St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, Lac du Flambeau, will honor St. Kateri Tekakwitha with a Mass and statue dedication, Sunday, July 12.
Following the 11 a.m. Mass, there will be a feast and fellowship in the church hall. All are welcome to attend the event.
St. Kateri Tekakwitha is called the “Lily of the Mohawks,” and is considered the Catholic patroness of ecology and the environment. She was born in 1656 on the upper portion of Lake Ontario, in what is now upstate New York. Her mother was an Algonquin native who had been baptized Catholic. Her father was a Mohawk chief.
Tekakwitha took the Christian name of “Catherine” which is “Kateri” in French. In 1680, at the age of 24, she died. She never fulfilled her dream of starting a convent for Native American sisters. Upon her death, her facial scars from smallpox miraculously disappeared.
In 1980, Pope John Paul II beatified Kateri Tekakwitha. She was canonized Oct. 21, 2012, by Pope Benedict XVI – the first Native American woman from North America to be beatified and canonized.
