40 Facts About Kateri Tekakwitha

Kateri Tekakwitha took a vow of perpetual virginity, left her village, and moved for the remaining five years of her life to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, just south of Montreal.

Kateri Tekakwitha was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 October 2012.

Kateri Tekakwitha was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Kahenta, an Algonquin woman, who had been captured in a raid and then adopted and assimilated into the tribe.

When Kateri Tekakwitha was around four years old, her baby brother and both of her parents died of smallpox.

Kateri Tekakwitha survived, but suffered from facial scars and impaired eyesight.

Kateri Tekakwitha was adopted and went to live with her father's sister and her husband, a chief of the Turtle Clan.

At age 11, Kateri Tekakwitha was visited by three members of the Society of Jesus.

Kateri Tekakwitha was greatly impressed by these Jesuits, who were likely the first white Christians she had encountered in her life.

Kateri Tekakwitha began to lead a life, led by the teachings of the three Jesuits.

Kateri Tekakwitha was staying with her anti-Christian uncle at the time, and many other people from her tribe opposed her conversion.

The Jesuits' account of Kateri Tekakwitha said that she was a modest girl who avoided social gatherings and covered her head because of the scars.

Kateri Tekakwitha became skilled at traditional women's arts like making clothing, weaving mats, and preparing food.

Kateri Tekakwitha grew up in a period of upheaval, as the Mohawk interacted with French and Dutch colonists, who were competing in the lucrative fur trade.

In 1667, when Kateri Tekakwitha was 11 years old, she met the Jesuit missionaries Jacques Fremin, Jacques Bruyas, and Jean Pierron, who had come to the village.

Kateri Tekakwitha's uncle opposed any contact with them because he did not want her to convert to Christianity.

Kateri Tekakwitha fled the cabin and hid in a nearby field and continued to resist marriage.

Lamberville stated that Kateri Tekakwitha did everything she could to practice her Catholic faith in a non-Catholic society, which often caused minor conflicts with her longhouse residents.

Kateri Tekakwitha fled her home and travelled 200 miles to St Francis Xavier, a Christian Indian mission in Sault Saint-Louis.

Kateri Tekakwitha found it was a community full of other Native Americans who had converted.

Kateri Tekakwitha was said to have put thorns on her sleeping mat and lain on them while praying for her relatives' conversion and forgiveness.

Kateri Tekakwitha lived at Kahnawake the remaining two years of her life.

Kateri Tekakwitha would have known other people in the longhouse who had migrated from their former village of Gandaouague.

Kateri Tekakwitha wanted them to adopt these rather than use Mohawk ritual practices.

Around Holy Week of 1680, friends noted that Kateri Tekakwitha's health was failing.

Kateri Tekakwitha purportedly appeared to three individuals in the weeks after her death; her mentor Anastasia Tegonhatsiongo, her friend Marie-Therese Tegaiaguenta, and Chauchetiere.

The first account of Kateri Tekakwitha was not published until 1715.

Religious images of Kateri Tekakwitha are often decorated with a lily and cross, with feathers or turtle as cultural accessories alluding to her Native American birth.

Colloquial epithets for Kateri Tekakwitha are The Lily of the Mohawks, the Mohawk Maiden, the Pure and Tender Lily, the Flower among True Men, the Lily of Purity and The New Star of the New World.

The process for Kateri Tekakwitha's canonization was initiated by United States Catholics at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1885, followed by Canadian Catholics.

Kateri Tekakwitha was beatified as on June 22,1980, by Pope John Paul II.

Kateri Tekakwitha's healing was the first of Tekakwitha's miracles accepted by the Vatican.

Kateri Tekakwitha was canonized on October 21,2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.

Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American woman of North America to be canonized by the Catholic Church.

Kateri Tekakwitha is featured in four national shrines in the United States: the Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine in Fonda, New York; the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York; the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC; and The National Shrine of the Cross in the Woods, an open-air sanctuary in Indian River, Michigan.

The historian Allan Greer takes this account to mean that Kateri Tekakwitha was known in 18th-century New France, and she was already perceived to have healing abilities.

Such incidents were evidence that Kateri Tekakwitha was possibly a saint.

Sister Kateri Mitchell visited the boy's bedside and placed a relic of Tekakwitha, a bone fragment, against his body and prayed together with his parents.

Much of the debate surrounding Kateri Tekakwitha's canonization is built upon the idea that it was done to bolster the image of the Church among Native Americans.

Mohawk journalist Chaz Kader, who was raised Catholic but now practices ancient longhouse traditions, noted that while many traditionalist Mohawk recognize the reverence their Catholic relatives and friends have for Kateri Tekakwitha, many remain troubled by the portrayal of her life by the Catholic Church.

Since 1939, the Kateri Tekakwitha Conference meets annually to support Catholic missions among Native Americans.