Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Upon her conversion, Saint Kateri Tekakwith was treated as a slave. Because she would not work on Sunday, she received no food that day, but Her life in grace grew. She told a missionary that she often meditated on the great dignity of being baptized. She was moved by God’s love for human beings and saw the dignity of each of her people.

Her conversion and holy life created great danger for her, so, on the advice of a priest, Kateri stole away one night and began a 200-mile walking journey to a Christian Indian village at Sault St. Louis, near Montreal.

Until she visited Montreal, Kateri did not know about religious life for women. She and two friends wanted to start a community, but the local priest dissuaded her. She humbly accepted an “ordinary” life. She practiced extremely severe fasting as penance for the conversion of her nation. She died the afternoon before Holy Thursday. Witnesses said that her emaciated face changed color and became like that of a healthy child. The lines of suffering, even the pockmarks left by smallpox, disappeared. She was beatified in 1980 and canonized in 2012.