Kateri Tekakwitha

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” was the first Native American to be canonized. Born in 1656 in present-day New York to a Mohawk father and Algonquin Christian mother, she survived smallpox which left her face scarred and her vision impaired. She was baptized at age twenty and lived a life of remarkable prayer, penance, and charity until her death at twenty-four.