Shrine Manager to Discuss Tekakwitha

Shrine  Manager to Discuss Kateri’s Life on July 15 in Utica.

The Mohawk Valley will soon have its first Native American saint when Kateri Tekakwitha is canonized at the Vatican in Rome on Oct. 21, and area residents will have the opportunity to get some insight into Kateri’s life during a presentation sponsored by the Secular Franciscan Order at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 15 at St. Joseph-St. Patrick Parish Center, Columbia and Varick streets, Utica.

The speaker is Elizabeth “Beth” Lynch, museums manager, event coordinator and media representative for the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs at Auriesville. She will discuss Kateri’s life as a Mohawk growing up in the 17th Century in the Auriesville and Fonda areas. The daughter of a Mohawk chief and Algonquin mother, Kateri will be canonized along with Utica’s Mother Marianne Cope.

Sponsored by the Secular Franciscan Order’s St. Joseph Fraternity, the talk is open to the public.

Lynch provides presentations and retreats on Shrine history and the holy souls of Auriesville. She holds degrees in nursing and in religious studies, and has experience in historical research, and museum exhibit design.

Born in Albany, she grew up in Ilion. She lived in Arizona for many years where she worked as a psychiatric nurse and, along with her late husband, founded a museum dedicated to western lore. She returned to New York in 2005.

A freelance writer, she was a correspondent for The Evangelist (the newspaper of the Albany Diocese), wrote a weekly column for an Arizona newspaper, and has been published in Catholic Digest, Celebrate Life, and in tourism publications in Arizona and New York. Reflections on her travels to the former Soviet Union are recounted in her book, A Few More Candles. She edits the Auriesville Shrine’s newsletter, The Pilgrim.

See previous story in Utica Phoenix.

By C. Harris-Lockwood