Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
About
Kateri Tekakwitha was a Mohawk Indian who became the first Native American Saint. There are many images and stories about Kateri, a woman who lived between 1656 and 1680, a woman I have grown to love dearly. She is of the Mohawk Turtle Clan, given the name Tekakwitha. In the Mohawk language, her name is pronounced "gaderi dega' gwita".
Kateri Tekakwitha lived a short but extraordinary life beginning in a Mohawk village near present day Auriesville, New York. At the age of four she contracted smallpox that scarred her face and affected her eyesight and also claimed the lives of her parents and brother. She was then adopted by an uncle who happened to be Chief of the Turtle Clan near Fonda, New York. At the age of twenty she was baptized by a Jesuit priest and took the name Kateri. Her life became devoted to prayer and teaching children and helping the sick and elderly. Her Catholic conversion caused a certain degree of friction within the tribe and so in August 1677 Kateri left the Mohawk village and moved to the Saint Xavier Mission near Montreal, Canada where she was free to practice her Christian faith. She continued her life of faith and prayer until her very last day, April 17, 1680 when she died from an illness at the age of 24. It was witnessed a few minutes after she died that the discernible scars on her face suddenly disappeared, an event that was widely viewed as a miracle.
The path to Kateri Tekakwitha's canonization was a long one beginning in first half of the twentieth century when she was declared Venerable Tekakwitha by Pope Pius XII on January 3rd, 1943. It wasn't until June 22, 1980 that she was beatified Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha by Pope John Paul II in Rome, Italy. Kateri finally achieved Sainthood on October 21, 2012 when she was canonized Saint Kateri Tekakwitha at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI.
I call her a "good relative" since she is that to me. She demonstrates how we should be with our relatives. Today she is revered by legions of people around the world who ask for her prayers. The bandanna I designed incorporates turtles and lilies to honor Kateri Tekakwitha's heritage. She is affectionately known as "The Lily of the Mohawks".