St. Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine (Kahnawake)

The Story

At the St. Francis Xavier Mission in Kahnawake, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal, rests St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the 'Lily of the Mohawks' and the first Indigenous person of North America to be canonized a saint. Kateri was born in 1656 at Ossernenon, a Mohawk village in present-day New York State, to a Mohawk chief and an Algonquin Christian mother. A smallpox epidemic in her childhood took her family and left her scarred and with weakened eyesight. After encountering Jesuit missionaries, she was baptized at about age twenty and, facing hardship in her village for her faith, made the long journey north in 1677 to the mission settlement at Kahnawake, where she lived a hidden life of prayer, penance, care for the sick, and consecrated virginity. She died on April 17, 1680, at only twenty-four years of age. According to the accounts of the Jesuit witnesses present, the scars on her face appeared to fade shortly after her death — a report long treasured in the tradition surrounding her. Devotion to Kateri spread among both Indigenous and settler communities, and favors and healings have been attributed to her intercession across the centuries. Blessed John Paul II beatified her in 1980, and Pope Benedict XVI canonized her on October 21, 2012, following the Church's recognition of the healing of a young boy attributed to her intercession. Her relics rest in a marble tomb in the mission church at Kahnawake, where the community she joined continues to honor her, and where pilgrims — especially Indigenous Catholics from across North America — come to seek her prayers.

Church Recognition

St. Kateri Tekakwitha was beatified by St. John Paul II in 1980 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21, 2012, becoming the first Native American saint; her tomb at the St. Francis Xavier Mission is a recognized national shrine in Canada.

Catholic Teaching

Kateri's tomb bears witness to the communion of saints (CCC 946-962) and the Church's veneration of relics (CCC 1674), and her life shows that the call to holiness is universal, flowering in every people and culture (CCC 2013).

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The St. Francis Xavier Mission at Kahnawake holds her tomb.

Go Deeper

Visit the shrine's official website at https://nationalsaintkaterishrine.ca, read the early Jesuit biographies by Fathers Chauchetière and Cholenec on which her story rests, and see the Catechism on the universal call to holiness (CCC 2012-2016).