St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Today is the Feast Day of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, nicknamed the Lilly of the Mohawks. Kateri is the first native American to be canonized. She was born in 1656, just outside of modern-day Albany. Her mother was baptized by Jesuit Missionaries but she and Kateri’s father died of smallpox when Kateri was only 4. The disease left terrible scars on Kateri’s face and created cataracts on her eyes that made her all but blind. She would often cover her head with a blanket to hide so that the youth in the tribe wouldn’t make fun of her face. Even though Kateri wasn’t baptized until she was 19 years old, she was taught two crucial things by her mother that gloriously shaped her young life: that there was One, true God who became man and died on the cross, and that this One, true God should be served from one’s heart. These two wonderful truths were so ingrained in Kateri that she refused marriage in a culture where that was simply unheard of. Life in her village became unbearable due to the endless ridicule and abuse she received because of her beliefs. She secretly fled with some Hurons to a Christian village outside of Montreal. Kateri found the Christian community in Montreal a place of growth, friendship, and encouragement, a part of the Church’s story regarding treatment of the indigenous people we don’t often hear. On Easter Sunday, 1676, she was baptized. There, Pére Cholonec, a French Jesuit, began more formal training for the one whom he recognized as a little saint in the making. When Kateri died in 1680, immediately the native Christian population venerated her as a saint, so visible was her love of God. St. Kateri, we ask your intercession to maintain our fidelity to the faith, even in the face of persecution and ridicule.