Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680) was a Mohawk-Algonquin woman born in present-day New York. Orphaned as a child, she converted to Catholicism and faced persecution from her tribe. Kateri devoted her life to prayer, penitential practices, and caring for the sick and elderly. She is known as the "Lily of the Mohawks" and was the first Native American to be beatified and canonized. Kateri is the patroness of ecology, the environment, and Indigenous people.