Women Saints and Martyrs

September 19 St. Emily de Rodat . Born near Rodez, France, she became a nun at Maison St. Cyr when eighteen. In 1815 after much dissatisfaction, she decided that her vocation was in teaching poor children. With the approval of Abbe Marty, her spiritual adviser, and the aid of three young assistants, she began this work in her room at St. Cyr. This was the start of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Villefranche. It grew rapidly, establishing its own mother house and branches. In time, St Emily extended its activities to caring for unfortunate women, orphans and the aged. She saw thirty eight institutions established before she died. She was canonized in 1950. St. Maria de Cerevellon . Superior of the Mercedarians, the order of Our Lady of Ransom, also called Maria de Socos, “Mary of Help.” Born into a noble family of Barcelona, Mary formed a group that evolved into the Mercedarians. She labored among the Christian slaves of the Moors, and she is the patroness of sailors in Spain.

September 14 Sts. Caerealis and Sallustia, 251 A.D. Wife and her soldier husband martyred in Rome. They were converted by Pope St. Cornelius. Caerealis and Sallustia were slain during the persecution conducted by Emperor Trajanus Decius. September 15 St. Eutropia, 5th century. A widow of Auvergne, France, revered for her holiness. She was praised by Sidonius Apollinaris. St. Melitina, 2nd century. Virgin martyr of Marcianopolis in Thrace, modern Greece. She suffered in the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius. Melitina’s relics were enshrined on the island of Lemnos, in the Aegean. September 16 St. Edith of Wilton . Edith of Wilton was the daughter of King Edgar of England and Wulfrida. She was born at Kensing, England, and was brought as a very young child to Wilton Abbey by her mother, who later became a nun there and Abbess. Edith became a nun when fifteen, declined her father's offer of three abbacies, and refused to leave the convent to become queen when her half-brother, Kin

September 5 St. Obdulia, Virgin , She was venerated at Toledo, Spain. Her remains are enshrined in Toledo, but details of her life are not extant. September 7 St. Regina. Martyr . She was an actual martyr at Autun, France. The daughter of a pagan, Clement, and tortured and beheaded during the second century when she refused to marry the proconsul Olybrius. Feast day is Sept 7th. St. Grimonia . Grimonia was the daughter of a pagan Irish chief, and that when she was twelve years old; she was converted to Christianity and made a vow of perpetual virginity. Her father, in defiance of or not understanding such a vow, wished her to marry, and when she refused, shut her up. Grimonia escaped and fled to France, where she became a solitary in the forest of Thierache in Picardy. Here the contemplation of the beauty of created things would often bring her to the state of ecstasy. After a prolonged search, the messengers of her father traced her to her retreat, where they before her the alternat