"She gave me no peace till I had granted her permission to make the same sacrifice of herself, not by a simple resolution to guard her virginity, such as she had already made, but by an irrevocable engagement which obliged her to belong to God without any recall. I would not, however, give my consent to this step until I had well proved her, and been anew convinced that it was the Spirit of God acting in this excellent girl, which had thus inspired her with a design of which there had never been an example among the Indians."
FOOTNOTES:
[64] In another account of this interview given by Cholenec in his manuscript life of Kateri, which has never been published, but is still preserved by the Jesuits at Montreal, are the following words: "Ah, mon père, me répondit-elle sur le champ, et sans hésiter, 'Je ne l'aurois m'y rendre. Je haïs les hommes, j'ai la dernière aversion pour le mariage,—la chose m'est impossible!'"
[65] Cholenec, in an older manuscript, gives further particulars concerning the life of this "Première Vierge Irokoise." In that account of the interview, after giving the above recommendation to Kateri about her health, her director goes on to describe the way in which his advice was received. "At these words she only laughed, and a moment after, taking that air so devout which was usual with her when she came to speak to me of her spiritual affairs, she made this beautiful reply, worthy of Catherine Tegakouita: 'Ah, my father, it is true that the body has good cheer in the woods, but the soul languishes there and dies of hunger; whereas in the village, if the body suffers a little from not being so well nourished, the soul finds its full satisfaction, being nearer to Our Lord. Therefore I abandon this miserable body to hunger, and to all that might happen to it afterwards, in order that my soul may be content, and may have its ordinary nourishment."
CHAPTER XXII.
KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679.
KATERI'S soul was indeed of rarest and costliest mould. Of this Father Cholenec was now fully aware. He also knew her quiet determination of spirit, and he no longer resisted her pleadings to be allowed to consecrate herself to God by a vow of perpetual virginity. This she did, with all due solemnity, on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, the 25th of March, 1679.
However others might look upon her act, this solemn engagement with God gave her a feeling of freedom rather than of thraldom. At last she had an acknowledged right to live her own life in her own way. She was Rawenniio's bride. The blackgown had approved of her vow, and no relative of hers at the Sault ventured afterwards to question or disturb her. "From that time," says Cholenec, "she aspired continually to heaven, where she had fixed all her desires; ... but her body was not sufficiently strong to sustain the weight of her austerities and the constant effort of her spirit to maintain itself in the presence of God." She tested her powers of endurance to the utmost. Her constant companion, Thérèse, afterwards told of her that on one occasion, as they were coming from the field into the village, carrying each of them a heavy load of wood, Kateri slipped on the frozen ground and fell, causing the points of an iron belt which she was accustomed to wear to penetrate far into her flesh. When Thérèse advised her on account of this accident to leave her bundle of wood until another time, Kateri only laughed, and lifting it quickly, carried it to the cabin, where she made no mention of her hurt. When summer came and the others laid aside their blankets for a time, she continued to wear hers over her head even in the hottest weather. Anastasia said that she did this, not so much to shield her eyes from the light, as from modesty and a spirit of mortification.