St. Kateri Tekakwitha, The Lily of the Mohawks

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

St. Kateri Tekakwitha lived a life marked by tragedy and upheaval, but also a lot of grace and love. She was born to Mohawk Indian parents (though her mother was originally Algonquin), who both died from smallpox when she was four. She survived smallpox, but the disease left her face scarred and her eyesight damaged. Because of this handicap she was called, "She who bumps into things," or in Mohawk, "Tekakwitha." At a young age she pledged to remain a virgin and not get married, which was a very strange and unheard of thing among Mohawk women. After exposure to Catholic missionaries she became Catholic and was baptized with the Mohawk form of the name "Catherine," which is "Kateri." Due to the intense ridicule she suffered for her conversion she left her village and moved to Kahnawake, a village for Native Americans who had become Catholic. Surrounded by fellow Catholics and with a few particular friends who helped her to go deeper into her faith she became even more devout. She died at just 24 years old due in part to lingering health issues from her childhood bout with smallpox.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.
0:11.0	If you like this podcast and would like to support our work, please visit American Catholic History.org slash support.
0:18.9	I'm Noelle Heister Crowe.
0:20.3	And I'm Tom Crow.
0:21.5	Today we're talking about St. Cateri Teclawitha, the lily of the mohawks.
0:26.7	She was the first American Indian woman to be canonized.
0:30.4	Right.
0:30.9	The first American Indian to be canonized was St. Juan Diego, who had the vision of Our Lady
0:35.8	at Tepeyak in Mexico, and whose Tilma has the
0:38.8	miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. St. Cateri didn't have any visions that we know about,
0:44.5	and she didn't leave behind anything except a legacy of simple faith and sanctity. Many miracles
0:50.5	have been attributed to her intercession since shortly after her death.
0:54.7	Yeah.
1:00.5	And before we get into her story, just something little that you pointed out about her the other day,
1:06.3	and that I had already experienced the pronunciation of her name, Weebel said Kateri.
1:06.7	Right.
1:11.8	What I noted was that Kateri became her name when she was baptized at 19 years old.
1:21.1	Prior to that, she was known by her Mohawk name, Tekewitha. But when she was baptized, she took the name of Catherine of Sienna as her baptismal name.
1:30.4	The Mohawk version of Catherine is Katiri, so it makes sense that the pronunciation should or could actually be Kateri rather than what I've heard a lot, which is Kateri.
1:33.6	Yeah, and I've also heard Kateri a lot more, but I worked for a time in the Rochester,
1:39.0	New York area, and there I heard it pronounced as Kateri, like you said, not Catery like we're both used to.
1:46.4	Yeah.
	...

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