Column: Feast for beatified Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk woman

Thursday, July 14, 2011  

"July 14 is the feast day of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American to be to be beatified. She was the only survivor from her family of origin when small pox infected her village. That's how it was in the 17th century, before the age of vaccines and antibiotics. European settlers to the Americas had not only brought their trade and their Christian faith, unfortunately, they also brought their diseases.

Born in 1656 in the Mohawk River Valley in what would become Auriesville, New York, Tekakwitha had a Christian Algonquin mother and a pagan Mohawk warrior father. Tekakwitha's battle with the small pox left her face pock-mocked and scarred, and with very poor eyesight. Her name translates to "she who bumps into things."

Orphaned as a 4-year-old child, Tekakwitha was taken in by an uncle who mistrusted "the white man's" Christian religion as much as his killer diseases. But Tekakwitha maintained a fondness for the memory of her mother's religion, even when she was traditionally promised as a future wife to a tribal boy at the age of 8.

A Christian mission was erected nearby, founded by the Jesuits, when Tekakwitha was a teenager. She secretly began taking religious instruction with "the black robes." She was baptized in 1676, at the age of 20, and given the name Kateri—Catherine, in her native language."

Get the Story:
Pat Gohn: Not Just Another Pretty Face (The Patheos 7/13)