St. Anthony Parish holds Native Mass for St. Kateri Tekakwitha feast day

In honor of the Feast Day of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Anthony Parish in Anchorage held a celebratory Mass in July to commemorate the life of the first Catholic American Indigenous saint.

On July 16, the Anchorage parish invited people to join their Kateri Circle for the special occasion. The spirituality of these communal groups springs from a strong devotion to the intercession and holy life of St. Tekakwitha.

During the Mass, a group of Alaska Natives performed local Native dances, and people also sang the “Atanta,” which is the “Our Father” prayer in Yup’ik. Following the Mass, attendees took part in a potluck and enjoyed a cake with St. Tekakwitha’s face on it.

“We were surprised that a good number of people joined us for the potluck after the liturgy, ” said Sister Frances “Sr. Frances” Vista, D.C., director of Catholic Native ministry for the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau.

She noted that more than 50 people enjoyed a variety of Native foods from various cultures.

“It was special that people came and celebrated with us, recognizing St. Kateri as the first American Indigenous saint and for who she was,” Sr. Frances said. “St. Kateri experienced pain, sorrow, and hardship in life, yet found joy in believing in Jesus.”

Life of St. Tekakwitha

St. Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine Tekakwitha and sometimes coined “Lily of the Mohawks,” was born in 1656 in Ossernenon, New Netherland, what is now considered Auriesville, New York, according to Britannica. She died on April 17, 1680, in Caughnawaga, Quebec, which is now called Kahnawake.

The Indigenous Native saint was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. Her feast day is celebrated in the U.S. on July 14, and on April 17 in Canada.

St. Tekakwitha was the child of a Mohawk father and a Christianized Algonquin mother. At age four, she was the only surviving member of her family who did not succumb to an outbreak of smallpox; however, it affected her health.

Following the loss of her family, she stayed with her anti-Christian uncle. During that time, she was deeply impressed at age 11 by the lives and words of three visiting Jesuits. From that point, she began to lead a life inspired by the example of those men, and at age 20, she was instructed in religion and baptized Catherine (rendered Kateri in Mohawk speech) by Jacques de Lamberville, a Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois Indians.

After converting, St. Tekakwitha endured harassment, stonings, and threats of torture from people within her home village, forcing her to flee to a Christian Indian mission of St. Francis Xavier at Sault Saint-Louis, near Montreal. There, she came to be known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” in recognition of her kindness, prayer, faith, and heroic suffering.

Accounts of Tekakwitha’s life, written by de Lamberville and fellow missionaries, contributed to the documentation of her beatification, a process that began in 1932 and was proclaimed by Pope John Paul II in 1980. In December 2011, after evaluating the testimony of a young boy who claimed that his infection with flesh-eating bacteria disappeared after he prayed for her intercession, Pope Benedict XVI recognized Tekakwitha as a saint. She was later canonized in October 2012.