By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The Vatican is in receipt of evidence about a miracle that could make Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” the first Native American saint.
According to a report by CanWest News Service, Msgr. Paul Lenz, the Church official charged with finding a miracle that could qualify Kateri for sainthood, said evidence of the miracle was sent to Rome last month via a diplomatic pouch sent through the Vatican embassy in Washington, DC.
“Only God knows” how long the process could take, “ Msgr. Lenz told CanWest this week.
The details of the miracle are a closely guarded secret that will now be reviewed by the Vatican’s Secretariat for Beatification and Canonization. The Secretariat will make a recommendation to the Pope, who will make the final decision on Kateri’s beatification, Msgr. Lenz explained.
Blessed Kateri, who died at the age of 24 in 1680, was born in Fonda, New York and fled to Canada after being baptized because of pressure from her Mohawk uncle. She is entombed inside the St. Francis-Xavier Church in Kahnawake, a Mohawk community near Montreal. If canonized, she will be considered the 11th Canadian saint, said the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Born to a Mohawk father and Algonquin mother, Kateri survived the smallpox epidemic of 1661-62 that killed both her parents and a younger brother. The disease weakened her eyesight and left her face scarred for life. She was baptized Catholic in 1676 and, after facing pressure from her uncle to give up Catholicism, fled to the Jesuit mission of St. Francois Xavier du Sault, in an area along the St. Lawrence River around what is now Kahnawake and Ville Sainte-Catherine in Canada.
She took a vow of virginity, fasted frequently and engaged in harsh penitential practices to atone for her sins and the sins of her people. These practices were said to have further weakened her already frail body.
When she died, eyewitnesses reported that her scarred face became radiantly beautiful. Testimony by the priest who attended her death as well as other eyewitness accounts of the event led to the Vatican’s decision to declare her disappearing scars to have been beyond medical explanation. This was first miracle that led to her beatification.
“In my mind, there is no doubt of the holiness of Blessed Kateri,” Msgr. Lenz said. “She is truly worthy to be named a saint.”
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