The five-day Tekakwitha Conference drew nearly 500 people to the Twin Cities July 19-23 to express Native American culture, the Catholic faith, hope and healing. A few of their voices:
St. Kateri connections
Sister Kateri Mitchell, 83, a Sister of St. Anne for 64 years, has missed only one Tekakwitha Conference since 1979, when her mother was ill. She served five years as executive director of the conference.
A member of the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne and the Turtle Clan, she finds the conferences fulfilling — first, in affirming “our own Native traditions and our own Catholic faith,” and as an affirmation of “an enculturated approach to become the person that God has called us to be,” to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and to fulfill “our whole purpose in life.”
She believes that affirms “who we are as Indigenous people because God has given that to us as gifts, and then to affirm our own Catholic faith that we have embraced through our baptism and through this conference.”
At the conference, Native traditional prayers are said “in our ways,” along with celebrating the Eucharist every day, “which is giving thanks,” she said. “It’s Thanksgiving for who we are … for the ways our Creator has blessed us (in) so many different ways, cultural ways, and to affirm that and to help our people to grow that within the Catholic Church,” Sister Kateri said.
Every tribe is “so rich” and has been given different gifts to share, Sister Kateri said.
She said a highlight of this year’s Tekakwitha Conference is “calling forth the gifts of the people” giving workshops. Another is that, post-COVID, “we’re able to gather because there’s still some communities that don’t allow their people any large gatherings, especially in isolated areas,” she said.
Sister Kateri recognized many people at the conference and was “busy talking to them.” “It’s a good thing to keep those connections going,” she said.
Sister Kateri said it’s often difficult “for many of our people” to remain Catholic because “we have not always been accepted within Catholic, in the church, like in the church building, and that is a reality,” she said. “So, we try, especially in many of the areas where there’s a larger population of Indigenous people, (when) there’s a major celebration, like for the feast of St. Kateri here in the United States” (July 14), and in Canada April 17 (1680), when she died, she said. The July 14 feast day in the U.S. is usually “a big feast, feast gathering with liturgy,” she said. “And if the bishop is available, he comes.”
Sister Kateri said she grew up learning about St. Kateri from her parents, and traveled with them on pilgrimages to Auriesville, New York, near St. Kateri’s birthplace, and to Fonda, New York, location of the St. Kateri National Shrine and historic site.
But her religious order gave her the name Sister Kateri, she said. At the time Sister Kateri entered religious life, sisters were given “names of saints or holy people,” she said, “and there must have been some sisters who knew about Kateri.” Being the first Native woman “to enter (her order) in the New England states, in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and knowing that I was a Mohawk, they gave me that name,” she said.
Having the name Kateri means a lot to her, Sister Kateri said. In the late 1960s, sisters in her order had the chance to “go back to our family names,” so she asked her parents what to do. “Because we’re so close to a real connection to Kateri Tekakwitha, they said, ‘no, you keep Kateri in our language,’ so there’s a big connection there.”
Three sisters
Linda Zephier, 75, and her sisters Judith Pena, 77, and Ramona Drapeau, 66, traveled to the Tekakwitha Conference together from Marty, 370 miles away from the Twin Cities on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in southeast South Dakota, where they are members of the Marty Kateri Circle and St. Paul parish.
They were together for a water ceremony and other activities July 22 on the campus of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Zephier said she has participated in six Tekakwitha Conferences, and the water ceremony has always been important.
“They bless the water,” Zephier said. At some ceremonies, people bring home small containers of the water blessed by priests and bless themselves each day with it. “It strengthens my faith. Every day, you pray, you bless yourself and take on the day.”
Drapeau said this year it was important for her to be at the conference because she was recovering from a particular trauma. She did not specify the hurt. But she said the conference and its activities had given her time to collect herself and begin to heal.
The conference’s theme was “Gathering for Healing Through Living Waters.” It included a healing and reconciliation service July 20 with native healers and several priests offering reconciliation.
Rosalie Hoptowit, 77, of Wapato, Washington, said she attended the healing service because “I need God.”
“First confession, then up front for healing,” she said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Charlene Patton, interim executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference and president of the conference’s board of directors, said “our people missed this gathering of community and faith.” Which is why “we’re just so blessed to have this many people here this year,” she said.
“After COVID and those shutdowns, last year we had 137 attendees,” Patton said. “This year, I think we’re close to 500. So, it really is a good thing.”
