St. Kateri Tekakwitha, “Lily of the Mohawks,” was deeply attracted to the Christian religion and after converting to Catholicism, devoted her entire life to deepening her relationship with Jesus Christ.
In particular, she had a special devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist.
According to the 19th-century biography The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, she eagerly awaited the day of her First Communion.
[Kateri] participated for the first time in her life in the Holy Eucharist with a degree of fervor proportioned to the reverence she had for this grace and the earnestness with which she had desired to obtain it.
She received her First Communion on Christmas Day, and after that she took advantage of every opportunity to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Her religious example was an inspiration to many and they wanted to be near her when she received communion.
Whenever there was a general communion among the Indians at the Sault the most virtuous neophytes endeavored with emulation to be near her because said they the sight alone of Kateri served them as an excellent preparation for communing worthily.
The Jesuit priest who ministered to her wrote down the love and devotion she had for the Eucharist.
Kateri had great and special devotion both for the Passion of our Savior and for the Holy Eucharist. These two mysteries of the love of the same God concealed under the veil of the Eucharist and His dying on the cross ceaselessly occupied her spirit and kindled in her heart the purest flames of love. One day after having received the Holy Communion, she made a perpetual oblation or solemn offering of her body to Jesus attached to the cross and of her soul to Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Her devotion to the Eucharist remains an inspiration, and shows to us how the mystery of the Eucharist can radically transform our lives.
And today we celebrate...