The Chapel of the Mission Saint Francis Xavier from 1678 to 1683

The wooden beam across above the altar was attached the wampum belt from the Hurons of the Mission of Lorette. It was attached there so they might always see it and hear their voice. This voice encouraged the Hurons and Iroquois of the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier at the Sault to accept the Faith in good earnest and build a Chapel as soon as possible, which was sent in 1677. It also exhorted them to combat the various demons that conspired for the ruin of both Missions.

The first (second) bell was blessed in June 1682 and named it, “Marie,” which the Holy Family bought. Although a bell had been placed on the Chapel when it was built in 1678, but the bell was too small because the fields were too far from the village, but the bell remained on the Chapel after the other was placed in 1682.

On Thursday August 19, 1683, the Chapel fell down and the five Crosses in Chapel were broken. Also, the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was overturned and it was at an elevation of slightly more than eleven and half feet (eleven French feet), and perhaps was placed on a shelf against the wall of the altar. Most probably the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was lowered down on some particular days, which Catherine Tekakwitha most probably touched and kissed the statue.

The Jesuit priests had a lodge as their residence, which was very near to the Chapel. Although when the Chapel fell down in August 1683, beneath the roof or above the Chapel that Fathers Morain and Poitier were asleep there.

In the winter they would make flour from the wheat and the peas from the harvest, which they would distribute to the poor of the village and to God at the foot of the altar. In the spring, they would bring their grains to the Chapel to have it blessed before sowing the grains and would have the missionary blessed the field before they would sow the grains.

Catherine Tekakwitha would kneel in some corner near the railing and fear of distraction from those, who are entering or leaving, which she had covered her head with her blanket and made an act of Faith that touched the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Cross standing on the floor was the Cross that Father Cholenec uncovered after his sermon on the Passion of Our Lord on Good Friday, April 19, 1680. When it was uncovered, which they all began in Chapel to weep because the Cross reminded them of Catherine Tekakwitha, who had so loved and kissed this Cross.

Two, or three years after her death and before the Chapel fell at the Sault, which there was some wood logs that Catherine Tekakwitha made when she had cut and fell a tree, and with two cases she made.

It was in the Chapel built after 1683 that Catherine Tekakwitha was made to rest in the Chapel. Catherine Tekakwitha’s tomb was placed in the middle of the Chapel in Kahnawakon (1689–1695).