Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, “the Lily of the Mohawks,” has been give the green light to canonization. Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree on yesterday recognizing a second miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Kateri.
Two miracles are necessary for sainthood, both of which need occur after the death of the one proposed for canonization. The second miracle acknowledged as such yesterday involved the miraculous recovery of a Seattle boy whose face had been disfigured with a flesh-eating bacteria and who almost died, but then recovered completely. (Blessed Kateri’s face had been disfigured due to small pox.)
Blessed Kateri was born in 1656 in a village on the Mohawk River called Ossernenon, New York. Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother a Christian Algonquin raised among the French. At age 4, she survived a small-pox epidemic, although remained disfigured and with poor eyesight. She decided to be baptized and pursue the religious life, fleeing her relatives who disapproved of her conversion. She was baptized in 1676 and made her first Communion on Christmas 1677. Her holiness became widely acknowledged, and she performed “extraordinary penances.” She died in 1680, and according to eyewitnesses, her facial disfigurement suddenly disappeared after her death. Her tomb is in Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence River, about 10 miles from Montreal.
Her sainthood cause was begun in 1932, even though Native Americans have called for her recognition since at least the mid-1800s. She was declared “Venerable” in 1942, and beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980.
Saint Kateri, pray for us!
