien Publications (Montreal, 1939), pp. 148-150.]

Pulmonary Tuberculosis

On August 22, 1939, I took the St. Hubert Street bus with Father A. Poulin for Chateaubriand Street, where Mr. and Mrs. Paul Vezina awaited our visit. Mr. Vezina is 32 years old. He is of medium height and has thin features. He speaks with simplicity and good humor.

    Vezina had been a gilder for fifteen years: his room and the entire house, filled with fine molding frames, attest to his trade. He had felt weak for many months and had finally left his job to enter Sacred Heart Hospital on January 9, 1937.

    X-rays revealed that the lobes in his left lung bore traces of tuberculosis. He received pneumothorax treatments, which consist in injecting compressed air into the pleura to immobilize it so as to permit the formation of tissue healing.

    Vezina returned home at the end of February, but weakness and coughing soon forced him back into the hospital.

    He submitted to the pneumothorax needles once again. The irritated pleura finally began secreting water, his breathing became short and broken, and the sick man felt as though his chest were a bottle three-quarters full of liquid.

     "We're going to have to make a tap," the doctor told him. "In your case, only thoracoplasty [plastic surgery of the thorax] has any chance of success. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I thought I understood," says Vezina, "but I preferred to die rather than live disabled on Public Aid, and I asked to leave the hospital."

"If you want to be healed, you have to rest easy here and submit to what we will require of you," the doctor told him.

    Nonetheless, Vezina obtained his departure and left on June 12, 1938. He began feeling worse at his home and wanted to see his doctor again.

    That was impossible. The doctor had left for his summer home up North. The sick man was taken to Bruchesi Institute and then to St. Joan of Arc Hospital. He received the same diagnosis in both places: "Water in the pleura. Resection of the ribs. Return for tapping in two days." What was there to do? The sick man had a fever and was anxious over his future.

    Father Francis Maynard, a parish priest at St. Catherine's in Laprairie who had known Vezina earlier in Sudbury, Ontario, began a novena to Kateri Tekakwitha with him. The sick man wore her relic on his chest. Vezina returned to the hospital at the beginning of the novena, resigned to everything.

    The doctor said upon examining him, "You're in no danger. Let's be patient; I won't perform the tap right away. Come back later."

     The novena went on and the sick man's breathing improved, but he remained weak.
     The surgeon was still enigmatic at the third visit. "Come back next week," he told Vezina after his X-ray. "There's no rush for a tap. Eat well and get some exercise."

Vezina made his fourth visit to St. Joan of Arc Hospital on foot.

    The doctor took his X-Ray again and said: "There's nothing more I can do for you. You haven't had a drop of water in your pleura for several days. Eat and sleep well, and you'll be back at work by autumn. Yours is the finest case of healing I know of."

    The disappearance of water in the pleura coincided with the end of the novena. The left lung, which had seemed incurable, was functioning freely. All traces of the fever had vanished. Vezina is waiting confidently for the final medical consultations that will permit him to send the story of his cure to Rome in order to contribute to the glorification of his benefactress. [Cf. "Kateri Tekakwitha," by Gilberte C. Bouvier. "Le Messager Canadien," Montreal 1939), pp. 145-147.]

        Jesuit Prays to Kateri Tekakwitha, Regains Sight

     An American Jesuit Bible scholar attributes restoration of sight in one eye which has a completely destroyed optic nerve to Kateri's miraculous intercession.

     Father Walter M. Abott, a native of Boston, lost sight in his left eye when he fell down a marble staircase in his Rome residence on June 24, 1975. He fractured his skull and wrist and dislocated his jaw. Physicians said head damage caused a hemorrhage which eventually destroyed the optic nerve in the left eye.

Father Abbott returned to the United States for medical tests in September 1975, and three eye specialists declared that the optic nerve had been destroyed. "They said there was nothing left of the optic nerve but dead matter," the priest said. "They also told me that once the optic nerve is gone, there is no way for sight to ever return."

     Father Abbott met Father Henri Béchard, S.J., vice-postulator in the cause of canonization for Kateri, a short while later. "Father Béchard said they had one confirmed first-class miracle in connection with Kateri, but they still needed a second miracle to go ahead with the cause of beatification and eventual canonization," Father Abbott recalled. The vice-postulator asked him if he would go to Kateri's grave and begin praying to her for a miracle. Father Abbott accepted to do so and went there in October 1975.

     Friends, priests and fellow Jesuits joined Father Abbott in requesting the miracle. They prayed to Kateri for over a year, then Father Walter Abbott suddenly recovered his sight. In December 1976 he was re-examined by two of the doctors who had said he had had no chance of ever regaining sight in the left eye. They came to the same conclusion: both specialists observed that the optic nerve was still nothing but dead tissue and yet there: was better than 50% vision in the eye. They had to admit that Father Abbott's restoration of vision was medically impossible and beyond all explanation. [Cf. "The Tablet," Brooklyn, N.Y., January, 1977.]

Long Ago

        Father J. de la Colombière, brother of Blessed Claude [the apostle of the Sacred Heart], did not pray to Kateri in vain: "I was ill in Quebec City last year from January to June with the slow fever [the cancer of that time] for which all remedies had been useless, and with dysentery. It was judged fitting that I make a vow to go the St. Francis Xavier Mission and pray on Kateri Tekakwitha's tomb if it pleased God to heal me. The fever stopped that very day and the dysentery diminished greatly, so a few days later I took a boat to fulfill my vow. I had scarcely gone one-third of the way when I found myself perfectly cured. Since my health is so useless that I would never have dared ask for this if my deference for the servants of God had not obliged me to, one cannot reasonably keep from believing that God's only idea in granting me this grace was to spread knowledge of the credit this fine maiden has with Him. As for me, I would be afraid of holding back the truth unjustly and refusing the Canadian missions the glory that is due them if I did not testify, as I am now doing, to the fact that I owe my cure to this Iroquois virgin . . . " Given at Ville-Marie on September 14, 1696-----J. de la Colombière, canon of the Quebec Cathedral. [Cf. "Ma Paroisse" magazine, Montreal, June 1956, p. 9.]

     When the Sault St. Louis Mission was formed, a number of native Iroquois families came and settled there in order to profess Catholicism more freely and shelter themselves from the seductions of idolaters. This irritated the latter, who declared that the Christian Iroquois who had abandoned them were enemies of the fatherland. I will sum up the details Father De Charlevoix gives on this subject. Though the hatred of religion is perhaps not the principal factor motivating the death they were made to undergo, they can still be considered Martyrs in a certain sense.

STEPHEN TEKANNENNAKOHA (1690)

    Stephen Tekannennakoha is the first. He was only 35 years of age and came to Sault St. Louis with his wife, sister-in-law and 6 children. He received Baptism and led a very edifying life in this mission. In the month of August 1690, he left for the autumn hunt accompanied by his wife and another Indian. They were captured in the month of September by a band of Cayugas who caught them and brought them to Onondaga. [The village of Onondaga still exists near Syracuse, in upstate New York.] Ravished with joy at having Christians from Sault in their hands to torment, the inhabitants of this village approached them armed with hatchets, knives and sticks. Coming up to Stephen, one of the barbarians said: "You are dead, my brother; don't impute your misfortune to anyone but yourself, because you left us."

     "I'm Catholic and proud of it," replied Stephen. "I glory in being one. I'm not afraid of your torments and am ready to lay down my life for a God who shed His Blood for me."

     Furious, they fell upon him, made a number of incisions all over his body, then tore out his nails and cut off the tips of his fingers.

     "Pray to God," they told him.

     "Yes, I will pray to Him," answered Stephen. Then, raising his bound hands, he made the
 Sign of the Cross as best he could and pronounced the words. They immediately cut off his remaining fingers and cried out to him: "Now pray to God."

     He made the Sign of the Cross again and they finished cutting off his fingers. They invited him a third time to pray after the third Sign of the Cross made with the palms of his hands, and then cut them off altogether.

Afterwards the captives were led to the village, beside a bonfire into which stones were placed until they were red hot. Since Stephen refused to sing in the manner of the country, one of the barbarians shoved a firebrand down his throat and tied him to a stake . . . Stephen cast a tranquil glance upon his torturers and said: "Enjoy burning me, don't spare me, for my sins have deserved greater sufferings. The more you torment me, the greater will be my reward in Heaven."

    These words made them furious; they each took firebrands or red hot irons and burned his body slowly. Stephen remained calm during these tortures; he did not utter a sigh and kept his eyes raised to Heaven. Having asked for a moment's rest, which was granted, he made a last prayer, commended his soul to Jesus Christ, pleaded with Him to forgive his torturers, then gave his spirit up to his Creator. His wife's life was spared; she was brought away captive, but remained steadfast in the Faith. Once free, she returned to Sault St. Louis.

FRANCES KONWANNHATENHA (1692)

    This woman had been Baptized by Father Frémin at Onondaga, her native area, whence she had withdrawn to Sault St. Louis. One day while fishing in the area about Chateauguay where her second husband, a virtuous Catholic, lived, she learned that enemies had launched an attack on Sault St. Louis. She left by canoe with two of her friends, but once a quarter of a league [a kilometer] away from the village, her canoe was seized by a whole army of Iroquois infidels. Her husband had his head cut off and the three women were led to the camp.

    These barbarians began to distract themselves by tearing out their fingernails and making them smoke their bleeding fingers in their peace pipes. Her two companions were destined to be captives. As for Frances, she was led to Onondaga where one of her sisters had the cruelty to hand her over to the discretion of the elders and warriors. When they made her climb a scaffold, she declared in a loud voice that she was a Catholic and felt happy to die in her own land at the hands of those near to her, like Our Lord Jesus Christ. These words drove one of her relatives to fury. He leapt on her, tore off a Crucifix she was wearing around her neck, and cut an incision on her chest in the form of a cross.

    "There is the cross you hold in such esteem and that prevented you from leaving Sault when I went to get you," he said.

    "Thank you," answered Frances. "I could lose the one you took away from me, but never will I lose the one you gave me, not even at my death."

    She then began to speak with remarkable unction and force, saying she was both prepared to suffer and happy with her fate. She exhorted her persecutors to become Catholic in order to avoid the eternal fire of Hell-----a far more terrible fire than the one they were lighting to torment her with. She declared that she forgave them good-heartedly and prayed to the Master of life to grant them the grace of conversion. These words only increased their rage. For three days they led her from cabin to cabin in order to make the people's plaything out of her. On the fourth day, they brought her back to the torture stake and applied burning firebrands and fire-reddened gun barrels all over her body for a number of hours without her letting out the slightest cry. Then, according to the Iroquois' barbaric custom, they scalped her, threw hot ashes on her head and untied her from the stake. They were waiting for her to start running and make contortions like other captives do; but she knelt down and, raising her eyes to Heaven, offered her last remaining breaths of life to the Lord as a sacrifice. The Iroquois began hurling a hail of stones upon her, and this torture put an end to her sufferings. [1692].

MARGARET KAHARONKWAS (1693)

     Margaret Kaharonkwas was born in Onondaga and received Baptism at the age of 13. She married soon afterwards and had 4 children. Her last child was still being breast-fed when, towards the autumn of 1693-----she was then 24 years of age-----she went to visit her field at a quarter of a league from Fort Sault St. Louis where she had withdrawn. She fell into the hands of two Indians from her district and they led her to Onondaga.

    As soon as she arrived, she was led to a rise near the village where more then 400 Indians assembled. They began by tearing the child out of her arms and dealt her so many knife blows that her body was but an open wound. They then led her to the cabin of a Frenchwoman from Montreal who was being held captive. During the brief time they spent together, they encouraged one another to suffer with constancy the passing tortures, which would be followed with eternal happiness. While they were conversing, a band of Indians came to get Margaret and led her to her place of execution. She was bound to a stake and burned all over her body with such cruelty, that it could only have been inspired by the malice of the devil. She endured this long, harsh Martyrdom without showing a single sign of pain. She never stopped invoking the holy names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, asking them to support her in the harsh combat which lasted from noon till the setting of the sun. She asked for a little water, but soon repented of this weakness; like our dying Savior, she wanted to endure the tortures of thirst, and demanded that it be denied her if she asked for more water.

    They scalped her as she was being unbound from the stake. Her head was covered with hot ashes and she was ordered to run. Instead, she knelt down, raised her eyes and hands to Heaven and commended her soul to the Lord. She was beaten with many sticks, and an Indian even took the very stake she had been tied to and hit her over the head with it. Since she still gave some sign of life, her body was thrown on a woodpile which they set on fire; she was soon consumed in the flames.

       Three days after her death, a death cry was heard in the night, causing all the Indians to run to the place it had come from. They saw a fire lit and an Indian ready to throw Margaret Kaharonkwas' son into it, in order to revenge an insult he felt he had received from the French. They were very surprised and even touched when they saw this innocent one-year-old lift his hands to Heaven with a sweet smile and call his mother three times, showing by a gesture that he wanted to hug her. The child was not thrown into the flames. One of the more important members of the village delivered him, but only to make him die by a no less cruel death. He grabbed the baby by the feet, swung him in the air and dashed his head against a rock. God had heard the prayers of the mother who, undoubtedly, had asked that her son be reunited with her as soon as possible and preserved from a licentious education which would have placed his eternal salvation in danger.

STEPHEN AONWENTSIATEWET

    This neophyte from the Sault Mission, after having escaped the fire prepared for him, was taken by a band of Agniers who held him captive and brought him to their land. His life was
spared, but he was obliged to dwell with his parents who strongly solicited him to follow his nation's customs-----that is, to give himself over to the disorders of a licentious life. Far from heeding them. he explained the truths of salvation to them with force and unction. But seeing he could not convince them to follow him to Sault, he decided to escape and return there in order to place his salvation in security. Scarcely was he on his way when rumor of his departure spread. They set out in pursuit and wanted to force him to return. The generous Catholic answered that they were the masters of his life, but that he preferred losing it to risking his Faith and salvation by remaining among them. He asked his torturers for a few moments in which to pray to God. They consented and the holy young man knelt down, thanking God for the grace He was giving him of dying like a Christian and Martyr; he prayed for his parents and torturers. As soon as he had finished, they split his head wide open on orders received from the village elders.

JOAN KONWATSTARHA

Joan Konwatstarha was Kateri Tekakwitha's first companion and the most faithful imitator of her virtues. She was from the Oneida nation. She was married to a young Agnier from the Our Lady of Loreto Mission but had to put up with much ill treatment, since her husband was given to drunkenness and libertinage. Yet she never wanted to leave him, in the hope of bringing him to enter into himself; she never ceased praying for his conversion. Since he had relatives at Sault St. Louis, he went there accompanied by her, but did not change his behavior; finally, he denied his Faith and returned to the Agniers. This was the only place to which she refused to follow him. She withdrew to her husband's parents' place at Loreto, hoping to deter him from his debaucheries; but scarcely a year afterwards she learned that her apostate husband had been killed by Indians following an orgy.

    This death touched her profoundly. Though still young, she refused to remarry and decided to spend the rest of her days by Kateri Tekakwitha's tomb, living there as a Christian widow and putting the finishing touches to her sanctification. She died soon afterwards in the odor of holiness.

    The only sorrow she sustained in her final illness was leaving two young children exposed to walking later in their unhappy father's footsteps. She fervently asked Our Lord not to separate the children from their mother, and her prayer was answered. Though in perfect health, they both took ill: one died before his mother, and the other followed her a week after her departure from this world.

Blessed Kateri died on April 7, 1680 at the age of twenty-four. She is known as the "Lily of the Mohawks".

Devotion to Kateri is responsible for establishing Native American ministries in Catholic churches all over the United States and Canada. The Catholic Church declared Kateri Venerable in 1943 and she was beatified in 1980. Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be declared Blessed.

In the past, we commemorated her Feast on the day of her death. April 17 often falls during the season of Lent or during Easter Week.

When the Bishops of the United States gathered for their fall meeting in Washington, DC, in November 1982, they voted to change the day of observance of the Feast of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha to July 14th. The new Feast Day enables the Church in the United States to celebrate and honor Blessed Kateri without the Feast Day overlapping with the Season of Lent.