The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks by Ellen H. Walworth

Author:Ellen H. Walworth [Walworth, Ellen H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780659999986
Google: iiv7wQEACAAJ
Publisher: P. Paul
Published: 1891-01-15T03:28:10+00:00

FOOTNOTES: [51] Chauchetière mentions Easter Sunday, 1675, as the date of Kateri Tekakwitha's baptism. Cholenec and others give the date as above, 1676.

[52] This description of the chapel at the time of Tekakwitha's baptism is taken principally from a manuscript of Rev. Felix Martin, entitled "Une Vierge Iroquoise."

* * *

CHAPTER XIV.

Table of Contents

PERSECUTIONS.—HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF PERIL.—MALICE OF TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT.

AFTER her baptism, Katherine Tekakwitha was supremely happy. Her deft hands were as busy as before, providing for the general comfort in her uncle's lodge. Besides this she went back and forth twice each day to the chapel, where the blackgown assembled his dusky flock for morning and evening prayers. On Sundays she heard Mass at the same bark-covered shrine of St. Peter, and later on in the day she joined in chanting the prayers of the chaplet with alternate choirs of the Christian Indians. This was a favorite religious exercise at all the Iroquois missions. These people were gifted by nature with sweet voices, and sang well together. If at any time the Mohawk girl was beset with some difficulty or perplexity, she went at once to tell it with all simplicity to Father de Lamberville, who pointed out to her with great care the path which he believed would lead her most directly on to holiness of life. Once sure of her duty, Tekakwitha walked straight forward, with timid, downcast eyes, but joyous spirit, swerving neither to the right nor to the left. The rule of life that the Father prescribed for his other Christians to keep them from the superstitious, impure feasts and drunken debaucheries common among the Indians, was too general and not advanced enough for Tekakwitha. She had always avoided these excesses even in her heathen days, and now her craving for a higher and deeper knowledge of spiritual things was so great that the blackgown soon found himself called on to direct her in the way of special devotional exercises and unusual practices of virtue.

In December, 1676, an event occurred of much interest to the Christian Indians. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the blessing of the statue of Notre Dame de Foye took place at Tionnontogen, or the Mission of St. Mary's. This statue was a fac-simile of a highly venerated one of the Blessed Virgin in Belgium. It was made of oak from the place where the first originated, and had been sent out from France to the Indians. Father Bruyas received it at Tionnontogen as a precious gift to his Christian Mohawks. All the neophytes of the neighboring villages assembled to see it unveiled and solemnly blessed. It was placed in the chapel in such a way that a bright ray of light falling through a small opening in the bark wall fell directly upon the Madonna. The Indians had not seen anything so beautiful and new to them since Boniface showed them on Christmas day at Caughnawaga the little statue of the Christ-child lying in a manger. Father

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