Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha’s mother was a Christian Algonquin, who was taken captive by the Iroquois and given as wife to the chief of the Mohawk clan, the boldest and fiercest of the Five Nations. After Kateri lost her parents and little brother in a smallpox epidemic that left her disfigured and half blind, her uncle, who became the new chief, adopted her.

Kateri refused to marry a Mohawk brave, and, at age 19, she was baptized with the name Kateri–Catherine on Easter Sunday. After her baptism, Kateri was treated like a slave. Because her Christian beliefs put her in great danger, on the advice of a priest, Kateri ran away to a Christian Indian village at Sault Saint Louis, near Montreal. She humbly accepted an “ordinary” life. She practiced extremely severe fasting as penance for the conversion of her nation.

Kateri Tekakwitha 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, disappeared and a smile came upon her lips. She was beatified in 1980 and canonized in 2012.