Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha - Sacred Heart, OK, USA - Statues of Religious Figures on Waymarking.com

The Sacred Heart Mission, founded in 1877 was the cornerstone of Catholicism in Oklahoma. This statue of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha is just northeast of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The life-sized bronze statue depicts St. Tekakwitha in Native American garb, with head bowed in prayer and clutching a cross with both hands.

Kateri Tekawitha (1656-1680) was born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, on the south side of the Mohawk River in present-day New York State. Her family died during a smallpox epidemic and her face was scarred by the disease. She converted to Catholicism at age nineteen, and left her village to spend the remaining five years of her life to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, south of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River in New France, now Canada, where she was known as the "Lily of the Mohawks." Refusing to marry, she took a vow of perpetual virginity. She died at age 23 or 24, of unknown cause. Witnesses claim that on her death her smallpox scars vanished. She is said to have appeared to several people after her death, and relics from her grave are associated with miracles. She was the fourth Native American to be venerated in the Catholic Church, and the first to be canonized. She is popularly known as the patroness saint of Native American and First Nations Peoples, integral ecology, and the environment.

Associated Religion(s): Catholicism Statue Location: Sacred Heart Mission Entrance Fee: 0 Artist: unknown Website: [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:
Take a picture of the statue. A waymarker and/or GPSr is not required to be in the image but it doesn't hurt.

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