Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Tekakwitha was born in 1656 at Ossernenon, a Mohawk village in present-day upstate New York, to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. When she was about four, smallpox killed her parents and baby brother and left her face scarred and her eyesight weak. She was raised by an uncle who opposed Christianity.

Moved by the Jesuit missionaries' teaching, she was baptized on Easter Sunday, 1676, taking the name Kateri, after Saint Catherine of Siena. Mocked and threatened for her faith, she fled in 1677 to the Christian mission of Kahnawake near Montreal. There she lived a life of intense prayer, penance and charity, made a vow of virginity in 1679, and cared for the sick and elderly. She died on April 17, 1680, at age 24; witnesses said her scars vanished after death. Pope Benedict XVI canonized her on October 21, 2012.

Native Catholic communities in the United States and Canada celebrate her with Masses, drumming and traditional dress. Her shrines at Fonda and Auriesville, New York, and her tomb at Kahnawake in Quebec draw pilgrims, and the annual Tekakwitha Conference gathers Indigenous Catholics from across North America.