Solyndra Feast of Kateri Tekakwitha, July 14

The "Lily of the Mohawks" is a North American saint - but not American. She was born before there was a United States in what later became New York.

 Tekakwitha is the name the girl was given by her tribe. It translates to "She who bumps into things."

When Tekakwitha was around four years old, her baby brother and both her parents died of smallpox. She survived the disease, but was left with facial scars and impaired eyesight. The Jesuits’ account of Tekakwitha said that she was a modest girl who avoided social gatherings; she covered much of her head with a blanket because of the smallpox scars. They said that, as an orphan, the girl was under the care of uninterested relatives.

Only known portrait from life of Catherine Tekakwitha, circa 1690, by Father Chauchetière

  Tekakwitha believed in the value of willingly offering suffering. Accordingly, she did not eat very much and was said to add undesirable tastes to her food. She would lie on a mat with thorns. There was a custom among some Native American peoples of the time of piercing oneself with thorns in thanksgiving for some good or an offering for the needs of one's self or others. Knowing the terrible burns given to prisoners, she burned herself. 

What a tough life. It couldn't get more trying could it? Well....

After the defeat by the French forces, the Mohawk were forced into a peace treaty that required them to accept Jesuit missionaries in their villages.

That's just cruel.