Minnesotan creates image of Blessed Kateri for North Dakota church

Published: 2006-07-28

LINO LAKES, Minn. (CNS) -- The first time Roger Zarembinski, 56, laid his hand on the wood panel on which he would create an image of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, he groaned. "One of the harder things to do is just getting started," he said. That was a year ago. Today, the nearly finished 44-by-90-inch pastel chalk drawing of Blessed Kateri stands alive with color in Zarembinski's Lino Lakes studio, which is a converted chicken coop. She stands holding a birch cross to her heart with one hand and extending a rosary in the other. A Jesuit priest stands nearby elevating the Eucharist, and two Mohawk children are at her feet. Behind her, American Indian men paddle the canoe that aided her escape to the Christian mission. He made the panel for the newly built St. Anthony mission church on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation near Mandaree, N.D. It is to be installed in the welcoming space of the church, which is styled like an earth lodge.

Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .