WOMEN SAINTS AND MARTYRS AUGUST 22-28
August 22
St. Ethelgitha. Benedictine abbess of Northumbria, England.
August 23
Sts. Asterius and Companions, 303 A.D. Martyr with his brothers Claudius and Neon. In the persecution conducted by Emperor Diocletian, the brothers were denounced by their stepmother to Lysias, the proconsul of Cilicia. The brothers were scourged to death for the faith. Domnina, a Christian woman, was also beaten to death, and Theonilla, a Christian widow, was beaten and burned to death with live coals.
St. Tydfil, 480 A.D. Welsh martyr, reportedly from the clan of Brychan. She was slain by a group of pagan Picts or Saxons and is venerated at Merthyr-Tydfil, Glamorgan. Wales.
St. Ascelina, 1195 A.D. Cistercian mystic and relative of St. Bernard. She was born in 1121 and entered the Cistercian convent at Boulancourt, Haute-Marne, France. There she was known for her mystical gifts.
St. Ebba, 870 A.D. Abbess of Coldingham, England, on the Scottish border, called “the Younger.” She and her nuns were martyred by Danes in an invasion. She mutilated her face to discourage rape by the invading Danes. The raiders set fire to Coldingham, killing all of the nuns.
August 24
St. Aurea, 270 A.D. Martyr, probably at Ostia, in Italy. No reliable details survive of her death, but her shrine at Ostia attests to her martyrdom.
St. Jane Antide Thouret, 1828 A.D. Foundress of the Institute of the Daughters of Charity in 1798. Jane entered the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul but was forced to return to secular life by the French Revolution. In Besancon France, she started a school for poor girls which later became the Daughters of Charity. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI.
August 25
St. Patricia. Patricia according to legend was of a noble and perhaps royal family in Constantinople who fled to Italy to escape marriage and became a virgin consecrated to God in Rome. She returned to Constantinople, distributed her wealth to the poor, and then went back to Italy; where she died soon after, at Naples. She is a patron of Naples, and like St. Januarius there, a vial believed to be filled with her blood reportedly liquefies thirteen hundred years after her death.
St. Maria Michaela Desmaisieres. She was a Spanish Lady born in Madrid in 1809, lost her mother in childhood, and resisted all attempts to persuade her to marry; she lived with her brother for some years while he was Spanish ambassador at Paris and Brussels. All her interest was given to the religious instruction of the ignorant, the rescue of the unprotected and the fallen, and the relief of sickness and poverty. When she returned to Spain she started more than one organization for work of this kind; her most lasting achievement was the foundation of the congregation of Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity, of which she was elected Mother General in 1859. Its work is for women of the streets. This Institute was approved by the Holy See for five years in the lifetime of its foundress, and shortly after her death it obtained permanent recognition. It had in the meantime spread widely and was full of promise for the future. In 1865 in connection with this final approbation Mother Michaela had set out on her way to Rome, when an epidemic of cholera broke out in Valencia. She hastened to the help of her religious daughters, who were attending the plague-stricken. But though she had more than once in previous outbreaks attended cholera patients, she took the infection herself and died a victim of charity on August 24th. She was canonized in 1934.
St. Hunegund, 690 A.D. Benedictine nun who received the veil from Pope St. Vitalian. Forced to marry, she was released from her vows on a pilgrimage to Rome, where the pope aided her religious vocation. She entered the abbey at Homblieres, France, and her former husband served there as chaplain.
Sts. Nemesius and Lucilla. Roman martyrs put to death under Emperor Valerian. Nemesius was a deacon in Rome, and Lucilla was his daughter.
August 26
St. Bichier, 1773-1838 A.D. Foundress. Born in the Chateau des Anges, near LeBlanc, France (her father was lord of the manor); she was sent at ten to a convent at Poitiers. On the death of her father in 1792 she met St. Andrew Fournet who was trying to reestablish his parish church at Maille and under his guidance she devoted herself to teaching and caring for the sick and needy. After her mother died in 1804 she joined the Carmelites at Poitiers; eight months later, the Society of Providence; in 1806 with four assistants who had been formed into a community by Abbe Fournet she moved into Chateau de Molante near Maille and the Daughters of the Cross also called the Sisters of St. Andrew came into being. The congregation received diocesan approval in 1816 and spread rapidly. In Igon in the Basque country she met Fr. Michael Garicoits spiritual adviser of the house there and encouraged him in founding the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Betharram. She was canonized in 1947.
St. Teresa of Jesus Jornet Ibars, 1897 A.D. Foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Born in Catalonia, Spain, she overcame many difficulties in her youth and eventually became a teacher at Lerida. Desirous to enter the religious life, she failed to win entry into the convent at the advice of her spiritual director, decided to launch her own congregation. On January 27, 1872, at Barbastro, Spain, she began the Little Sisters of the Poor, called the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Age. Considerable zeal, she had founded by the time of death more than fifty houses for her congregation. Beatified in 1958, she was canonized in 1974 by Pope VI.
August 27
St. Monica, Patron of Wives and Abuse Victims, 387 A.D. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother Lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Catholic faith in 370· He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious Life. St. Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received strengthened her. St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387. St. Monica died later that same year, on the way back to Africa from Rome in the Italian town of Ostia.
St. Anthusa the Younger. Martyr of Persia, so called the Younger to distinguish her from St. Anthusa of Seleucia. Anthusa is believed to have been a native of Persia. She was martyred there for the faith by being sewn in a sack and drowned in a well.
St. Euthalia. Virgin martyr of Leontini, on Sicily.
St. Margaret the Barefooted. Wife and model of charity. She was born into a poor family at San Severino, Ancona, Italy. Married at fifteen, she suffered through ill treatment from her husband with prayer, while begging alms for the poor and sick. She walked as barefooted as the lowliest beggar.
St. Ethelgitha. Benedictine abbess of Northumbria, England.
August 23
Sts. Asterius and Companions, 303 A.D. Martyr with his brothers Claudius and Neon. In the persecution conducted by Emperor Diocletian, the brothers were denounced by their stepmother to Lysias, the proconsul of Cilicia. The brothers were scourged to death for the faith. Domnina, a Christian woman, was also beaten to death, and Theonilla, a Christian widow, was beaten and burned to death with live coals.
St. Tydfil, 480 A.D. Welsh martyr, reportedly from the clan of Brychan. She was slain by a group of pagan Picts or Saxons and is venerated at Merthyr-Tydfil, Glamorgan. Wales.
St. Ascelina, 1195 A.D. Cistercian mystic and relative of St. Bernard. She was born in 1121 and entered the Cistercian convent at Boulancourt, Haute-Marne, France. There she was known for her mystical gifts.
St. Ebba, 870 A.D. Abbess of Coldingham, England, on the Scottish border, called “the Younger.” She and her nuns were martyred by Danes in an invasion. She mutilated her face to discourage rape by the invading Danes. The raiders set fire to Coldingham, killing all of the nuns.
August 24
St. Aurea, 270 A.D. Martyr, probably at Ostia, in Italy. No reliable details survive of her death, but her shrine at Ostia attests to her martyrdom.
St. Jane Antide Thouret, 1828 A.D. Foundress of the Institute of the Daughters of Charity in 1798. Jane entered the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul but was forced to return to secular life by the French Revolution. In Besancon France, she started a school for poor girls which later became the Daughters of Charity. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI.
August 25
St. Patricia. Patricia according to legend was of a noble and perhaps royal family in Constantinople who fled to Italy to escape marriage and became a virgin consecrated to God in Rome. She returned to Constantinople, distributed her wealth to the poor, and then went back to Italy; where she died soon after, at Naples. She is a patron of Naples, and like St. Januarius there, a vial believed to be filled with her blood reportedly liquefies thirteen hundred years after her death.
St. Maria Michaela Desmaisieres. She was a Spanish Lady born in Madrid in 1809, lost her mother in childhood, and resisted all attempts to persuade her to marry; she lived with her brother for some years while he was Spanish ambassador at Paris and Brussels. All her interest was given to the religious instruction of the ignorant, the rescue of the unprotected and the fallen, and the relief of sickness and poverty. When she returned to Spain she started more than one organization for work of this kind; her most lasting achievement was the foundation of the congregation of Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity, of which she was elected Mother General in 1859. Its work is for women of the streets. This Institute was approved by the Holy See for five years in the lifetime of its foundress, and shortly after her death it obtained permanent recognition. It had in the meantime spread widely and was full of promise for the future. In 1865 in connection with this final approbation Mother Michaela had set out on her way to Rome, when an epidemic of cholera broke out in Valencia. She hastened to the help of her religious daughters, who were attending the plague-stricken. But though she had more than once in previous outbreaks attended cholera patients, she took the infection herself and died a victim of charity on August 24th. She was canonized in 1934.
St. Hunegund, 690 A.D. Benedictine nun who received the veil from Pope St. Vitalian. Forced to marry, she was released from her vows on a pilgrimage to Rome, where the pope aided her religious vocation. She entered the abbey at Homblieres, France, and her former husband served there as chaplain.
Sts. Nemesius and Lucilla. Roman martyrs put to death under Emperor Valerian. Nemesius was a deacon in Rome, and Lucilla was his daughter.
August 26
St. Bichier, 1773-1838 A.D. Foundress. Born in the Chateau des Anges, near LeBlanc, France (her father was lord of the manor); she was sent at ten to a convent at Poitiers. On the death of her father in 1792 she met St. Andrew Fournet who was trying to reestablish his parish church at Maille and under his guidance she devoted herself to teaching and caring for the sick and needy. After her mother died in 1804 she joined the Carmelites at Poitiers; eight months later, the Society of Providence; in 1806 with four assistants who had been formed into a community by Abbe Fournet she moved into Chateau de Molante near Maille and the Daughters of the Cross also called the Sisters of St. Andrew came into being. The congregation received diocesan approval in 1816 and spread rapidly. In Igon in the Basque country she met Fr. Michael Garicoits spiritual adviser of the house there and encouraged him in founding the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Betharram. She was canonized in 1947.
St. Teresa of Jesus Jornet Ibars, 1897 A.D. Foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Born in Catalonia, Spain, she overcame many difficulties in her youth and eventually became a teacher at Lerida. Desirous to enter the religious life, she failed to win entry into the convent at the advice of her spiritual director, decided to launch her own congregation. On January 27, 1872, at Barbastro, Spain, she began the Little Sisters of the Poor, called the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Age. Considerable zeal, she had founded by the time of death more than fifty houses for her congregation. Beatified in 1958, she was canonized in 1974 by Pope VI.
August 27
St. Monica, Patron of Wives and Abuse Victims, 387 A.D. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother Lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Catholic faith in 370· He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious Life. St. Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received strengthened her. St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387. St. Monica died later that same year, on the way back to Africa from Rome in the Italian town of Ostia.
St. Anthusa the Younger. Martyr of Persia, so called the Younger to distinguish her from St. Anthusa of Seleucia. Anthusa is believed to have been a native of Persia. She was martyred there for the faith by being sewn in a sack and drowned in a well.
St. Euthalia. Virgin martyr of Leontini, on Sicily.
St. Margaret the Barefooted. Wife and model of charity. She was born into a poor family at San Severino, Ancona, Italy. Married at fifteen, she suffered through ill treatment from her husband with prayer, while begging alms for the poor and sick. She walked as barefooted as the lowliest beggar.
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