The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI has stated that the Native Canadian woman, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, is worthy of sainthood because of, "her life of exemplary devotion and sacrifice and because this fact has been reinforced by the miracles of healing that have been effected through her direct intercession".
Hundreds of faithful, representing all shades of the human rainbow, flocked together on Sunday in Bensalem to rejoice over the canonization of the first American Indian saint.
They celebrated Kateri Takakwitha, known as “Lily of the Mohawks,” with a Catholic Mass, American Indian song and dance and a procession around the St. Katharine Drexel Mission Center and National Shrine. The procession was led by volunteers who carried a 5-foot statue in St. Kateri’s likeness.
“It’s very deserving,” author Lou Baldwin said as he and wife, Rita, joined in the celebration. Baldwin wrote “St. Katharine Drexel: Apostle to the Oppressed” and “A Call to Sanctity: The Formation and Life of Mother Katharine Drexel.”
“Saints are supposed to be examples for us,” Baldwin said. “(Kateri) is a very good example of what a Christian woman should be.”
Kateri was born in 1656 near Auriesville, N.Y. Her mother was of Christian Algonquin descent, and her father was a Mohawk chief. Her parents and brother died during a smallpox outbreak when Kateri was 4, church historians said. The disease also damaged Kateri’s eyesight and scarred her face.
Raised by her uncle, Kateri recalled how her mother prayed to Jesus Christ, according to historians. She too wanted to become a Christian, but her uncle would not allow it until Kateri was a young adult.
After she converted to Catholicism with the help of church missionaries, Kateri was scorned and ridiculed by people in her village, the historians said. She fled to Canada to live in a settlement of Christian Indians near Montreal.
Kateri cared for the children and elderly in her village and helped convert other Indians to Christianity until her death around the age of 24, the historians said.
Pope Benedict XVI agreed in late 2011 to elevate Kateri to sainthood after it was deemed medically inexplicable by the Vatican that a 5-year-old boy was able to survive a flesh-eating bacteria attack. The miracle occurred in 2006, church officials said, after Jake Finkbonner’s family and Lummi tribe members prayed to God through Kateri’s intercession.
Jake, now 12, and hundreds of members of his tribe from northwest Washington state attended Sunday’s canonization in Vatican City.
“May her example help us to live where we are: Loving Jesus without denying who we are,” the pope said Sunday during the Kateri’s canonization. “Saint Kateri, (protector) of Canada and the first Native American saint, we entrust you to the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America.”
She was one of seven people canonized on Sunday. The other new saints are Sister Marianne Cope, Pedro Calungsod, Jacques Berthieu, Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Giovanni Battista Piamarta and Anna Schaeffer.
Kateri’s canonization is a moment of pride for many American Indians, including those who are non-Catholics, said Quentin Bear Fuller during the Bensalem celebration hosted by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
“To be understood by Europeans has been our goal for many years of existence,” Fuller said. “I am very happy for her. It makes us proud.”
Sister Patricia Downs, director of the Drexel center and shrine, said Saint Kateri demonstrated her strength through her faith and belief in Jesus Christ. “She lived out her values strongly,” said Sister Downs.
It is that faith that brought people of all walks of life together on Sunday for at least one day, said the Rev. Bruce Lewandowski, the diocese’s vicar of cultural ministry.
“Let our prayer today be that we are united tomorrow as we are today,” Lewandowski said during the Mass celebrated in Kateri’s honor. “Let us live our lives by the example of the ‘Lily of the Mohawks.’”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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