The tomb of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the faith of Mohawk Catholics

10/30/24 • 26 min

It’s been 12 years since St. Kateri Tekakwitha ("The Lily of the Mohawks") was declared a saint by the Catholic church, in October 2012. She was a Mohawk/Algonquin woman who lived in the late 17th century in present-day New York and Quebec, declaring herself a virgin for Christ. Her sainthood has sparked both pride and soul-searching within and beyond Canada’s First Nations. St. Kateri’s earthly remains are entombed at the National Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine, in St. Francis Xavier Mission Catholic Church in Kahnawake, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal.

The church is not far from the Kateri school and Kateri Memorial Hospital—visible reminders that she lived here, or nearby, in a Catholic community before her death at age 24.

Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. In this episode we are not retelling St. Kateri’s life story, but rather we’re bringing you voices from a few members of the present-day Catholic community in Kahnawake: Beverly Anna Sky Dolormier, a volunteer named Marian, and Fr. Richard Saint-Louis.

Before we explore St. Kateri, we need to be transparent: there are many serious issues that may cloud discussions involving the Catholic Church that we won’t fully be able to explore. The Church has a complicated history and present here. Jesuits, known as the Black Robes, evangelized as European powers colonized North America. Over centuries, the systems put in place to govern these territories have wrested ancestral lands, water rights, and more, from the indigenous peoples. Church-affiliated residential schools separated children from their families and culture in the name of assimilation. Despite public apologies from Pope Francis, the reports of abuses committed at those schools have left societal wounds that, for some, may never fully heal.

But for some Catholics, faith bears witness to their resilience.

The church is not far from the Kateri school and Kateri Memorial Hospital—visible reminders that she lived here, or nearby, in a Catholic community before her death at age 24.

But for some Catholics, faith bears witness to their resilience.

Previous Episode

Compatible with life: the joy of John Paul Hauser

What does it mean for a baby to be “incompatible with life?” Even before a baby is born, doctors are doing tests, reviewing ultrasounds, and monitoring the mother closely for unexpected results or problems. If the unborn baby has too serious a condition, parents might be told by doctors that their baby is “incompatible with life.” That’s to say, it’s not expected to live long, if at all, and parents can face a choice of life or death for this person they’ve not yet met.

After doctors identified Trisomy 13 in John Paul Hauser, his parents were coached to consider having an abortion. Despite having this major genetic corruption, and a life that might last for minutes if at all, John Paul's parents chose to give him that life. And live he did.

/// Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. This episode features Tami and Tracy Hauser, and Barb Baxter, the parents and godmother of John Paul Hauser.

The reflection of John Paul Hauser's joy still radiates from cherished family videos. In one clip, he's sitting on his mom's lap as she claps his hands in tune with "The Hokey Pokey." "The Hokey Pokey" is one of those universal songs to get kids moving, and be silly and joyful. John Paul’s condition meant he experienced the hokey pokey and so many things differently than most kids, but he still enjoyed them. He didn’t speak, but he communicated in his own way. He played. He enjoyed music—Schubert’s Ave Maria was a favorite.

It’s important we start with some details of John Paul Hauser the person, because there was a chance we would never have met him. Tami and her husband Tracy made the choice to give John Paul a chance to live, even though he would face great difficulty.

"They noticed some some things looked abnormal on the ultrasound and then they sent us in for more testing," Tami says. "They told us that he had this condition called Trisomy 13, which is a corruption of all the chromosomes, and it's the most severe corruption, and that they considered it "incompatible with life." They told us that he wasn't probably going to make it to birth and if he did he would most likely only live like a few minutes or maybe at best a few hours after birth." Tami and Tracy faced this news with shock, devastation, and fear.

"The very next thing out of their mouth is that we should have an abortion. I just remember like thinking, I just I couldn't believe that they were telling us to have, they were coaching us to have an abortion. I was always like, I didn't realize it went like this. I just thought people left these appointments and then discerned and decided to have an abortion, but here were just being advised ... and more than once," Tami continues. "Finally we just said this baby is not going to die at our hands and you know for us it just wasn't even a decision, like it was just like no. This is...that we would never end our child's life."

Next Episode

Gratitude and (almost) house fires

My house almost caught fire, and I had no idea of the danger until it was over, pieced together by burn marks on a wall and other clues around an old boiler system. I called a specialist to look at it, and he said bluntly: he’s come to believe things happen for a reason, and our house is still standing for a reason. I always try to express gratitude to others and to God, but as we come into the holiday season I thought this story was especially worth bringing to you all. Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. In this short episode we hear from Fr. Robert Nixon, OSB, translator of St. Aloysius Gonzaga’s Meditations on the Holy Angels. Plus an excerpt from St. Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiography "The Story of a Soul."

Visit our website: https://www.faithfullpod.com/ Donate: https://www.faithfullpod.com/support/ Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-full-podcast/id1363835811 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/34sSHs8hHpOCi5csuTtiIv When you know what you’re looking for the clues are obvious: burn marks on a wall, a tripped electrical breaker, and a broken boiler. In hindsight it’s easy. But in day-to-day life, it’s not. About a month ago I started to run my heating system before winter to make sure everything was working well. My house was built in the 1950s and part of the house has radiant floor heating. Essentially a gas-fired boiler heats up water that is sent through pipes under the floor. When it works, it works well! The boiler pilot light was out when I went to run my test, so I cleaned around the boiler and relit the light. The system kicked on, and for about two days it seemed to work well, until it didn’t. I played with the thermostat trying to get the system back on but it didn’t work. Around the same time, randomly, an electrical plug in my garage stopped working. It wasn’t clear the problems were related...(foreshadowing).

Ultimately I decided to call the heating repair company first to do a tune-up on the system and figure out what’s wrong. It took just a minute to see the problem. One of the burners was off its rack, and old fire-proofing material had crumbled. Flames had been shooting out the back of the unit onto the wall, ultimately hitting the wiring harness to the thermostat. “I’m not sure why they wired it like that,” the technician told me. “But it’s good they did.”

The melted wiring tripped the breaker and shut down the boiler, cutting the flow of gas and stopping the fire. The malfunctioning outlet must’ve been on an adjacent circuit or something. It’s still sinking in, just how fortunate we are that our home wasn’t taken in a fire, and the way the system was built in the 1950s kept us safe.

As Catholics, this brought a few things to mind for my wife and me: one about St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the other about angels. I’ve been given the gift of seeing a stone moved from my path: the fire threatened my home, the place that my family considers safe and secure. Even if the fire had started, we have smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers–all things that would’ve likely kept us physically safe, but still would’ve lost property.

I hope that in my journeying toward Heaven that I can use the time, talents and experiences God has given me to show my gratitude. It’s a gratitude that extends beyond just the holiday season, of course, and is rooted deeply in what makes me, me. I’m just thankful to get to keep going, with a home that’s intact.

Thank you for listening to this short episode of Faith Full. Please share, like and subscribe if you find it worthwhile.