Margie Creel’s mother, who grew up on a Pueblo Indian reservation in New Mexico, started attending the annual Tekakwitha conferences in the 1980s. She always asked Margie to go with her, but each time, Margie said she couldn’t take a week off work.  

Her mother already had her conference ticket for 2006 when she died of pancreatic cancer, so Creel used the ticket to attend the conference for the first time. “I was hooked,” she said. “I was so energized. It was the healing I needed through losing my mother and all.” 

Creel hasn’t missed a conference since, except in 2020 when it was canceled. “We’re so happy to be hosting it in (Minnesota) this year,” she said.  

Creel, now a Tekakwitha Conference board member, and Charlene Patton, board president and interim director, recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to discuss the 84th annual Tekakwitha Conference, this year being held July 19-23 in Bloomington. 

Patton, whose mother was Native American, said “we always had such a close (draw) towards our Native culture because of living right on the reservation in Montana,” she said. After her family moved to an urban setting in California, Patton didn’t have that same connection “with our Native culture,” she said. But after attending a pow-wow organized by the Tekakwitha Conference organization, the family’s involvement in the conference grew.  

“We felt so comfortable with them being able to share our cultures and our traditions with people outside of the reservation area and in an urban setting, and it was just a great thing for us to have that connection,” Patton said. 

Creel said she knows Native people who say, “I’m Native, then I practice my Native beliefs, so that’s my religion.” Others say, “I’m Catholic and I don’t practice Native because I’m Catholic.” “But they actually intertwine,” she said. “We do our Native dances; in New Mexico, the Pueblos have their feast days … and all are named after Catholic saints, like our San Diego and Santa Domingo. And when Natives pray in four directions — north, east, west and south — Creel believes they coincide with the four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  

For Patton, raised on a reservation with a grandmother who was a strong Catholic, “we always felt that it was such a combination that you couldn’t separate us from our Native faith and our Catholic faith,” she said. “Our cultures and traditions were so similar to what the Catholic faith is all about, and we just grew up with that as a part of our lives, that there was no separation between our faith and our culture.” 

To hear more about Creel and Patton, and the upcoming conference, listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic,” which debuts at 9 p.m. Feb. 17 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM and repeats at 1 p.m. Feb. 18 and 2 p.m. Feb. 19. More about the Tekakwitha Conference in Bloomington can be found at tekconf.org or archspm.org/events.  

Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes an interview with two employees from St. Timothy in Blaine who describe their recent experience serving along the U.S.-Mexico border at a humanitarian respite center operated by Catholic Charities; and Kendra Tierney, a mom of 10 who provides tips on practicing Lenten living at home. 

Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingCatholicShow.com or choose a streaming platform at anchor.fm/practicing-catholic-show.