These ceremonies of Holy Week, together with the fervent words of the missionaries who, like the first preachers of Christianity, spoke to the people in their "own tongues the wonderful works of God," made a profound impression on all the Indians of the Praying Castle. As the bells of Holy Saturday rang in the news of the resurrection, their joy broke forth into song. A thrill of emotion stirred the throng. Happy tears were in Kateri's eyes. On Easter Sunday the swell of glad Iroquois voices, singing from their inmost souls, wafted her responsive spirit to the opened gates of Paradise.
CHAPTER XIX.
KATERI'S FRIEND,—THÉRÈSE TEGAIAGUENTA.
A joy was in store for Kateri Tekakwitha that would remain until the end of her life. No greater blessing can Heaven send us than a friend whose heart responds to our own in closest sympathy, and to whom we can unfold the hidden places of our soul with no fear of betrayal.
Had Kateri failed to find such a heart-friend before she died, we should never have learned what a wealth of strong human love and a craving for human companionship had been growing up within her through the lonely years she had lived until now.
Never before had she greater need of a friend to sustain her; never before had she been so cruelly mistrusted as on her return from the hunting-camp.
The gift of God was ready. The friend was close at hand; but the knowledge of this was kept from Kateri, until her desolate heart, turned in on itself, could find no refuge except in the bitterest self-condemnation. Knowing the goodness of God and finding herself unsatisfied at heart, she could find no reason for it except by magnifying her slightest faults into a dreadful wickedness for which she needed punishment. This tendency of her mind was encouraged constantly by Anastasia's instructions and exhortations. They were well-intentioned and suitable enough for lawless and passionate natures, but too severe for the pure and sensitive soul of Kateri. The suffering that comes not from evil doing or thinking, but rather from well-meaning bluntness, can easily be utilized and undone in the far-reaching plans of God. Kateri's cruel self-reproach cannot be looked upon as a useless pain when we see how it pierced another heart, and bounded back to her own richly freighted with new-found friendship and much-needed, noble companionship.
What are Kateri Tekakwitha and Thérèse Tegaiaguenta doing there by the new stone chapel? Why do they stand apart in the life-giving sunlight? Why do they not speak to each other? Can it be that they have never before met? Both belong to the Praying Castle; both are Christians, both are Iroquois. Kateri came from the Mohawk country before the snow had fallen. Now it has melted away; the grass is green. Mount Royal, La Prairie, the village, the woods, the waters, are bathed in sunshine. The river is roaring and rushing tumultuously with the added wealth of the spring-time freshets. The mission chapel is nearly completed. The stones are all in place, and the roof has been reared. Kateri compares it, no doubt, with the Dutch church at Fort Orange, the most imposing structure of the kind she has ever had a chance to see. We need not ask her whether she prefers the bright little weather-cock there, or the cross on the belfry here; for we know how she cut the cross in the bark of a forest-tree, and how she carries it day by day buried deep in her heart.