“I am not my own; I have given myself to Jesus. He must be my only love. The state of helpless poverty that may befall me if I do not marry does not frighten me.” - Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, often known as the "Lily of the Mohawks," was the first Native American to be named a saint by the Catholic Church.

She was born in 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin who had been kidnapped by the Iroquois and handed as a wife to the Mohawk clan head, the bravest and strongest of the Five Nations.

Her parents and younger brother died when a smallpox epidemic struck her tribe when she was a young child. She was left with facial scars that would never go away and vision problems. In her adolescence, the scars were a cause of shame. She frequently hid her face by using a blanket. She was adopted by her uncle, who was now the tribe's chief, and her aunts started making plans for her wedding when she was still quite young.

She heard about Christ from three Jesuit fathers who were visiting the tribe in 1667 while living in her uncle's tent, and although she did not request baptism, she had a fervent faith in Jesus. She also understood that, as a consecrated virgin, she had been invited into a close relationship with God.

Kateri had to fight to keep her religion alive in the face of the derision and exclusion she received from her tribe for rejecting the marriage that had been arranged for her. When Fr. Jacques de Lamberville visited the Mohawk community again when she was 18 years old, she requested to be baptized.

The Mohawk village's way of life had turned violent, and prostitution was rampant. Kateri fled to the Quebec town of Caughnawaga, which is close to Montreal, after seeing that this was posing an unacceptable risk to her life and her call to everlasting virginity. There, she developed a strong holiness and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

Kateri was said to be highly pious and would place thorns on her sleeping mat. She frequently prayed for her fellow Mohawks to become Christians. The Jesuit missionaries who worked in the area where Kateri resided claimed that she frequently fasted and that she tainted her meals to make them taste less good. She at least once set herself on fire. These kinds of self-mutilations were typical among the Mohawk.

Kateri was a devoted person who was well-known for her loyalty to God. She was also gravely ill. Her self-mortification and denial rituals might not have been beneficial to her health.

Kateri spent the latter years of her brief life engaging in strict penance and nonstop prayer. She was credited with many miracles while she was still living and was supposed to have attained the pinnacles of spiritual connection with God. Sadly, she fell ill and died at the age of 24 on April 17, 1680, only five years after converting to Catholicism. Her smallpox scars entirely disappeared and her face gleamed with radiant beauty, according to witnesses, minutes after she passed away.

The name, Kateri, is the Mohawk Version of Catherine, which she took from St. Catherine of Siena. St. Kateri Tekakwitha was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980 and she was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. She is the patroness of ecology and the environment, people in exile and Native Americans. Her feast day is celebrated on July 14.

Other Saints of the Day

1. Saint Donan

2. Saint Elias

3. Saint Villicus

4. Saint Anicetus

5. Saint Robert of Chaise Dieu