The Mississippi was once called the River of the Immaculate Conception

“Immaculate” is not a word most people would use to describe the famous murky waters of the Mississippi River, but Father Jacques Marquette was not like most people.

The Jesuit explorer, who arrived from France as a missionary to Canada in 1666, was one of the first Europeans to name the Mississippi, which he explored and mapped with his companion Louis Joliet starting in 1673. And the name he gave to this vital artery of North America was “The River of the Immaculate Conception.”

The entrustment of this mighty waterway—one of the largest and most important rivers in the world—to the Virgin Mary was part of the French Jesuits’ mission to evangelize the Native Americans of the area, which by all accounts , they did, not with violence, but with camaraderie and respect.

French missionary activity in North America was encouraged by great devotees of Mary, such as Marquette, who had a vision of the meeting of two civilizations, European and Native American, under the Catholic faith, rather than a conquest of the land, said James Wilson, a humanities professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

“They set out in their canoes, entrusting themselves completely to the grace of God, entrusting themselves completely to Mary as the Immaculate Conception, and they did not seek to build lasting monuments to their conquests or plant flags,” said Wilson, author of a seven-part poem called “River of the Immaculate Conception”.

“They sought mainly to enter as agents of grace among the Indians and live with them, preach to them and enter into communion with them.”

Of course, the Mississippi today bears its original name, which roughly translates to “great waters.” But Wilson said that far from being a footnote in history, Marquette’s consecration of the Mississippi endures as a testimony to how God’s grace was already at work in North America. Almost two centuries later, in 1846, the bishops of the present-day United States declared Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, as the country’s patron saint.

The church on the river Immaculate Conception

Although most have forgotten it, the “River of the Immaculate Conception” lives on in the memories of one community in particular: the congregation of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception in Kaskaskia, Illinois.

Kaskaskia was, at one time and in some ways, the center of the Mississippi universe. The now small village, located on the river, predates the historic riverside metropolises of New Orleans to the south and St. Louis to the north. Once known as the “Great Village,” Kaskaskia was a thriving trade nexus for natives and French trappers alike. The city of 1,900 inhabitants was the logical place, and in some ways the definitive one, for the Catholic missionaries to use as their center of evangelization.

Emily Lyons, historian at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception in Kaskaskia, told CNA that church founder Marquette had an “absolute devotion to the Immaculate Conception.” He trusted everything he could to Maria’s care.

Marquette founded the mission at Kaskaskia on Easter Sunday 1675 and died later that year.

Since then, the church dedicated to Mary in Kaskaskia has endured as a remarkable testimony to God’s grace. Lyons said that since the early days, when the church was a simple upright log structure, the congregation has “gone through about five different buildings.”

The island on which Kaskaskia is located is extremely prone to floodsand the church has had to be moved several times over the years. The current brick church dates to 1894 and suffered significant damage in the Great Mississippi Floods of 1993. The following year, the Diocese of Belleville designated it a chapel. Today, the once prosperous town of Kaskaskia only has about two dozen residents.

Although it is no longer a parish, the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception continues to attract many visitors and worshipers. Lyons said that each year, on or around the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, the community has a celebratory Mass in which they sing Marian hymns translated into the Algonquian language. The liturgy has attracted many Native American Catholics over the years, he said.

Parishioners also hold a procession and reenact a supposed miracle that occurred at the church many years ago, in which a young indigenous woman found lilies growing near the church, despite the prohibitive winter cold, and brought them inside as an offering to Mary.

God’s grace in America

Unlike the Spanish, whose conquest of North America was often marked by brutality, the French entered with “relative peace” and largely respected the humanity of the natives, Wilson said. Many of the natives later converted and incorporated Christianity into their way of life.

To meditate on this, Wilson said, is to reconceive the United States not as a wild frontier later tamed by man, but as “a stage where the grace of God is the first actor.” The French Jesuits, through their devotion to prayer and the devout life, were attuned to this reality, Wilson said.

“To consecrate the Mississippi River as the ‘River of the Immaculate Conception’ is not to plant a flag or proclaim conquest. “It is rather to recognize that this vast open continent must, objectively speaking, be defined primarily not by what any human being does, but by the actions of God through his grace,” Wilson said.

“Even when Christians try to talk about history, they talk as if only human beings have acted in history and do not consider that God is always the primary author of every action, and that God’s grace is the most dynamic agent of everything in history.”

Originally published on December 4, 2022 in CNA. It has been updated for republication.