Saint Kateri Tekakwitha is a special patron of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her intercession is uniquely fitting for a shrine dedicated to the Mother of the Americas: as a Native American, Saint Kateri is one of the first flowers of heroic sanctity in North America; more, her sanctity was nurtured and strengthened by a strong devotion to Mary, especially through the Holy Rosary. Her feast day is July 14.
Saint Kateri was born near what is now Auriesville, New York. Her mother was a Christian Algonquin who was taken captive by the Iroquois, one of the fiercest tribes of the Five Nations. After Kateri’s mother and father died in a smallpox epidemic, she was raised by her uncle, who hated the Blackrobes, or the Jesuit missionaries who served in the tribe.
At 19, she was baptized, even though that meant ridicule and mistreatment. At 23, she took a vow of virginity, choosing to give her life totally to God. She desired to become a religious sister, but accepted the advice of a priest to live out her life among her people. Kateri died on the day before Holy Thursday, April 17, 1680. She had given her life in penance, prayer, and service, for the conversion of her nation.
The altar at the Shrine Church holds a first-class relic of Saint Kateri.
The Shrine also boasts an outdoor devotional area along the Meditation Trail leading to the Shrine Church. It features a bronze statue commissioned with the help of the Native American community which depicts the essence of the spiritual life of Saint Kateri: having gone to the woods to be alone with Our Lord, as she frequently did, she cradles in her left arm a cross fashioned together out of fallen branches she found there, while wrapped around her right hand and arm is a Rosary, one of her main attributes.
In honor of her feast day, get your own copy of this beautiful image on a prayer card to Saint Kateri under her title Lily of the Mohawks. Find this prayer card at the Flores Mariae Gift Shop, along with many other items, including a saint medal and a biography from the famous Ignatius Press Vision line of books.
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