Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha [Pronounced: Gah-deh-lee Deh-gah-quee-tah]

Also known as
• Catherine Tekakwitha
• Lily of the Mohawks
• Tegakouita
• Tegakwitha
Memorial
• 14 July in the US
17 April in Canada

Profile
The nightmare continues. The name Tekakwitha means “she who bumps into things,” in Algonquin. She was so called because of her poor eyesight (not a joke). Kateri is Native patois for Catherine; her Christian name.

Our saint today had her first and only miracle approved by The Pope December 2011. She has replaced Ann Seaton in my heart. As these things tend to go, now the story grows in the telling, a quick check on the ole' reliable Wikipedia says she has numerous miracles, and Catholic Saints online has simply copied and pasted this Wilkipedia info on their own site. So her followers are continuing to pad the heavenly resume, apparently.

Kateri was born in 1656 in Ossernenon, now called Auriesville NY, a few miles west of Amsterdam. Her mother, a Christian Algonquin, captured and enslaved by the Iroquois, and her father, a pagan Mohawk chief, both died of smallpox when she was 4 years old. A young Kateri caught the disease which damaged the girl's eyesight and scarred her face horribly, so don’t believe the holy cards, stories, or pictures you see; she was not physically pretty. Not that this matters.......Although the good Monsignor tells me her statue in the Seminary of Saint Joseph in Yonkers depicts a real stable rowboat of a person.....broad in the beam.

She was shunned and abused by relatives for her faith, and her vow of virginity. In 1679 Kateri ran away from the abusive Mowhawks through 200 miles of wilderness to the Christian Native American village of Sault-Sainte-Marie, which really was not easy when you can barely see your hand in front of your face; her eyesight was that bad. She was known for her spirituality and austere lifestyle.

On the other hand, some critics say what she really did was dovetail Native American spirit beliefs and animism into the Christian Faith....much like the Caribbean pagan Santaria belief system does to this day with Babalu and Chango. An interesting take on our saint actually….

Anecdotally, she was known as a miracle worker just apparently not verifiably. Her grave became a pilgrimage site and place of miracles for Christian Native Americans and French colonists. None of these numerous “miracles” have ever been officially recognized. Most of these miracles were cures that resemble Native American “Medicine” rituals similar to what shaman do...like wearing bags of dirt or rotten coffin wood from Kateri’s grave-site around the neck, slaughtering a chicken and smearing its blood mixed with dirt from her resting place on your situation and then hooting like a barred owl three times at the moon. Let’s face it, the natives would pray for rain at her grave and 2 months later it rained, this was considered miraculous back then.

She is the first Native American proposed for canonization; her cause was started in 1884 under Pope Leo XIII. Let’s review this shall we? To become a saint, a person first must be declared "venerable," after a review and documentation of an exemplary life, which Kateri was in 1943. Then he or she must be beatified or deemed "blessed," and then they may be considered for canonization. Since the relaxation of the canonization process, proof of two miracles must be attributed to the person – one before beatification, one after. Much like Paul VI did with Ann Seaton, Pope John Paul II waived the miracle requirement in order to beatify Kateri in 1980. Just waived it....because she was an Indian. And JP II liked makin’ saints. One must wonder what happened to all these “miracles” reported at her gravesite........

Please understand, I’m not opposed to Kateri per se, I am opposed to streamlining the process, let’s do this the right way for everybody. This way we don’t end up looking ridiculous. If we want to begin to right wrongs of the past when it comes to stuff like this, let’s go back to Pope Stephen (II). Ask me about that one someday!!! Hoo boy.

Anyhoo....Kateri's supporters submitted evidence of more “miracles” but believed Kateri's chances of sainthood died with Pope John Paul, who bestowed sainthood on more people than all other popes combined. Again one wonders what all these miracles were that were not accepted: “Look! The press is beginning to investigate the Benghazi scandal! It’s a miracle!” “Look! There is ONE MET in the Baseball Hall of Fame.....It’s a miracle!” “ Brother Dominick made 500 more sets on a Xerox! It’s a miracle!”

Then, in 2006, a 6-year-old boy, named Jake Finkbonner who is half Lummi Indian, cut his lip during a basketball game in Washington State. Overnight his lip swelled up and became infected with Streptococcus A; the so called flesh eating bacteria. While in the hospital and on IV antibiotics for a skin infection that was one day old, the family's priest asked his congregation to pray to Kateri on Jake's behalf. The priest chose Kateri because of her facial scars and Indian heritage. Because the Lummi and the Mohawk are so similar.....

The show started.....prayers started coming in from around the world, and a representative from the Society of the Blessed Kateri went to the hospital to place a pendant of Kateri on the boy's pillow. The next day, the infection stopped progressing and Jake recovered. So a 2 day old skin infection, under antibiotic therapy, is a miracle. The prayerful folk rejoiced, as did the nurses when the doctors reduced the dosage of intravenous Vancomycin.

Investigators from the Vatican researched the incident for three years, and Pope Benedict approved it as a miracle attributed to Kateri's intervention and probably also the intervention of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

Born
• 1656 at Osserneon (Auriesville), modern New York, USA

Died
• 17 April 1680 at Caughnawaga, Canada of natural causes

Beatified
• 22 June 1980 by Pope John Paul II with no miracles to her name....Let’s look into Beatifying the Amazing Randi

Patronage
ecologists
environment
exiles
Eye problems
loss of parents
Skin disorders
Powerful Intravenous Antibiotics