Two Americans canonized by Pope Benedict XVI

For the first time in history, American Catholicism can now boast that two of its own have been canonized together, as this past Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI declared both Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the Lily of the Mohawks (1656-1680),  and Mother Marianne Cope, known as the Angel to the Lepers (1838-1918) saints!

Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, born in New York State, was known for her own conversion and ministry to the Mohawk-Algonquin. Her remains are in a mission Church near Montreal, with a national shrine to her kept at her onetime home in upstate New York. Her life story is noted by her conversion to Christianity, her courage to face suffering, and her extraordinary holiness. During her life Kateri taught children prayers, and worked with the elderly and sick. She was widely known for her great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, often going to Mass both at dawn and sunset, and her devotion to the Cross of Christ. She found she could relate to the sufferings of Christ through her own suffering throughout her life beginning with the smallpox and loss of her parents and brother to smallpox, to the suffering she endured through the ridiculing of others as she went through her conversion, to the great suffering in the last years of her life. Her final words were: Jesus, Mary, I love you.

In her brief twenty-four years of life, she was renowned for her charity, prayer, and humility. Her example was radiant, attracting then and now many to Jesus and His Church, and her intercessory power through prayer has been renowned.

Mother Marianne Cope, a native of New York and a Franciscan sister, was a close collaborator of Saint Damien deVeuster ministering to Hawaii’s Molokai leper colony.  Her remains are interred at the Franciscan Sisters’ Motherhouse in Syracuse, New York.  Mother Marianne opened and operated some of the first general hospitals in the States, Saint Elizabeth Hospital in Utica, New York, and Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, both of which are still operating today.  She is most known for her ministry to the lepers.  Mother Marianne started programs that gave those inflicted with this disease a more dignified life.  She felt that though she couldn’t cure them, she could make their lives better by offering classes, beautifying the environment, offering religious counseling and giving proper clothing to the patients.
The Pope canonized seven people in total. The other five were:  Maria del Carmen, Pedro Calungsod, Jacques Berthieu, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, and Anna Shaeffer.