The relics of Catherine Tekakwitha

In the autumn of 1684, the body of Catherine Tekakwitha was removed from the cemetery and brought into the church. The transfer was accomplished during the night and in the presence of the most devout. When the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier was displaced from the Sault to Montreal, Kahnawakon, Kanatawenke and Kahnawake, her relics were brought with them.

The relics were always kept in a sacred chest of carefully polished wood in the sacristy of the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier, in Kahnawake. Her bone relics were privately venerated next to the sacristy of the Mission. About late in the 1940’s, or early in the 1950’s that her relics were sealed under a glass plate in this sacred chest.

In 1972, The Daughters of Isabella from Kahnawake had donated a Carrara marble tomb for her precious bone relics. On Wednesday November 1, 1972, Bishop Gérard-Marie Coderre presided at the placing of the sacred chest with her relics in a metal case and then within the marble tomb. The tomb is at the right transept of the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier. On Sunday December 17, 1972, which he had solemnly blessed her tomb. Inscribed on her tomb is, KAIATANORON KATERI TEKAKWITHA, which meaning “Blessed, Precious and Dear Catherine Tekakwitha.” The marble tomb is six feet in length, two feet wide and two feet in height.

The bone relics of Catherine Tekakwitha in her tomb are her right and left lower half of the femurs, her right and left tibias, her right and left humerus, her left iliac bone, a lower rib and her right upper femur. These are the bones seen from a picture taken of the relics in 1972. These relics are truly the bones of Catherine Tekakwitha, because small bone relics were taken from these and miraculous cures have been performed. The bone relics that are left of Catherine Tekakwitha, which would have us believe that she was small in stature.

In 1755, the Mission of Saint Regis was established in Akwesasne and a log Chapel was built in 1760. The Mission Pastor, Jesuit Marc Antoine Gordan brought a precious treasure of the remains of Catherine Tekakwitha to the Mission of Saint Regis, which was her skull. Before February 2, 1762, this portion of her relic was lost in the fire when the Chapel was burnt, or disappeared at the time of the burning of the Chapel.

The bones relics that have been lost were most probably taken for cures. They would apply the bone relics on the sick and perhaps some of her relics were buried with those that the cures were done to. Her relics were most probably removed by the devote French for curing the sick; that is, with permission of the Superior Fathers of the Mission.

Before 1713, it was recounted that a Sister at the Congregation of Notre-Dame in Montréal was very sick and suffering pain in her side. A Father of the Mission of the Sault had sent a tooth of Catherine Tekakwitha and a plate from she ate. The Sister put the tooth in her mouth and drank from the plate, and was cured. Thus, body relics of Catherine Tekakwitha were already being taken from her about at least thirty years after her death.

A relic of her front layer of the body sternum (foresternum), measuring 6.4 cm in length and 3.8 cm in width, is presently in a section of the Archives reserved for relics at the residence of the Bishop of Chicoutimi, Québec. Father Superior Oblate Nicolas Victor Burtin of the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier from 1864 to 1892, gave this relic to Bishop Dominic Racine, the first Bishop of Chicoutimi. The Catherine Centre in Kahnawake has two bone relics of Catherine Tekakwitha. One of the two relics is a part of a left middle rib bone measuring about 8.5 cm in length and about 1.2 cm in width, and are seen two dry blood stains next to each other on her rib measuring in diameter about 0.2 cm and 0.3 cm.

Forensic anthropologists would take the length of the femur and a formula to calculate the height of a person. Different formulas are used for males and females. If her right femur would measure about 14 inches (35.56 centimetres) in length from a picture of her bone relics taken in 1972, that Catherine Tekakwitha would have been of a height of about slightly more than four and a half feet. There is mention from Father Pierre Cholenec narration of her life that “Catherine was small and walked with a limp, because of her foot.” The following is the calculation from the formula for females, 35.56 cm (approximate length of the femur) X 2.137 + 61.412 cm = 137.412 cm (54.1 inches, or 4.51 feet in height)

Bone relic of the front layer of the body sternum
(foresternum) and note in front and bottom of the
glass is inscribed “TEKAKWITHA”