The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha Part 13

This measure, however, had no greater success than the other; and Anastasia, who had always until that time found so much docility in Catherine, was extremely surprised at the little deference she paid to her counsels. She even bitterly reproached her, and threatened to bring her complaints to me.

Catherine antic.i.p.ated her in this, and after having related the pains they forced her to suffer to induce her to adopt a course so little to her taste,[64] she prayed me to aid her in consummating the sacrifice she wished to make of herself to Jesus Christ, and to provide her a refuge from the opposition she had to undergo from Anastasia and her sister. I praised her design, but at the same time advised her to take yet three days to deliberate on an affair of such importance, and during that time to offer up extraordinary prayers that she might be better taught the will of G.o.d; after which, if she still persisted in her resolution, I promised her to put an end to the importunities of her relatives. She at first acquiesced in what I proposed, but in less than a quarter of an hour, came back to seek me. 'It is settled,' said she, as she came near me; 'it is not a question for deliberation; my part has long since been taken. No, my father, I can have no other spouse but Jesus Christ.' I thought that it would be wrong for me any longer to oppose a resolution which seemed to me inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore exhorted her to perseverance, a.s.suring her that I would undertake her defence against those who wished henceforth to disturb her on that subject. This answer restored her former tranquillity of mind, and re-established in her soul that inward peace which she preserved even to the end of her life.

Scarcely had she gone, when Anastasia came to complain, in her turn, that Catherine would not listen to any advice, but followed only her own whims. She was running on in this strain, when I interrupted her by saying that I was acquainted with the cause of her dissatisfaction, but was astonished that a Christian as old as she was could disapprove of an action which merited the highest praise, and that if she had faith, she ought to know the value of a state so sublime as that of celibacy, which rendered feeble men like to the angels themselves. At these words Anastasia seemed to be in a perfect dream; and as she possessed a deeply seated devotion of spirit, she almost immediately began to turn the blame upon herself; she admired the courage of this virtuous girl, and at length became the foremost to fortify her in the holy resolution she had taken.... [As for Catherine], feeble as she was, she redoubled her diligence in labor, her watchings, fastings, and other austerities. It was then the end of autumn, when the Indians are accustomed to form their parties to go out to hunt during the winter in the forests. The sojourn which Catherine had already made there, and the pain she had suffered at being deprived of the religious privileges she possessed in the village, had induced her to form the resolution, as I have already mentioned, that she would never during her life return there. I thought, however, that the change of air and the diet, which is so much better in the forest, would be able to restore her health, which was now very much impaired. It was for this reason that I advised her to follow the family and others, who went to the hunting-grounds.[65]

"She remained, therefore, during the winter in the village, where she lived only on Indian corn, and was subjected indeed to much suffering. But not content with allowing her body only this insipid food, which could scarcely sustain it, she subjected it also to austerities and excessive penances, without taking counsel of any one, persuading herself that while the object was self-mortification, she was right in giving herself up to everything which could increase her fervor. She was incited to these holy exercises by the n.o.ble examples of self-mortification which she always had before her eyes. The spirit of penance reigned among the Christians at the Sault. Fastings, discipline carried even unto blood, belts lined with points of iron,--these were their most common austerities. And some of them, by these voluntary macerations, prepared themselves when the time came, to suffer the most fearful torments.... One in particular among them, named Etienne, signalized his constancy and faith. When environed by the burning flames [at Onondaga], he did not cease to encourage his wife, who was suffering the same torture, to invoke with him the holy name of Jesus. Being on the point of expiring, he rallied all his strength, and in imitation of his Master, prayed the Lord with a loud voice for the conversion of those who had treated him with such inhumanity. Many of the savages, touched by a spectacle so new to them, abandoned their country and came to the Mission du Sault, to ask for baptism, and live there in accordance with the laws of the Gospel.

"The women were not behind their husbands in the ardor they showed for a life of penance. They even went to such extremes that when it came to our knowledge we were obliged to moderate their zeal. Besides the ordinary instruments of mortification which they employed, they had a thousand new inventions to inflict suffering upon themselves. Some placed themselves in the snow when the cold was most severe; others stripped themselves to the waist in retired places, and remained a long time exposed to the rigor of the season, on the banks of a frozen river, and where the wind was blowing with violence.

There were even those who, after having broken the ice in the ponds, plunged themselves in up to the neck, and remained there as long as it was necessary for them to recite many times the ten beads of their rosary. One of them did this three nights in succession, and it was the cause of so violent a fever that it was thought she would have died of it. Another one surprised me extremely by her simplicity. I learned that, not content with having herself used this mortification, she had also plunged her daughter, but three years old, into the frozen river, from which she drew her out half dead. When I sharply reproached her indiscretion, she answered me with a surprising naivete, that she did not think she was doing anything wrong, but that knowing her daughter would one day certainly offend the Lord, she had wished to impose on her in advance the pain which her sin merited.

"Although those who inflicted these mortifications on themselves were particular to conceal them from the knowledge of the public, yet Catherine, who had a mind quick and penetrating, did not fail from various appearances to conjecture that which they held so secret; and as she studied every means to testify more and more her love to Jesus Christ, she applied herself to examine everything that was done pleasing to the Lord, that she might herself immediately put it in practice."

Chauchetiere, alluding to the events of this same fall and winter (1678 and 1679), gives some details of her life not mentioned by Cholenec. He says:--

"As soon as she learned from Father Fremin that G.o.d left every Christian free to marry or not to marry, she lost no time in choosing a state of life for herself, and furthermore, if the fear that she had of appearing virtuous had not restrained her, she would have cut off her hair; she contented herself with dressing like those who were the most modest in the village.

Father Fremin gave her some rules of life more special than those he gave to the others; he directed her to keep herself in retirement, above all during the summer time, when the canoes of the Ottawas came down, to remain in her cabin, and not go to the water's edge to see them arrive, like the rest. She also regarded what he said about not going to Montreal. In a word, it was only necessary to tell her a thing once, and she put it in practice. It was a common saying in the village that Catherine was never elsewhere than in her cabin or in the church; that she knew but two paths,--one to her field, and the other to her cabin. But to come in particular to the rules that she prescribed for herself, here are a few of them.

"Being a young Indian, twenty-two or twenty-three years old, she must naturally have liked to be well and properly dressed like the others, which consists in having the hair well oiled, well tied, and well parted, in having a long braid [queue]

behind, and in adorning the neck with wampum. They like to have beautiful blankets and beautiful chemises, to have the leggings or mittens well made, and above all to have just the right kind of a moccasin; in a word, vanity possesses them.

"Catherine thought she could do away with all that, without eccentricity. But one could see by her dress what her thought was. She was not looking for a husband; she gave up all bright red blankets and all the ornaments that the Indian girls wear.

She had a blue blanket, new and simple, for the days when she went to communion; but more than that, she had an interior, very perfect, which was known only to G.o.d; but which she could not hide so well but that her companion knew of it at the times of their greatest fervor.... Marie Therese Tegaiaguenta once told Catherine of certain movements of indignation that she had against herself and her sins; and that when she was going one day into the woods feeling herself oppressed with grief at the thought of her sins, she had taken a handful of switches and had given herself heavy strokes with them on her hands; and that another time having climbed a tall tree to get birch-bark for a piece of work, when she was at the top she was seized with fear. Casting her eyes to the foot of the tree where there were many stones, she believed with reason, that if she fell she would break her head. But a good thought came to her then, which confirmed her more than ever in all the good resolutions she had already made to serve G.o.d; for reflecting on her fear, she blamed herself for fearing to die and not fearing even more than that to fall into h.e.l.l. Tears came into her eyes as she descended; and when she reached the ground, she sat down at the foot of the tree, throwing her bark aside, and giving way to the good feeling that had taken possession of her."

Kateri did not forget what her companion told her about the switches, and resolved to make a daily practice for herself which she could keep up during the time of the chase.

While her sister with her family were off at the hunting-camp, Kateri had as much time as she could wish to satisfy her devotion at the village chapel. She remained there so many hours on her knees in the coldest winter weather, that more than once some one or other of the blackgowns, moved with compa.s.sion at sight of her half-frozen condition, obliged her to leave the chapel and go warm herself. Kateri had at last learned, by repeated inquiries, all she wanted to know about the nuns whom she had seen at Montreal. She was now aware that they were Christian virgins consecrated to G.o.d by a vow of perpetual continence.

Cholenec says:--

"She gave me no peace till I had granted her permission to make the same sacrifice of herself, not by a simple resolution to guard her virginity, such as she had already made, but by an irrevocable engagement which obliged her to belong to G.o.d without any recall. I would not, however, give my consent to this step until I had well proved her, and been anew convinced that it was the Spirit of G.o.d acting in this excellent girl, which had thus inspired her with a design of which there had never been an example among the Indians."

FOOTNOTES:

[64] In another account of this interview given by Cholenec in his ma.n.u.script life of Kateri, which has never been published, but is still preserved by the Jesuits at Montreal, are the following words: "Ah, mon pere, me repondit-elle sur le champ, et sans hesiter, 'Je ne l'aurois m'y rendre. Je has les hommes, j'ai la derniere aversion pour le mariage,--la chose m'est impossible!'"

[65] Cholenec, in an older ma.n.u.script, gives further particulars concerning the life of this "Premiere Vierge Irokoise." In that account of the interview, after giving the above recommendation to Kateri about her health, her director goes on to describe the way in which his advice was received. "At these words she only laughed, and a moment after, taking that air so devout which was usual with her when she came to speak to me of her spiritual affairs, she made this beautiful reply, worthy of Catherine Tegakouita: 'Ah, my father, it is true that the body has good cheer in the woods, but the soul languishes there and dies of hunger; whereas in the village, if the body suffers a little from not being so well nourished, the soul finds its full satisfaction, being nearer to Our Lord. Therefore I abandon this miserable body to hunger, and to all that might happen to it afterwards, in order that my soul may be content, and may have its ordinary nourishment."

CHAPTER XXII.

KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679.

Kateri's soul was indeed of rarest and costliest mould. Of this Father Cholenec was now fully aware. He also knew her quiet determination of spirit, and he no longer resisted her pleadings to be allowed to consecrate herself to G.o.d by a vow of perpetual virginity. This she did, with all due solemnity, on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, the 25th of March, 1679.

However others might look upon her act, this solemn engagement with G.o.d gave her a feeling of freedom rather than of thraldom. At last she had an acknowledged right to live her own life in her own way. She was Rawenniio's bride. The blackgown had approved of her vow, and no relative of hers at the Sault ventured afterwards to question or disturb her. "From that time," says Cholenec, "she aspired continually to heaven, where she had fixed all her desires; ... but her body was not sufficiently strong to sustain the weight of her austerities and the constant effort of her spirit to maintain itself in the presence of G.o.d." She tested her powers of endurance to the utmost. Her constant companion, Therese, afterwards told of her that on one occasion, as they were coming from the field into the village, carrying each of them a heavy load of wood, Kateri slipped on the frozen ground and fell, causing the points of an iron belt which she was accustomed to wear to penetrate far into her flesh. When Therese advised her on account of this accident to leave her bundle of wood until another time, Kateri only laughed, and lifting it quickly, carried it to the cabin, where she made no mention of her hurt. When summer came and the others laid aside their blankets for a time, she continued to wear hers over her head even in the hottest weather. Anastasia said that she did this, not so much to shield her eyes from the light, as from modesty and a spirit of mortification.

Kateri and Therese found a deserted cabin near the village, where they were now in the habit of going every Sat.u.r.day afternoon to prepare themselves in a suitable manner, as they supposed, for receiving the sacrament of penance.

Chauchetiere relates how this custom of theirs originated, and how they employed themselves while in this retreat. It was only by questioning Therese after the death of Kateri that the full extent of their austerities became known, for they were careful to conceal them from the knowledge of all. Father Fremin was away at this time, having gone on a voyage to France, and Father Cholenec had full charge of the mission during his absence. As his time was filled with new cares and responsibilities, he had but little opportunity to notice or discover that Kateri Tekakwitha, the treasure confided to his keeping by Father de Lamberville, was in all simplicity and earnestness wrecking her health and strength by undergoing fearful penances. Suggested to her either by the remorseful and penitent mind of Therese, or the stern instructions of Anastasia, they were carried out with the utmost severity by Kateri on her frail and innocent self, as though she bore on her own shoulders the sins of the whole Iroquois nation.

It may be well to give a full account of how she was accustomed to make her preparation for confession, and where the plan originated. One Sat.u.r.day afternoon while waiting for the bell to ring for Benediction, she sat in the cabin of Therese, talking confidentially with her friend on matters of conscience. Therese happened to mention the bundle of switches with which she had scourged herself on a certain occasion; and Kateri, quick to put a pious thought into practice, hastened at once to the cemetery, which was near at hand, and returned with a handful of stinging little rods. These she hid adroitly under the mat on which she was sitting, and waited eagerly for the first stroke of the bell. Then hurrying the people of the cabin as fast as possible to the church, the two were no sooner alone than they fastened the lodge securely on the inside, and gave full vent to their devotion. Kateri was the first to fall upon her knees, and handing her companion the switches, begged her not to spare her in the least. When she had been well scourged, she in turn took the switches, and Therese knelt down to receive the blows.

With bleeding shoulders, they said a short prayer together, and then hastened to the chapel, joyous and happy at heart. Never before had the prayers seemed shorter or sweeter to them than on that evening. Their next thought was to choose a place where they might continue this exercise. The unfrequented cabin already mentioned seemed to them a most favorable spot. It belonged to a French trader, who only came at long intervals to the village. It stood always open, and had become gradually surrounded by graves, so that it was now within the cemetery.

There the two friends went every Sat.u.r.day. After making an act of contrition, they proceeded as follows: They recited the Act of Faith, which they were accustomed to say at the church; then Kateri, who wished always to be the first in penitence, would kneel and receive the scourging, begging her companion all the while to strike harder, even though blood appeared at the third stroke. When they came to a pause, they recited the chaplet of the Holy Family, which they divided into several parts, at each of which a stroke was given with the switches.

But towards the end of the exercise, their devotion knew no bounds. It was then that Kateri laid bare the sentiments of her heart in such words as these: "My Jesus, I must risk everything with you. I love you, but I have offended you. It is to satisfy your justice that I am here.

Discharge upon me, O my G.o.d, discharge upon me your wrath." Sometimes tears and sobs choked her voice so she could not finish what she was saying. At these times she would speak of the three nails which fastened our Saviour to the cross as a figure of her sins. When Kateri was thus touched, she did not fail to move her companion, who with equal fervor underwent the same voluntary punishment.

Therese a.s.sures us that the worst fault that Kateri could ever find to accuse herself of on these occasions when she opened her heart most freely, was the carelessness in which she had lived after her baptism.

This consisted in not having resisted those who had forced her to go to work in the fields on Sundays and feast days; that is, in not having rather suffered martyrdom at their hands. She reproached herself with having feared death more than sin. That this saintly girl suffered everything short of absolute martyrdom in her efforts to keep holy the Lord's Day, we already know from the record of her life in the Mohawk Valley. It must be remembered, too, that at that time she had not made her first communion or been fully instructed.

It would be a long and harrowing task to give a full account of all the austere fasts and penances that Kateri Tekakwitha underwent during the course of the year 1679. Many of them belong to the age and the place in which she lived, and were in common practice then and there. Others go to prove the rude, Spartan spirit of her race, which gloried in exhibitions of fort.i.tude under torture. But the tortures that her people knew how to endure so well through pride, Kateri endured in a spirit of penance and atonement. Her greatest excesses of self-inflicted pain came like sparks of fire from her intense love of the crucified Redeemer. She wished to prove herself the slave of His love. She had seen the Iroquois warriors brand their slaves with coals of fire; so she could not resist the impulse which came to her one night to seize a red-hot brand from the hearthfire, and to place it between her toes. She held it there while she recited an Ave Maria. When the prayer was over, she was indeed branded. Such inflictions as these, by their incessant expenditure of energy, soon wore out her frail body, and brought of their own accord a speedy answer to her never-flagging prayer,--that Rawenniio, the beautiful G.o.d of the Christians, whom she had learned to love so well, would take her to His lodge!

"Kateri had great and special devotion both for the Pa.s.sion of our Saviour and for the Holy Eucharist. These two mysteries of the love of the same G.o.d, concealed under the veil of the Eucharist and His dying on the cross, ceaselessly occupied her spirit, and kindled in her heart the purest flames of love. One day, after having received the Holy Communion, she made a perpetual oblation or solemn offering of her body to Jesus attached to the cross, and of her soul to Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar."[66]

As Kateri knew but two paths while she lived at the Sault,--one leading from her cabin to the field where she worked, and the other to the chapel where she prayed,--her friends could easily find her. There, at the church day after day, and many times a day, any one who chanced to stray in might see a m.u.f.fled figure kneeling near the altar-rail, facing the tabernacle. At such times she saw nothing, heard nothing, of what was taking place around her or behind her. In front of her was the sacred Presence she could not leave unless for some urgent call of duty or charity.

A touch on the shoulder, a whispered word, "You are wanted, Kateri," and no hand or heart was more willing than hers to a.s.sist or relieve, as the case might be. Often she did not wait for this. A sudden inspiration, an impulse of sympathy, carried her where she was needed. When the good deed was done, the love within her heart drew her again to the foot of the tabernacle. "When she entered the church in taking the blessed water she recalled her baptism, and renewed the resolution she had taken to live as a good Christian; when she knelt down in some corner near the bal.u.s.trade for fear of being distracted by those who pa.s.sed in and out, she would cover her face with her blanket, and make an act of faith concerning the real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. She made also several other interior acts of contrition, of resignation, or of humility, according to the inspiration which moved her, asking of G.o.d light and strength to practise virtue well. In the fourth place,"

continues Chauchetiere, "she prayed for unbelievers, and above all for her Iroquois relatives. She finished her devotion by saying her beads.

She confided this exercise to her companion, who made it known. Except for her habit of hiding the beautiful practices taught her by the Holy Spirit, we might have occasion to admire still more the rapid progress which faith made in her soul. She had regulated the visits which she made to our Lord to five times a day without fail; but it can be said that the church was the place where she was ordinarily found."

Spiritual writers are accustomed to divide the Christian life into three progressive grades; namely, the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. Chauchetiere declares that Kateri's life at the Sault might well serve as an example to the most fervent Christians of Europe, and compares her spirit with that of Saint Catherine of Sienna; then he sums up in a few words her exalted spiritual attainments by saying that she was already in the "unitive way" before having well known the other two.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Cholenec's letter.

CHAPTER XXIII.

KATERI ILL.--THeReSE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.--FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION.--THE BED OF THORNS.

Kateri's health was fast failing; and those with whom she lived, perceiving this, watched her more closely and sought to check her in her fasts and penances. They saw that on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days she ate nothing. At these times she would spend the whole day in the woods gathering fuel. They were careful after this to have the soup ready before she started out in the morning; but even then she would occasionally find an excuse to slip away without her breakfast. When it was the turn of one of the other women of the same lodge-fire to go for wood, Kateri sometimes interfered, saying that the woman in question had a baby to nurse and ought to stay in the cabin; as for herself, there was nothing to keep her, she could just as well go as not. Before they noticed that she had not yet taken a mouthful, she would be off to the woods and at work. When she could no longer fast without attracting notice, she still kept up the practice of mingling ashes with her food, or denying herself in some other way.

About this time a child of her adopted sister died. As Kateri was a.s.sisting the other women to make a grave for her little nephew, one of them said to her, laughing, "Where is yours, Kateri?" "It is there,"

she answered, pointing to a certain spot.[67] The incident was soon forgotten; but Kateri was not mistaken, as was proved later. The place she indicated was near the tall cross by the river, where she was accustomed to pray, and where she had her first long talk with Therese Tegaiaguenta.

Her only pleasure now was in prayer or in spiritual conversations with her friend Therese or with Anastasia; for both of them spoke often of G.o.d. All other companionship had become distasteful to her. Her natural gift of ready and witty conversation, as well as her helpful disposition, won her many friends without effort. She was beloved as well as reverenced by the whole population, while careful to shun more and more all intercourse that did not help her heavenward. In her humility it did not occur to her that she on her part could perhaps do something towards lifting others to the high plane of her own thoughts.

Chauchetiere relates the following incident of how she was once called on for advice, much to her own surprise. Two young married people--Francois, the Seneca, and his wife Marguerite--had watched Kateri's way of life with much interest and admiration. They knew she had made a vow of virginity, and one day they called her into their cabin with the idea of learning from her how a good Christian ought to live in this world. In order that she might be less embarra.s.sed and speak freely, they sent at the same time for her companion, Therese.

When both were seated, the door was closed as a token that what they were about to ask Kateri was a great secret, and that they were ready to keep it sacred. Francois the Seneca (called by the French La Grosse Buche) began the conversation. He addressed himself both to Kateri and to Therese, saying first that he knew what they had done and the state of life they had embraced. This he said, that they might speak out. As for himself he wished to be a good Christian and to give himself entirely to G.o.d. His wife was of the same mind. He spoke for both.

Kateri was much surprised at this discourse. She was silent for some time, and then asked her companion to speak. It would take too long to tell all that was said on both sides concerning the state of life that was most pleasing to G.o.d. It is enough to say that they gave no advice to the young married couple other than that they should go to the blackgown and propose their plan to him. The woman was not more than twenty, and the man scarcely older. This good Francois, it seems, wished to live with his wife as with his sister. He did so for some years, and would have continued to do so had he not been advised to the contrary.

His wish was to repair as far as possible the evil he had done before his baptism. He was an excellent hunter and a good warrior. He was afflicted later in life with a painful disease, from which he suffered severely for fourteen years. Kateri was at all times his model. He endeavored to imitate her patience and resignation, as well as her other virtues. After death he wore about his neck a little chaplet, which he called Kateri's beads. Strung next to the cross on which the _Credo_ was to be said were two beads, one for a _Pater_ and one for an _Ave_; then there were three other little beads on which he was accustomed to say the _Gloria Patri_ three times, to thank the Blessed Trinity for the graces bestowed upon Kateri. Always cheerful and contented himself, he consoled and encouraged his wife, who, although a great devotee, was apt to complain of her poverty. When his health no longer permitted him to go to the chase, he mended kettles, made pipes, and did what work he could about the village. He brought up his children strictly, taught them the catechism with care, and was always on hand to sing in the church. He had a book or scroll of pictures in which all the chief events recorded in the Old and New Testaments were depicted. Copies of this ingenious form of Indian Bible are still to be seen at Caughnawaga and elsewhere. Francois, the Seneca, by these means won many converts to Christianity. He was accustomed, however, to give Kateri the credit for his success. He besought her intercession with G.o.d in all his undertakings, and endeavored to imitate her as far as possible in his life and in his death, which occurred in 1695.