Note the mixture of Nature Cults and Native American (Eastern) Mysticism with Roman Catholicism in this mass to be celebrated July 17, 1998, here in south Louisiana.  Such mixtures of paganistic and Roman Catholic rituals is common here in our area. 

Holy Family Church holds annual Native American celebration

The Houma Courier/Friday, July 10, 1998

Holy Family Church in Dulac will conduct its fourth annual Native American Liturgical Celebration and Fellowship for the Feast of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha at 6:30 p.m. July 17.

"The purpose of the celebration is to bring the Native American community together to pray for the canonization of Blessed Kateri," said Rev. Rock Naquin, who will celebrate the mass.

Bishop Michael Jarrell of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux will also be participating in the celebration.

But why should Tekakwitha become a saint? Who is she? What did she do?

April 17, 1680, 2 p.m. It is the Wednesday of Holy week. A young Native American women with a badly scarred face lies on her deathbed. Disease has all but taken the life from her veins. She opened her eyes for the last time, whispering the words "Iesos Konoronkwa." She died seconds later.

"Jesus, I love you." It was the right thing for Kateri Tekakwitha to say, since she believed she would soon be joining Him in heaven.

Tekakwitha's scars can be linked to a smallpox epidemic -- one which claimed the lives of her parents and her baby brother -- when she was 4 years old.

Twenty years after their death, so the story goes, an odd thing happened.

Fifteen minutes after Tekakwitha took her last breath, before the eyes of two Jesuit priests and a host of Native Americans, the scars on her face disappeared.

The mass celebrating Tekakwitha will begin with presentations by the Bayou Eagles and Bayou Healers, which are groups of young Houma Indians who perform traditional dances in full Native American dress. The mass itself will be a combintion of both Native American and Catholic rituals.

A substance known as "smudging" will be used in place of traditional incense. It ingredients include tobaco, sage and sweet grass.

"The smoke from the smudging will be fanned into the congregation for cleansing perposes," said Naquin. "The rising smoke is a symbol of our prayers and souls rising to heaven."

The reverend will them "smudg" all four corners of the church in the following order: east, south, west and north.

According to Naquin, this is done to acknowledge all corners of the universe. "We start with the east because new life comes from that direction....The sun rises in the eat," he added. Tekakwitha was the daughter of a Christian Algonquin mother and a non-Christian Mohawk chief. She was born in 1656 on the south bank of the Mohawk River, a village known as Ossernenon.

She was baptized on Easter Sunday in 1676 at St. Peter's Mission in Fonda, N.Y. She received her first Holy Communion on Christmas day, 1677.

At the feast of an Annunciation on 1679, a moment after receiving Communion, Tekakwitha pronounced her vow of perpetual virginity.

She was declared venerable by Pope Pius XII in 1943 and beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

"Her whole life was devoted to teaching prayers to the children and helping the sick," said Kathy Verdin, a parishioner of Holy Family.

"The purpose of the ceremony is to bring local tribes together ... to put our differnces aside. Our ultimate goal is the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha."