CAPG's Blog 

Whence came her unflinching strength to make such daily sacrifices to God? From her love of the Divine Eucharist. Jesus in the tabernacle, Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus in her heart through Holy Communion, Jesus was her life, Jesus was her delight. To Him she went as often as she could. It was a saying in the village that Kateri's only place was in her cabin or in church. Thither she dragged herself, despite her infirmities, and remained whole hours, seraphlike. The lives of the greatest saints do not reveal a more ardent love than burnt in the heart of the saintly Iroquois for the august Sacrament of our altars."

Source: Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks, 1656-1680  By Edouard Lecompte (S.J.) 1927

"The quiet retreat which Kateri has chosen for herself is near the pathway leading to the stream, and made by the women of the hunting-camp in tramping back and forth for water. There, in her rustic oratory, she is accustomed to kneel amid the snow. She does not raise her head except to look at the cross she has cut on the trunk of a tree. Her hands are crossed on her breast, and her blanket hangs loosely down from her head and shoulders in many a careless fold. The rivulet close beside her is crusted with ice, and the bushes are heavy with snow. The water runs freely and swiftly a little beyond her where there is a break in the line of bushes along the brink of the stream. They have been thrust aside, and the snow has fallen from them. Here it is that the women come to dip water for the camp. Kateri was there in the morning, and among the very first. She helped to prepare the breakfast for the hunters. She was present also at the morning prayers which were said in common. It was not until the men were busily engaged in eating a meal that would last them the greater part of the day, and the women, with nothing special to do, were hovering about seeking a chance to join in the good cheer and see the hunters off, that Kateri slipped away, and now is hiding among the trees, as though she were nothing else than a little white rabbit that makes his home in a snow-bank.

One would scarcely notice the print of her moccasins where she passed along by the bushes. The snow is tufty and light. The long, low branches of Kateri's tree the one on which she has marked the cross – are bowed with its weight. They almost touch the ground, and shelter her motionless figure on the side towards the moccasintrail that leads to the water's edge. Little wavy lines on either side of the interlacing footprints of the women show where their blankets and skirts with shaggy fringe disturbed the even surface of the new-fallen snow as they passed along. Kateri brushed away the freshest of the snowy mass in front of her cross, before she be gan her prayers. She kneels on the hard-packed snow that is fast frozen to the ground. Her figure is sharply outlined against a little white mound of feathery flakes. Her thoughts are many miles away, though her eyes are fixed on the cross, which is suddenly lit up by a flash from the rising sun. She knows that the moment has come for Mass to begin in the village chapel at the great rapid of the St. Lawrence. In spirit she kneels with the few who are gathered there, and follows the Mass from beginning to end with appropriate prayers. She begs her guardian angel to fly away to the chapel and bring her back the fruits of the sacrifice there being offered." Source: The life and times of Kateri Tekakwitha by Ellen Hardin Walworth 1893