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Where Jesuit martyrs met death
A baby girl drew her first breath
Kateri Tekakwitha was her name
She grew to Blessed Sainthood fame
 

From blood of martyrs comes seeds
Blessed Saints fulfilling Christ's needs
And this is what Kateri became
Her love of God burned like a flame
 

Small pox hit the Mohawk tribe
Kateri's parents and brother died
the illness treated her most unkind
leaving her badly scarred and half blind

Raised by her uncle, a Mohawk Chief
Kateri held with the Mohawk belief
But one day from across the seas
came Christian Jesuit missionaries

The kind Black Robed ones
told Kateri of God's only Son
Studying and believing as they
She converted to the Christian Way
 

She was Baptised on Easter Sunday
Now Christ was in her heart to stay
Her soul now from final death free
Kateri was filled with love and charity

She ministered to her people's tribe
with great love, charity and pride
Kateri said, "I am not my own
I will never marry nor have a home"

"No matter the hardship of poverty
"Christ is the only love for me"
She was dedicated to Christ for life
fighting her people's poverty and strife

Though her facial beauty badly scarred
she created beauty from Crosses she carved
Her greatness of spirit spans the centuries
reflected in all Mother Earth's land and trees...
 

Kateri died at age twenty four
and is remembered forever more
she became in loving tribute after she died
The first North American to be Beatified

After Kateri took her last breath
and lay in peaceful death
A Blessed transformation took place
there was beautiful serenity on her face

There were no longer pock marks there
God had erased them with loving care
and she had a beautiful smile
much like that of an Angelic child




This beautiful poem was written by
Barbara LaBarbera aka Thunderwolf © 2004
and is used on this site with her kind permission