Memorial of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin

Archbishop of Paris Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard (1874-1949) once observed that to be a saint means "to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist." The Church's lectionary invites us today to see in the life of Saint Kateri, Lily of the Mohawk -- a simple woman with no cultural support for her holiness, no power base of her own -- the existence of a God who cares for the least, the little one, the marginalized.
 
Kateri was born in 1656 in what is now Northeastern New York State, the site where nine years earlier Jesuits Isaac Jogues, Jean de Lalande, and other North American martyrs had been massacred by Iroquois warriors. Her father was a Mohawk chief, her mother an Algonquin who had been baptized and educated by this same group of Jesuit French missionaries before her own kidnapping by Mohawk warriors. Smallpox took both parents and a younger brother; it left Kateri with her face disfigured and her eyes half blind. Jesuit 'Black Robes' in her village nourished the seed of faith planted by her mother, and she was baptized at age 19 on Easter Sunday, given the Christian name Kateri in honor of Saint Catherine of Siena. 
 
Shunned by some of her tribe, refusing to marry with her private vow of virginity (a dangerous stance for an Indian woman whose future and safety were dependent on marriage), she trekked 200 miles to the north to a welcoming community, the Jesuit Francis Xavier mission south of Montreal. Teaching prayers to children and helping the sick and elderly, for the five years before her death she astounded all she met with her deep spirituality, long hours of prayer and charity, and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. 
 
At her death, it was said that all traces of suffering, even her pockmarks, disappeared. Because of her unique path to chastity, she is often portrayed with a lily in hand, a traditional symbol of purity associated with the Virgin Mary since medieval times.
 
Kateri was beautified in 1980 and canonized in October, 2012. The final healing miracle to support her case for canonization had come from the full recovery of a boy from Seattle whose face had been disfigured from flesh-eating bacteria. His family, who is part Native American, had prayed for Kateri's intercession. This young man presented the gifts of bread and wine at her canonization Mass in Rome.
 
In her lifetime, Kateri served as an ecumenical bridge between Native American and European cultures, and she is the Patron Saint of indigenous peoples.  "She impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture,” it was said at her canonization. “In her, faith and culture enrich each other. May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first Native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America!”