St. Kateri

Kateri Tekakwitha was born to a Mohawk man and his Algonquin wife in 1656, near Auriesville, New York. When she was four years old smallpox ravaged her village and her parents and brother died. Kateri was left partially blind from the disease and her face was scarred. Her aunts and an uncle adopted her; they called her Tekakwitha, which means one who gropes blindly, for her partial blindness had made her walk this way. In her teens, she was attracted to the preaching of the Catholic priests who visited her uncle on a diplomatic mission to the tribe, but she feared her uncle’s wrath if she converted. At age nineteen, she mustered her courage and was baptized, taking the name Catherine which was translated as Kateri. Her family then treated her as an outcast and threats were made on her life. The priest was able to send her to a Christian colony for Native Americans in Canada. Here she lived in peace, practicing severe penances of her own accord and dedicating her virginity to Christ. Her health had never been strong and she died at age twenty-four on April 17, 1680. She was beautified in 1980, the first Native American to be declared a Blessed and her cause for canonization is pending. Kateri Tekakwitha is known as the Lily of the Mohawks. She has been named the patron of the environment and ecology; a patronage she shares with St. Francis of Assisi. Her feast is July 14.