Letter of Pierre Rémy to Pierre Cholenec, March 30, 1696

In 1688, only a few people inhabited the upper of part of the island of Montreal. When the harvest was already quite advance the Iroquois started some uprising and killed seven men at the first attack. Madeleine Bougerey, with whom at the time was her eldest daughter, named Marie Bosne, then the wife and now the widow of Pierre Montpetit, made a vow to God that if through the merits and intercession of Catherine Tekakwitha, the house and the two rows of peas of her son-in-law and her daughter should be spared the fires of the Iroquois, she would have a Mass said in her honour. A wonderful thing! Nearly all the houses of those parts were burned except that one and another in which I said Mass when I went there on my mission. All the harvests were burned except those two rows of peas. Though the Iroquois set fire to them and they caught, only the top surface was burned. Jacques Charles, husband of the said Bougerey, who helped to harvest the two rows of peas, testified this to me.

In 1694, on the 28th of October, the door of her stable, which fell upon her back, being seven months pregnant, injured Marguerite Picard, a woman thirty-three years old. In fear of a premature birth she had to send for Anne Matteau, one of the good women of this parish. When Anne had visited her, she realized that the child was displaced and had fallen into the lower part of the womb. Seeing that Marguerite was in great danger of losing her child or of giving birth to it before its time, Anne advised her to consecrate herself to Catherine Tekakwitha. This she did, promised to have a Mass said, and to make a novena of nine Hail Mary a day for nine days, taking every day water in which had soaked some earth from the grave and some ashes of her clothing. Two days later the child resumed its proper place, and she gave birth to it two months later at the right time. This miracle was testified to before me both by the mother and by this woman.

In 1684, Catherine Godin, a woman then twenty-five years old, was afflicted with a flow of blood for three consecutive months, and was without relief through remedies given her at the Montreal hospital, where she had been treated nearly two months. She was obliged to leave the hospital because her trouble had become incurable. Upon her return she found at Lachine, near her house, a priest of the Society of Jesus, who then lived at the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier of the Sault, to whom she told her trouble. This priest told her that they had a young girl named Catherine Tekakwitha, who had died in the odour of sanctity, and that at her grave invalids had recovered their health. He advised her to have a novena made by one of the Native women of this Mission. This she did, begging the good Father to take care of it for her. At the end of the novena the woman troubled for three months by the flow of blood, found herself perfectly cured.

In 1693, André Merlot, fifty-three years old, suffered and inflammation of the eyes, through which he was in danger of losing his sight, and for a fact, he could no longer recognize with sight things. I had him make a novena to Catherine Tekakwitha, requiring him to say nine Hail Mary a day for nine days, while I offered Mass on these nine days through the merits and intercession of Catherine Tekakwitha. I proposed him to rub his eyes each day of the novena with water in which I had soaked some earth from her grave and some ashes of her clothing. At the end of the novena he entirely recovered his health. The inflammation ceased and since that time to this he has felt no harm from it, which I saw as witness. Rémy