St. Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. She was born in 1656, in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon. Her dedication to virginity was instinctive: Kateri did not know about religious life for women until she visited 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 Maundy Thursday. Witnesses said that her emaciated face changed color and became like that of a healthy child on her death. The lines of suffering, even the pockmarks, disappeared and the touch of a smile came upon her lips. She was beatified in 1980 and canonized in 2012. She is the patroness of ecology and the environment, people in exile and Native Americans. Her name, Kateri, is the Mohawk form of Catherine, which she took from St. Catherine of Siena.
