St. Kateri Tekakwitha
Jul 14
Patron Saint of the Loss of Parents, People in Exile, People Ridiculed for Their Piety, Native Americans
Tekakwitha, baptized Kateri, “The Lily of the Mohawks” was born in 1656 near the town of Auriesville, New York, the daughter of a Mohawk warrior, and a captured, Christian Algonquin woman, Tagaskouita.
Between 1661 and 1663 a small pox epidemic afflicted Kateri’s tribe. Both her parents and her brother died, and though also contracting the disease, she survived though her face was left scared and her eyesight affected. She was adopted by a paternal aunt and her husband, a chief.
At seventeen the young Mohawk girl turned down an offer of marriage, and though pressed, still refused.