Lily of the Mohawks
Patron Saint of the Environment
“Let us be protectors of creation,
protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature,
protectors of one another and of the environment.”
Kateri Tekakwitha is popularly known as the patroness saint of Native American and First Nations Peoples, integral ecology, and the environment.
Saint Kateri and the Indigenous Peoples had, and have, an extensive knowledge of the natural world, acquired over thousands of years of direct contact with nature.
Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in Ossernenon (now Auriesville), a Mohawk village in upstate New York. Her father was a Mohawk chief, and her Catholic mother was a member of the Algonquin nation.
When she was a child, a smallpox epidemic decimated most of her village and family. St. Kateri survived the outbreak but would suffer from poor eyesight and ill health the rest of her life. Orphaned by the disease, she would be raised by members of her non-Catholic father’s family.
She was deeply moved by the preaching of the Jesuits who traveled among the villages and was baptized at age 20. Kateri’s baptismal name is “Catherine,” which in the Haudenosaunee (“Iroquois”) language is “Kateri.” Kateri’s Haudenosaunee name, “Tekakwitha,” can be translated as “One who places things in order” or “To put all into place.” Other translations include, “she pushes with her hands” and “one who walks groping for her way” (because of her faulty eyesight).
St. Kateri dedicated her life to prayer, penance, caring for the sick and infirm and adoration of the Eucharist. In 1677, she began a 200-mile trek to a Jesuit mission in Canada where she could more openly practice her faith. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.
Pope Pius XII declared her venerable in 1943, the first step toward sainthood. Pope John Paul II beatified Kateri, known as the Lily of the Mohawks, in 1980. Pope Benedict XVI approved the miracle needed for sainthood on December 19, 2011, citing her intervention in the recovery of a young boy in Washington who was gravely ill from flesh-eating bacteria. Pope Benedict announced on February 18, 2012, that Kateri would be canonized and welcomed into the communion of saints on October 21, 2012. Her feast day is celebrated on July 14th.
Pledge of Commitment
To Protect and Heal God's Creation
We have come to renew our covenant with God and with one another
in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
We have come to help protect God's creation.
We have come as followers of Jesus to commit ourselves anew
to one another and to heal injustice and poverty.
We have come to stand together against all threats to life.
We have come to discover some new beauty every day in God's creation:
the sunrise and sunset, birds, flowers and trees, rainbows in the sky,
the stars, the many forms of life in the forest.
We have come to listen to the "music of the universe"
water flowing over rocks, the wind, trees
bending in the wind, raindrops pattering the roof.
We will remember always that God speaks to us
through the beauty of his creation,
and we will try our best to answer God's call
to reverence all that he has created.
Hymn to Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Patronness of the Environment
Pray For Us!
