Lent 2025 Day 24

Kateri Tekakwitha, Indigenous Saint
Psalm 42 | Joshua 4:14-24

Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–1680) was the first Indigenous woman of North America to be canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church. Born to an Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father, Kateri grew up amidst cultural and religious tensions, as Christianity spread among Indigenous communities through European missionaries. Orphaned at a young age due to a smallpox epidemic that left her scarred and partially blind, she found herself drawn to the Christian faith despite resistance from her own people. At 19, she was baptized and later left her village to join a Christian community in Kahnawake, near Montreal, where she devoted herself to a life of prayer, service, and deep intimacy with God.

Kateri’s faith was marked by an intense longing for God. Psalm 42 captures the essence of her spirituality: an unquenchable thirst for the presence of the divine. Just as a deer seeks out water for survival, Kateri sought God with her whole being, often retreating into the wilderness to pray. She saw Christ reflected in the beauty of creation, integrating her Indigenous reverence for the land with her Christian devotion. Her life reminds us that faith is not just about belief—it is about desire, about hungering and thirsting for a God who meets us in every part of our journey.

The story in Joshua 4:14-24 recounts the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, marking a moment of covenant fulfillment. However, for Indigenous peoples, conquest narratives in Scripture can be painful, as similar justifications were used to displace and oppress Native communities. How do we reclaim this passage in a way that honors both God’s faithfulness and the dignity of all peoples?

For the Israelites, the land was not a prize of war but a sacred inheritance—a home given by God, meant to be cared for with reverence. Many Indigenous traditions share this understanding: land is not to be owned or exploited but is held in trust for future generations. Kateri Tekakwitha, like her ancestors, saw the land as a gift from the Creator, a place of communion with God rather than domination. In reclaiming the story of Joshua, we can recognize that God’s covenant is not about conquest but about responsibility—about living in right relationship with the land, with one another, and with God.

Lent invites us into this same longing—to thirst for God more deeply, to trust in the divine presence even when the path is difficult. Like Kateri, we are called to seek God in the wilderness moments of our lives, to drink deeply from the living water, and to bear witness to God’s faithfulness for future generations. In doing so, we reject conquest and embrace covenant, living in ways that honor both the Creator and creation.

Reflection:

• What does it mean to long for God in the way Psalm 42 describes? 
• How can we honor the sacredness of land while understanding God’s promises in Joshua 4? 
• Where in your life are you being called to trust in God’s faithfulness, as Joshua and the Israelites did? 
• How can you, like Kateri, integrate faith with the beauty and sacredness of creation? 

Breath Prayer: Inhale: My soul thirsts for You… Exhale: …The living God.

May this Lenten season draw us deeper into longing, trust, and the beauty of encountering God in all things.

Amen.