Earlier this week, Pope Benedict XVI recently approved a series of decrees by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. In short, this means that a group of seven candidates were approved by not only the pope, but also passed the authenticity of a miracle attributed to their intercession, paving the way for the final requirements for canonization. The seven candidates whose miracles were approved are:
- Blessed Jacques Bertheiu, French martyr and priest of the Society of Jesus {Jesuits}
- Blessed Maria del Carmen, Spanish foundress of the Conceptionist Missionary Sisters of Teaching
- Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, American laywoman
- Blessed Pedro Calungsod, Filipino lay catechist and martyr
- Blessed Anna Schaffer, German laywoman
- Blessed Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth and of the Congregation of the Humble Sister Servants of the Lord
- Blessed Maria Anna Cope, German religious of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse U.S.A.
While I readily admit I don’t know much anything about these soon-to-be canonized saints, I can claim to at least know a little bit about Kateri Tekakwitha, who is the first native American saint. What little I knew, I was able to build on in another recent article that just blew me away. It was the story of a child who was exposed to Strep A bacteria when he was five years old, which causes a tissue-destroying disease called necrotizing fascitis, or “flesh-eating virus.”
ARE YOU CRINGING???
If not, you are either too young, you put it out of your mind, or you didn’t live here in Austin in December 1996 when the “flesh-eating virus” took the lives of over 25 people. If you recall this crazy time 15 years ago, you remember the panic that set in to this town. I had just returned to college after a year long break and had only been back in town for a few months {fall semester} when this news erupted and scared the heebie jeebies out of me. The scary part of it was that you just didn’t know when and where it would strike…and people were dying within 48 hours of contracting the bacteria. I can only think of one other time where I was so panic-stricken and that was October 2002 when we were living in Northern Virginia {NoVA} when the D.C. sniper attacks were going on. Another harrowing time in my life when you had NO clue when your number was up, but that heightened awareness made life very stressful. One of the sniper murders happened just a five minute walk from our first apartment in Manassas. Unnerving isn’t even the right word.
Back to Austin and that lovely flesh eating virus.
So as I’m reading this story of this young boy named Jake who was eaten by this flesh eating virus, I am recalling the fear from 15 years ago. I’m recalling the stories in the news. I’m recalling the pictures of people and their actual wounds shown on t.v. and in the newspapers {old school ways of getting information pre-smart phones for all you young folk reading this}. Being so close to the fire back in 1996, I can appreciate the severity of Jake’s prognosis and empathize with how scared his family must have felt. Two days after bumping his lip on the base of a portable basketball hoop of the Boys & Girls Club – TWO DAYS – Jake was in the hospital fighting for his life while the virus ate away at his head, neck and chest.
Even the doctors conceded that prayer would be necessary to help save his life. When family priest Fr. Tim Sauer was called in, it was with the understanding that he would administer last rites and help the family prepare to let go of Jake. The family’s heritage was native American and, at Fr. Sauer’s urging, they began praying specifically to Blessed Kateri to intercede on their son’s behalf. They asked friends, neighbors, and fellow members of the community to join them.
It wasn’t until the day a relic of Blessed Kateri’s arrived and was placed on the boy’s pillow that Jake suddenly took a turn for the better.
One thing that stood out to me in the story was the connection between Kateri and Jake:
Tekakwitha, known as “the Lily of the Mohawks,” was born in 1656 in upstate New York to a Mohawk chief and an Algonquin mother. A smallpox epidemic killed both her parents and left her with partial blindness and a disfigured face. She converted to Catholicism after meeting several priests. Ostracized from her tribal community, Tekakwitha devoted herself to a life of deep prayer. She died in 1680 at age 24. According to the Catholic Church, witnesses said that within minutes of her death, the scars from smallpox completely vanished and her once-disfigured face suddenly shone with radiant beauty.
It reminded me that in times of great despair, God will provide us with the perfect person to assist us in prayer to God. Blessed Kateri was precisely who this little boy needed to intercede and help be the megaphone for their prayers, laying their intentions together at the Feet of our Lord God in heaven.
You don’t get a more perfect story than that, my friends.
To read Jake’s story in its entirety, please note that there are graphic pictures of Jake through the various stages of his disease. Jake is now a happy, healthy 11 year old boy thanks in large part to all the prayers of family, friends and community and, of course, Blessed {soon to be Saint upon official canonization yet to be determined} Kateri Tekakwitha.
