Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (1680)

[Saint Kateri was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21, 2012. This piece was written when she was yet a blessed.]

Blessed Kateri was an American Indian born at Ossernenon (Auriesville) in New York State in 1656. She was baptized at the age of twenty by a Jesuit missionary and lived a life of prayer, penance and care of the sick. She took a vow of perpetual virginity. On April 17, 1680, she died, at the age of twenty four. The “Lily of the Mohawks,” as she is called, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980. In the United States her feast is on July 14.