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St. Kateri Tekakwitha — The Scarred Orphan Who Escaped 200 Miles to Follow Her Faith · Everyday Saints: A Catholic Podcast

• 0:00
  In 1677, a young woman who could barely see slipped out of her village and kept going.
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  She crossed more than 200 miles of forests and river because staying had become dangerous.
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  Her face was scarred by smallpox and her parents had died when she was four. The only home she
• 0:20
  had ever known was shrinking behind her with every step. This is the story of the woman
• 0:25
  who left everything for a church. and became the first Native American Saint.
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  Hi, my name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday Saints. This is episode number 24. If this
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  is your first time stopping by, consider yourself invited. Grab a seat, something to drink and
• 0:54
  get comfortable. A new Saints story lands here every Thursday. Before we get into this week's
• 1:00
  Saint, two quick things. First, a special episode is coming out this Tuesday. Our first special,
• 1:07
  Why Do Catholics Pray to Saints, turned out to be one of the most popular episodes I have
• 1:12
  done. So I'm doing another. The timing on this one is no accident and I'll tell you more at
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  the end. Second, a favor. If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or simply wherever
• 1:25
  you follow, please tap follow or subscribe. It's free. It takes one tap and it matters
• 1:32
  more than you think for a small but growing show such as this. Now, this week we are back
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  to an unknown scene. Her name is Katery Tkakwitha, and if you've never heard of her, you are in
• 1:44
  good company. Most people outside devoted Catholic circles have not. Quick heads up before we
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  dive in. Her name is a mouthful, and even people who study her disagree on how to say it. I've
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  listened to a few versions, and I'm going to pick one and stick with it. And if I'm off,
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  I apologize in advance. I probably shouldn't, but let me attempt another way to say her name.
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  more of the native nation tribe sound of the Mohawks. Gadeli Degwa Guida. So, I'm going
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  to stick with Kateri. Kateri was born in 1656 in a Mohawk village in what's now upstate New
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  York. The Mohawk are a native nation who have lived in that region for centuries. Her father
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  was a Mohawk chief. Her mother was an Algonquin, a different native nation. And... a Christian
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  who had been captured in a raid and adopted into the Mohawk people. When Kateri was about
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  four, smallpox tore through her village. It killed her parents and her brother. She survived,
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  but the disease left deep scars across her face and badly damaged her eyesight. That's where
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  her name comes from. Tekakwitha is usually translated one of two ways. She who bumps into
• 3:04
  things or she who puts things in order. People argue about which is right based on my readings,
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  but honestly, they could both describe the same girl, someone who couldn't see well and made
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  up for it by being careful. Orphaned, Kateri went to live with her uncle, a clan chief,
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  and his family. By every account, she was a hard worker, patient, and skilled with her
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  hands. She was also, according to the biographers who wrote about her later, deeply embarrassed
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  by her scars. When she was about 10, a French army marched into Mohawk country and burned
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  her village. The French and the Mohawk had been enemies for years and the Mohawk lost that
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  round of the war. As part of the peace that followed, French priests were allowed to live
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  in the Mohawk villages. Those priests were Jesuits. a Catholic order known for being scholars and
• 4:03
  missionaries. The first ones arrived in 1667 and they stayed for a short time in her uncle's
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  lodge. He let them in, but he wanted nothing to do with their religion. In 1675, Kateri
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  was about 19. It was harvest season and nearly everyone in the village was out working the
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  fields. Kateri wasn't because she had hurt her foot. and was stuck at home in her uncle's
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  lodge. Then a visitor walked through the door. He was a French Jesuit missionary, Father
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  Jacques. Think about the odds on that for a second. If her foot had healed a week earlier,
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  even a day earlier, she would have been out in the fields with everyone else. And this
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  conversation that follows never happens. They talked. Father Jacques told her about the Christian
• 4:55
  faith, and she kept listening. and she kept asking questions. She spent the next several
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  months learning. She was baptized on Easter Sunday, 1676, at about 20 years old. Baptism,
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  if you're new to this, is the ritual that makes someone a member of the church. She took a
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  new name, Cateri, the Mohawk form of Catherine, and that's when things got hard. In a village
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  where most people held to the old ways, A Christian convert stood out. Kateri was ridiculed, accused
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  of witchcraft, and threatened. On top of that, her family wanted her to marry, and she refused.
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  Now, a fair warning about all of this. Nearly everything we know about Kateri comes from
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  two Jesuit priests, Father Claude and Father Pierre, who wrote about her to promote her
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  as a saint. They had every reason to make her story as dramatic as possible. But the main
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  outline that her own community turned on her shows up in every source I checked. That includes
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  the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, a scholarly project in Canada. So I'm comfortable telling
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  you the outline is solid, even if some of the details are polished. By 1677, staying had
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  become too dangerous. Father Zach. wrote ahead to the Jesuits at a mission village near what's
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  now Montreal. He told them she was coming and asked them to look after her. A mission, by
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  the way, is a settlement run by the church where native Christians live together. This one was
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  called Cana-Wake. It was more than 200 miles away. So three native Christians helped her
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  slip away. They traveled through forests and across rivers. And by one account, the trip
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  took close to two months. For a young woman who could barely see due to the long-term effects
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  of childhood smallpox, that was a long way to go through country she did not know. Another
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  account says her uncle went after the group, caught up with them, but then let them go.
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  Think about what she was leaving behind. She wasn't only running from people who had mistreated
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  her, she was leaving the only land she had ever known and the last of her family. At about
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  21, she had no home, no relatives, and nothing to her name except a faith that had cost her
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  everything. What she found at Kana-Wake wasn't a convent. It was a village with real work
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  to do. Katiri gathered firewood, cooked, and sewed, and by one account, she was skilled
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  at beadwork, even with her poor eyesight. According to that same biography, she took full part
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  in the life of her people. in the village and on the great winter hunts. Now that detail
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  matters to me. Saint's stories sometimes make people sound like they floated above ordinary
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  life. And Kateri didn't. She was a working woman in a village. For the first time in her life,
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  she was living among people who shared her faith. At Christmas of 1677, a few months after she
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  arrived, she received her first communion. That's when Catholics receive consecrated bread, which
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  they believe becomes the body of Jesus. For her, it became the center of everything. And
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  here's one detail I can't stop thinking about. By the traditional account, every morning,
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  even in the bitter cold of winter, Kateri stood at the chapel door way before it opened at
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  four o'clock in the morning. Then she stayed until the last mass. Remember that door. It
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  matters later. She dreamed of starting a community of native women who would live as nuns. The
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  Jesuits talked her out of it. Instead, she made a formal promise never to marry, giving her
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  life entirely to God. Now, a quick note before the next part. If kids are in the car or if
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  hurting yourself or going without food is something you or someone you love struggles with, feel
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  free to skip ahead about 30 seconds. keeping it short and I'm not holding it up as a model.
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  Kateri's life at Kanawaque included severe self-punishment. According to the Jesuits, she fasted heavily
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  and slept on a bed of thorns. Going without comfort on purpose as a way of drawing closer
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  to God was a recognized practice among some devout Catholics at the time. But, The Jesuits
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  themselves cautioned her against it. Her health was always fragile, and what role this played
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  in her early death, we do not know. In 1680, Kateri became seriously ill, and this time
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  she didn't recover. Father Pierre, one of the Jesuits at the mission, was with her at the
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  end. She died on Holy Weekend, April 17th, 1680, the Wednesday of the week before Easter. she
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  was 24 years old. Think about how short that window was. She had been a Canawhaque for about
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  two and a half years, and she had been a Christian for barely four. Everything she is remembered
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  for happened in that span. Her last words, as the priest reported them, were simple. Jesus,
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  I love you. Now, Here's the part of her story that comes with a big asterisk. Father Pierre
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  wrote that about 15 minutes after she died, her face changed, the scars faded, and her
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  face became clear and beautiful. Here's the asterisk. He didn't write that down until 1696,
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  16 years after she died, in a book meant to promote her as a saint. Maybe he saw exactly
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  what he described. Maybe grief and memory reshaped it. But I can't tell you which. What I can
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  tell you is that it's the hardest part of her story to verify, and I don't think the rest
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  of her story needs it. See, her story didn't end there. In 1943, the church named her Venerable,
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  the first official step towards sainthood. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared her blessed,
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  one step short of a saint. Then came a very long wait. The church requires a miracle at
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  each one of those last two steps, and the second one took another 26 years to arrive. That miracle
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  came in 2006. A five-year-old boy named Jake Finkbonner from Ferndale, Washington, cut his
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  lip playing basketball. The cut let in bacteria causing necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating
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  infection. It spread so fast that Jake was airlifted to a children's hospital in Seattle, and his
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  parents began preparing to bury him. Jake's father is a member of the Lummi Nation, a native
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  tribe in Washington state. Kateri was already well-known in their church, and their priest
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  suggested praying to her. Jake's family prayed, and so did his classmates. A Catholic sister
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  brought a relic of Keterri to the hospital, a small piece of her remains. And Jake recovered.
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  The Vatican examined the case and declared his recovery medically inexplicable. Now, doctors
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  treated Jake too, and skeptics point out that some people do survive this infection. So,
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  you can decide for yourself what you think happened. For the Think Bonners and the Lumi community,
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  it was deeply personal. Jake told reporters he found Kateri inspiring because of how she
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  was mistreated for her faith and kept going. And he knew a little of what that was like
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  because kids had teased him about the way he looked. So on October 21st, 2012, Pope Benedict
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  XVI declared her a saint. Jake and his family were in Rome for it, along with hundreds of
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  members of the Lummi tribe. Kateri became the first Native American canonized as a saint.
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  more than three and a half centuries after she was born. Now, I'd be leaving something out
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  if I stopped there. Many native Catholics are proud of Kateri, but native people don't all
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  feel the same way about her. Her story was written by French missionaries in a century where Europeans
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  were taking over native land, and some see her sainthood as tangled up in that history. I
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  can't settle that for anyone, and I'd encourage you to listen to native voices on it. Okay,
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  today's then and now segment. Here's how Kateri's story looks from the present. Then, she was
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  a young woman most people overlooked in a village in what's now upstate New York, and later in
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  a mission village near Montreal. Nobody was writing her biography, she was just getting
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  through the day. Now... near the site of the Mohawk village where she was baptized. There's
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  a national shrine in Fonda, New York. A Franciscan friar founded it back in 1938. And the grounds,
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  a museum, and a spring the shrine connects to her baptism are all open to visitors. Every
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  July around her feast day, people gather there for mass and parts of it are sung in Mohawk.
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  In October, the shrine hosts a weekend for Native American and First Nations visitors. And she's
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  now considered a patron of ecology and the environment of Native people and of people in exile. I
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  find that kind of comforting. Kateri spent her life on the edge of things. And more than
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  300 years later, people traveled to stand near the place she lived and to sing in Mohawk.
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  A quiet life, it turns out, isn't always quiet forever. Alright, back to the porch. Here's
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  what I keep coming back to. It's not the scars and it's not the miracle. It's the foot. A
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  hurt foot kept Kateri home on the one day a visitor walked through the door. Without it,
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  maybe there's no conversation, no baptism, no trip to Kanawaque. Now, I don't want to oversell
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  that. Kateri did the work. She listened, she studied. She took the risk and she paid for
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  it. But it's worth noticing that the whole thing started on a day she was stuck behind and left
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  out. That's how it goes sometimes. The conversation that changes things happens on the day we couldn't
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  go to work or the day the plan fell apart. And look what she did after that door opened. She
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  started showing up at another one. Every morning in the dark and the cold she waited for the
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  chapel door to open. Nobody was checking on her, and there was no crowd. It was just a
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  woman who could barely see on a doorstep again.
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  None of us will have a village turn against us. But almost all of us know what it's like
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  to be defined by something we didn't choose. A mark, a past, a reputation from when we were
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  15. Something people see before they see us. If that's you right now, here's what Kateri's
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  story says to me. Being known for the wrong thing doesn't have to decide what you do next.
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  She was the girl with the scars, the girl who couldn't see well, the orphan. and she became
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  a woman who traveled 200 miles toward what she believed in. By every account, those scars
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  stayed with her until the day she died. The story that they vanished comes afterward and
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  I can't verify it. What I can tell you is that she didn't wait for anything about herself
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  to change before she left. So here's what I'm sitting with this week. Who walked through
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  your door at the right moment? Maybe on a day you didn't even want company and you almost
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  missed it. And on the flip side, whose door could you walk through this week? A coworker
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  on the outside? An elderly neighbor who's stuck at home? A kid who's getting teased about how
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  he looks? You don't need a speech. Father Zach didn't have one. He just walked in and a quiet
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  conversation in a lodge changed the course of a life. You may never find out what your visit
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  starts, but you can still go. So, who will you see? It is now time for the closing prayer.
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  Lord, thank you for Kateri, for a woman who was told in a hundred ways that she was less
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  and who kept showing up anyway. For anyone carrying a mark they never chose, help them see who
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  you made them to be beyond it. And for the rest of us, help us notice the open door. and the
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  person standing behind it. Amen. St. Kateri is recognized as a patron of Native Americans,
• 19:36
  of people in exile, and of ecology and the environment. Her feast day is July 14th. Well, that is episode
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  24. If your story stuck with you, send it to somebody who needs reminding that a door is
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  worth walking through. Now about that special episode. It happens in just a few days, next
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  Tuesday to be exact. It involves costumes, candy, and a candle inside a vegetable. A lot of people
• 20:06
  have strong opinions about where it came from, and we are going to sort out which of those
• 20:11
  stories are true and which are legend. If you haven't tapped follow yet, consider doing so
• 20:17
  now. And then the special shows up in your library the moment it drops. And on Thursday, we are
• 20:24
  back to a known scene. One whose whole story is just told in a handful of scenes and whose
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  legend has been growing for 2000 years. I'm John O'Connor. Thanks for sitting on the porch
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  with me and I will see you on Tuesday.