Claude Chauchetiere, S.J.
THE LIFE OF THE GOOD CATHERINE TEKAKWITHA,
SAID NOW SAINT CATHERINE TEKAKWITHA

Chapter 1

The honour and respect I owe to the memory of Father Jean de Brebeuf and the other Jesuit Fathers, who began the Iroquois Missions, had obliged me to break a silence of five years. It was a silence that I had kept from what passed at the death and after the burial of her, who the life I am writing. The pressing reasons that I had kept for this silence were the slight disposition I saw in the spirit of the French to believe such great marvels. I was led may be too much from my own feelings, which I had much difficulty in believing things that I saw before my eyes everyday or to have believed some of the French, who they doubt that there is Faith among the Natives.

The principal reason was the certain difficulties that the Father Superior of New France in Quebec had to believe these things, when he saw them written in a small notebook that I prepared during the year 1680. This was to give an exact account of them and to know what were from God and what were not to be. The reasons that I had of speaking were from a powerful inclination and a very strong inspiration to shine forth, which was no longer to withhold in obscurity and silence.

This truth is merited to be known all over the land that God was the first to publish from ordinary signs, which He serves to make known to the living of the merit and glory of the dead. I want to say the cures of the afflicted, revelations, visions, public approbations in the course of the years and all the testimonies that we find in the process for the canonization of the Saints, which are found today gathered in Catherine Tekakwitha. One of the reasons was not to deprive the Missionaries of the reward that God gave to their labours. This was the extraordinary appearance of virtue and Christianity among the Natives that so often is attacked from slanderous tongues. This is the reason that I have attempted some particular works as the Annual Narrative of the Mission of the Sault from its Foundation. It is in two books and concerns the perseverance of the Natives, who gave their life for the Faith.

I have resolved to take the middle course to accord these two opposite sentiments and seemed to me the intention of Catherine Tekakwitha, because she brought to me in an appearance to do paintings for the instruction of the Natives and to serve me to exhorting those, who she wanted to have attracted to Heaven after her. At the same time that I wrote the journals, they had served for my own conduct. I began this work with incredible difficulty and wanting at times to leave it, but having abandoned it that I would get strange scruples, which would not make me to live in peace and find any rest. This I had to obey what Catherine Tekakwitha asked of me.

The first painting that I began was painting a copy of the Pains of Hell, which was sent to me from Father Francis de Belmont. This painting was very liked among the Natives and the Missionaries had asked me a copy of the painting. It was generally approved from everyone that it gave me the courage to attempt a portrait of Catherine Tekakwitha, which was the one painting that I wanted to do to accomplish what I had been so strongly inspired, for my own consolation and of the others.

I began the portrait one year after her death and there was no other person than myself that I could address to. I had painted some that many others have in their hands in the form of leaflets, but these were too small and not able to be seen at a distance in a large place, which if they were to be placed in cabins that they became immediately stained with smoke. I had resolved to work on this large image and is presently in the Church of Saint Francis Xavier. The painting serves to the instructions of the life and the morals of Catherine Tekakwitha. It was placed there with the painting of the Four Ends of Man, and along with the moral paintings of Father Michel de Nobletz. To have facilitated the explanation of this great painting, which I made a small book where all the actions of Catherine Tekakwitha are painted that are, the cures of the sick and devotions that were customarily held at her grave. In 1682, we began to instruct by means of paintings that greatly pleased the Natives.

These marvels could not last for a long time without shining forth, which was first at La Prairie de la Madeleine and then at the Mission of Lachine. It was without my intention to have appeared Catherine Tekakwitha amongst the French. I was then also, the Pastor at La Prairie and left in a volume of the Lives of the Saints, a small book of some principal and most edifying actions of those lives whom attracted my attentions during my life.

Father Bruyas found and opened this book to read the lives of some Saints, which he could say in his sermon to the Natives. On that day, Rene Cuillerier had come to the Sault to hear the Mass and did not want to leave without having greeted the Father. This politeness gave the Father the occasion to speak to him concerning the book. They had admired the spirit of God, who guided Catherine Tekakwitha during her lifetime and blessed His divine goodness in having made known to them such a great marvel. This time forth, the name of Catherine Tekakwitha began to be invoked at Lachine, which had been done for over a year at La Prairie de la Madeleine.

The cures brought by the invocation with the name of Catherine Tekakwitha and the desire of the French to know her virtue, which were the causes of a longer and clearer recital of what Catherine Tekakwitha has done. Almost a year inquiries and interrogations were made among many people, because to well verify what had been said of such a virtuous girl. The witnesses asked were, the person that instructed her, the companion that she had, her sister that she had spent a winter in the forest and the Missionaries, and especially her spiritual director Father Pierre Cholenec. The French of La Prairie had seen part of what was written about her. These and several other witnesses rendered believable the actions done by her during the two years when she lived at the Sault. Father de Lamberville baptized her among the Mohawks and wrote to the Fathers at the Mission of the Sault, for the manner Catherine Tekakwitha was before and after her Baptism, which was during the time he had known her. It was from these letters we have composed her life while among the Mohawks.

Finally a thing incredible, and without precedent, had demanded a testimony greater than of man. We have one that lasted for fifteen years and began at Catherine’s death after she received the Sacraments. All she touched, which has done cures and as the crucifix that was placed in her hands when she was buried. Her blanket, the earth from her grave and the plate from she ate that have suddenly restored health. The invocation of her name has relieved people from temptations of the flesh.

In 1681, the Bishop Francis Montmorency de Laval returned to the Mission from his last visit in 1676 and was told of Catherine Tekakwitha’s early miraculous cures. Then the following Bishop Jean Baptiste de Saint-Vallier gave his respects at her tomb with three Ecclesiastics recognized the virtue that she had of aiding those, who had invoked her. Religious communities have asked favours of God through her intercession. The French and the Natives have continued to honour her, which are with profit and consolation for their souls and bodily relief. France has honoured her for some years now in several places there and the Missionaries of the Islands of America have invoked her. What is still more admirable is what happened often was that several people had the same thought of invoking her without having spoken of their thought with one another. They discovered that the same spirit had guided them when their graces were accorded to them.

A part of her praise is the exemplary life led by the Sisters of Catherine at the Sault and still leads today at the Mission. They began to be known after the death of this good servant of God. There are some that have really imitated her and they died as if predestined and their lives have been known. Those still living sanctify themselves in imitating Catherine Tekakwitha, which was from her example that they have kept before them in living as good Christians. When they die we see the relation of their lives with that of Catherine Tekakwitha. The men, as the women, have their part in this imitation. Also, several girls have gone to Heaven bearing the precious joyousness of virginity. The faces of the deceased have nothing frightful about them and they inspire devotion.

Finally, the Father Superior from Quebec had written on Friday the seventeenth of April 1693, the anniversary day of the death of Catherine, for the virtues of this girl and the cures that followed. After this prediction I am composing her life for myself and some others, who want to see the history of her life in advance and to have her glorified in this world.