Our Lady of the Martyrs of Auiesville
The Jesuits martyrs and the birth of Saint Kateri · Auriesville, New York · 1642-1680
The people who saw the missionaries die
In the heart of the Mohawk Valley, in the north of the state of New York, the Irochese village of Ossernenon existed in the 17th century. There he arrived in August 1642, prisoner of a Mohawk war game, the French Jesuit Isaac Jogues, along with his lay assistant René Goupil. Both were forced to run the gauntlet - row of warriors who beat the prisoners - and were subjected to torture. René Goupil was killed on September 29, 1642, a few weeks after he arrived, for having drawn the sign of the cross on a child's forehead. Jogues managed to escape in 1643 with the help of Dutch settlers, but returned as peace ambassador in 1646 and was beheaded on 18 October of that year, along with another Jesuit, Juan de Lalande, killed the following day. The three were canonized by Pius XI in 1930.
The flower that sprung in the blood of the martyrs
In 1656, just ten years after the martyrdom of Jogues and Lalande, a girl named Tekakwitha was born in Ossernenon himself. His mother was a Christian algonquin, probably captured in Canada. Orphan at the age of four from a smallpox epidemic that also left her skin marked and her eyes very damaged, Tekakwitha was raised by her uncle mohawk. At the age of twenty, in 1676, she was baptized by the name of Catherine - Kateri in mohawk - by the Jesuit Jacques de Lamberville. Kateri had to flee to Canada because of the persecution of his tribe and died on the mission of Sault- Saint- Louis on April 17, 1680, at the age of 24. It was canonized by Benedict XVI on October 21, 2012, becoming the first native saint of North America.
The sanctuary of confluence
In 1884 the Jesuit Joseph Loyzance acquired ten acres of land in Auiesville, identified as the site of Ossernenon, and built a chapel called "Our Lady of the Martyrs." Today the sanctuary houses the great Coliseum church (3,500 seats, built in 1931) and is one of the main pilgrimage centers in the north-east of the United States. In August 2024, the Conference of Bishops recognized him as the National Sanctuary.
You who accompanied in the suffering your missionary children
and saw the pure Kateri born in that same land,
intercede for those who give their lives by faith. Amen.