By Mary Lou Kilian
Editor

St. Joseph Sister Mary Christine Taylor has spent more than 40 years teaching and ministering to the St. Regis Mohawks at Akwesasne Reservation. She has joined them in the official prayer for the canonization of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha nearly every day for decades. She said that her reaction to the Vatican’s Dec. 19 announcement that a second miracle attributed to Blessed Kateri had been recognized matched everyone else’s at St. Regis:“Thanks be to God!” “The elders are very excited about it and the children are excited,” Sister Christine said. “All through their lives, they’ve been praying the Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Kateri – followed by the Our Father, a Hail Mary and three Glory Be’s - at every weekend Mass after the Prayer of the Faithful.”“This is such wonderful news,” she said. “The Indians have trusted so much in her intercession.”
Vicky Phillips, the DRE for St. Regis, said “it’s been a long time coming… we had just about given up hope. It’s such great news to us.”

Mrs. Phillips and her husband Richard have attended every national Tekakwitha Conference for the past years and expected to join the one set for this region in Albany in July. “We might have to cancel our convention so we can all go to Rome,” she said.

Pope Benedict XVI has not yet announced a date for the canonization, but it could come as early as this spring.
“We have to start raising money because everybody wants to go to Rome,” she said. “The phones have been ringing off the hook – we’re going to have to start cooking some pies!”

Debbie Thomas, who assists St. Regis pastor Father Jerome Pastores,  is a board member for the national Tekakwitha Conference. “Oh my God, we were so excited to hear the news,” she said. “I immediately went on the radio to inform everyone. Now we’re just waiting to hear when we’re going to Rome.

As a member of the host team for this year’s scheduled Tekakwitha Conference in Albany, Ms. Thomas was looking forward to welcoming people to the place where Kateri was born and baptized. “The Kateri Conference is the oldest conference for aboriginal people in the country,” she said, “but this year we just might need to go to Rome.”

Another St. Regis native Sister Kateri Mitchell has been executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference National Center in Great Falls, Mont., for the past 14 years and affiliated with the center since 1970. The announcement of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha's impending canonization "is the news we've been waiting for shortly after her beatification," said Sister Kateri about her namesake. Blessed Kateri was beatified in 1980.

Regarding her reaction to the news that a second miracle attributed to Blessed Kateri has been recognized, "I guess the word is overwhelming and also just exuberant with jubilation," said Sister Kateri, laughing.
A Sister of St. Ann, Sister Kateri said she was "blessed" with receiving the name Kateri when she entered religious life in 1959.

A member of the Mohawk Nation as was Blessed Kateri, Sister Kateri was raised on the St. Regis (Akwesasne) Mohawk International Reservation, which stretches from New York into Canada. She said her parents had a devotion to Kateri Tekakwitha and would frequently make what for them was a 200-mile trip to Blessed Kateri's birthplace and the town where she was raised. "As Native American Catholics, I think this just brings such great joy and gratitude to our model" of faith, she added. "The people that I've met from other cultures and countries would say, 'You Native Americans or indigenous of America need a saint of your own.' I'd say, 'I totally agree with you, and please pray with us.'"

Sister Kateri said, "I consider it one of the greatest gifts anyone could receive for Christmas."
(With contributions from Catholic News Service)