Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, also known as “the Lily of the Mohawks,” was born to a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father in 1656 at Auriesville, N.Y., then known as the village of Ossernenon. Her parents died of small pox when she was 4 years old; she also suffered from the disease, which impaired her vision and left scars on her face.

Inspired by Jesuit missionaries, she was baptized at Easter in 1676, receiving the name Kateri. As a young woman, she was under pressure from her relatives to marry and to abandon her Christian faith, so she fled to present-day Quebec, taking refuge at St. Francis Xavier Mission, about nine miles downstream from Kahnawake.

She received her first Communion in 1677 and took a vow of chastity in 1679. She developed a deep spirituality and strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

Blessed Kateri died in 1680 at age 24 and is buried in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, a few miles southwest of Montreal.

Soon after her death, Catholics started to claim favors and miracles had been obtained through her intercession. In 1942, Pope Pius XII approved the decision by the Congregation for Saints’ Causes that her virtues were heroic and in 1943 she was declared venerable.

Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1980. She is the first indigenous North American to be beatified. Her feast day is July 14.