week 28/23

Feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha

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Chaplet of St. Kateri Tekakwitha.
(c)2023

Since I’ve been sharing quite a lot about Kateri Tekakwitha, I thought I’d share this older picture from when I tried to visit her shrine in Quebec at the Kahnawake Village of the Mohawk Community. I had been searching for a chaplet of St. Kateri and was unsuccessful before my trip. I had planned to pray the chaplet for my Cursillo friend who was living his Cursillo weekend while I was away. Since I didn’t have a beaded chaplet, I drew one (left side), and brought that with me to pray at Kateri’s empty tomb, located across the street from the church of St. Catherine of Alexandria.

It was a very emotional and spiritual site, and just like in New York near the Mohawk River, I could hear the rapids from behind the empty, marble coffin, a sound similar to the sound near her baptismal spring at her Fonda shrine. I was there in contemplation for some time and prayed the chaplet from my sketchbook. Upon arriving home, I was able to locate a beaded chaplet, which I will pray today for St. Kateri’s feast day.

Kateri is the patron of the environment, fitting as Indigenous people are the caretakers of the land, as well as a patron of others including Indigenous People and ecology and people in exile.

Travel – National Shrine of the North American Martyrs, Auriesville, NY and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, National Shrine & Historic Site, Fonda, NY

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I hadn’t intended for this series on travel to wholly encompass shrines, but I was asked yesterday about visiting these two later in the summer and thought it would be a good opportunity to share their information with you.

The sites are spiritually connected by both St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the Jesuits. The site in Auriesville has a coliseum, one of the first circular churches built in the US. It holds about 6000 people. Across their 600 acres of land is a museum, one or two chapels, a grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, and Theresa’s Rosary, a rosary made of rocks embedded in the ground. I have walked and prayed this rosary on one of my visits.

There is also the ravine where Rene Goupil’s body was found. In visiting there, I found it very spiritual and a place of holiness. The way to the ravine is quite steep. On the way there are several statues and grottos to pray at as well as signs that tell the story of the Martyrs.

Prior to his martyrdom, Isaac Jogues had been held in captivity and tortured by the Mohawk (a different group) for over a year. With help he escaped in New Netherland or Albany, NY. He returned to France, where he visited his mother in Orleans (where Joan of Arc led France’s army 219 years before) and was considered a “living martyr” by Pope Urban VIII, but soon again returned to this area, longing for and meeting his martyrdom in what is now Auriesville. It had been the Mohawk village of Ossernenon. He, Jean de Lalande, and Rene Goupil were tortured and killed here. Jogues weighted Goupil’s body and placed it in the water of the ravine in order to return and bury him properly. He did return, but he was gone. He later found some of his body parts, and reverently buried them. I’ve heard others say that the ravine itself is a reliquary. As I said, the spirituality felt here is palpable.

At this same village, ten years after their deaths, Kateri Tekakwitha was born. She became ill with smallpox and both of her parents died. She was scarred, and it was difficult for her to see, needing to put her hands out and feel her way. Her name Tekakwitha translates into she who bumps into things. Her mother had been baptized Catholic and educated by the e missionaries. Her village moved from Ossernenon across the Mohawk River and rebuilt their village, named Caughnawaga, which means place of the rapids. She was bullied for practicing her Catholic faith. She refused to be married, and that did not make her popular within her adoptive family and aunts. She also practiced mortification, praying for the conversion of her family and for forgiveness.

Her name Kateri is for her baptismal name of Catherine, which she received after her baptism at the age of 19. It took me several years, but I was able to walk to the spring (it’s a bit of a steep incline) from the village footprint that archeologists uncovered. Her Native people still felt that the Catholic religious rituals and items were sorcery and opposed her conversion. At some point after her conversion, she was helped to leave and went north to the new Mohawk village where other Native converts had gone. This village was also named Kahnawake (this is the Mohawk spelling), just south of Montreal. She died in 1680.

When I visited her empty tomb (where she was first laid to rest until her relics were removed to the St. Francis Xavier Mission Church on the Mohawk land), the sound of the rushing water nearby was nearly deafening. I have had so many spiritual experiences in visiting the sites of Kateri and her people that it only makes me more in awe of the Holy Spirit.

For those who are not religious, but want to visit a pastoral, serene, place of comfort, both shrines offer that in the beautiful Mohawk valley. The sights and sounds are lovely, and it is easy to get lost in your own thoughts. Of course, that’s until the train comes roaring by, but that is in its own way an affirmation of the space we are in.

National Shrine of the North American Martyrs
Auriesville, NY

Open May 1 – October 19, 2023
Hours:
Grounds: Open daily 9-7
Museum: Open daily 11-3:30
Gift Shop/Visitor Center: Open daily 10-3
There is no fee for admission or parking.
If you are interested in attending mass or other events, visit their website.

National Shrine of the North American Martyrs.
(c)2023

St Kateri Tekakwitha, National Shrine & Historic Site
Fonda, NY

Summer Season: May 1st to October 31st
Hours:
Grounds are open sunrise to sunset daily.
Saint Peter’s Chapel and Native American Museum open daily, 9-5
Gift shop open: Sat, 10-6, Sun – Wed, 9-5, Thurs – Fri, 10-4
Office open daily 9-4
Candle Chapel, Caughnawaga Village Site, Kateri Spring and grotto, outdoor sanctuary, and hiking trails are open sunrise to sunset year-round.
If you are interested in attending mass (scroll down at the link) or other events, visit their website.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha statue with a sign of her last words:
Jesus, I love you!
(c)2023

Anti-Social Media

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That title’s not really fair.

I’ve met people through social media that I consider friends and close acquaintances: Yvette Nicole Brown, Devin’s Cow, Alt-Immigration, Giselle Fetterman, I mean Frank Figliuzzi followed me – *mind-blown*

Just when we finally put tweeting, twittering, retweets, and doomscrolling into the daily vernacular, Twitter is sold to a childish narcissist (no offense to children, the childish or narcissists) who decides to not only let it implode, but actively sabotages it. Not to mention the racism and antisemitism. I’ve been on Twitter since the beginning, and while I lovingly described it as a cesspool, it was more than the sum of its parts. It was my first stop when I woke up in the morning, knowing that among the outrage and memes was whatever was the most important in the news of that day. From there, I’d dig deeper.

In the last few months, really since the new owner came in, my newsfeed has been a mix of ads some of which are so sus that I’d question their actual existence, inappropriate propositions, nudity, and right-wing nut jobs, ninety-nine percent of which I don’t even follow.

I joined a new social media network (to be named later), followed a friend of mine, and have seen her more today on the new network than in the last three months on Twitter. The same goes for many of the pundits and entertainment blogs that I follow. Scrolling through the new site is like attending a school or job reunion: Hey! You’re here! I’ve missed you! What have you been doing the last six months when you were hidden on Twitter?!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll continually say it again: I go to the new techy thing. I go kicking and screaming, but I still go. Twitter was probably the first to prove that statement. Then Tumblr. I didn’t question Instagram as much; just went. Post. Mastodon. I waited with breath held for Spoutible, and when the opportunity came to sign up for Threads, it took me all of three minutes to get two accounts going. I’m on the waiting list for bluesky, but I’m not sure that I’ll even sign up if Spoutible and Threads continue on the way they’ve begun.

Will I use all of these?

Man, I hope not.

I can’t recommend Threads yet; I’ve barely been on forty-eight hours but give it a try. It can only be accessed by the app, no browser yet. It’s connected to your Instagram account, although I don’t know how, and I have no idea about cross-posting. I plan to use it the way I use twitter – politics, news, voting rights, social justice, and website promotion.

I will not delete my Twitter account. I may even use it to comment on some things, but I have hopes that it might return. It was comfortable when it worked.

I’ve begun a Mailchimp Email Subscription for reaching out monthly to my in-person class attendants and I’m considering expanding it to my online community. I’m not sure what I could offer for a subscription fee that I’m not already publishing on the site, but my writing and publishing are always evolving. If you’re interested in a free preview for the next three months, drop me an email with Mailchimp subscription in the subject line and your email in the body.

This month I’m continuing the writing of my prayer book, and outlining my Wales Discovery book, some of which I may talk about on social media.

These are my official accounts:

Facebook Page
Instagram
Spotify
Spoutible
Threads