WOMEN SAINTS AND MARTYRS JUNE 13-19

June 13

St. Damhnade. Virgin venerated in Ireland.

St. Felicula, 90 A.D. Virgin martyr, the foster sister of St. Petronilla. Flaccus, a powerful Roman official, proposed marriage to Petronilla and was refused. He then had her arrested. After Petronilla’s martyrdom, Felicula went without food or water in the prison. She was then thrown into a sewer, where she died. St. Nicomedes recovered her remains.

St. Aquilina. Aquilina was born of Christian parents in Biblus, Phoenicia. She was arrested during Diocletian's persecution of Christians, and though only twelve, was beaten and decapitated by order of the Magistrate, Volusian, when she would not renounce her Faith.

June 15

St. Adelaide, 1250 A.D. Also called Aleydis, a contemplative and miracle worker born in Schwaerbeek, Belgium, who was placed in a Cistercian convent at La Cambre when only seven years old. She grew up in this religious community and was beloved because of her humility and goodness. The nuns, however, discovered that Adelaide had contracted leprosy and were forced to isolate her for health reasons. Adelaide suffered this in silence, facing her physical and mental agonies alone. She received many graces, including visions and ecstasies and many miracles were credited to her intercession. Going blind and becoming paralyzed, Adelaide died on June 11, 1250.

St. Edburga of Winchester, 960 A.D. Benedictine abbess, and the daughter of King Edward the Elder and his third wife Edgiva, and the granddaughter of Alfred the Great. She became a nun at Winchester Abbey, then abbess, and was known for her miracles. Her shrine is at Pershore, in Worchestershire, England.

St. Germaine Cousin, Patron of victims of child abuse. When Hortense decided to marry Laurent Cousin in Pibrac, France, it was not out of love for his infant daughter. Germaine was everything Hortense despised. Weak and ill, the girl had also been born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed. Hortense replaced the love that Germaine has lost when her mother died with cruelty and abuse.

St. Alice. She was born at Shaerbeck, near Brussels. At the age of seven, she entered a Cistercian convent named Camera Sanctae Mariae, and she remained there for the rest of her life. The Cistercian community was inspired by her spirit of humility. However, at an early age, she contracted leprosy and had to be isolated. The disease caused Aleydis intense suffering, and eventually she became paralyzed and was afflicted with blindness. Alice's greatest consolation came from reception of the Holy Eucharist, although she was not allowed to drink from the cup because of the danger of contagion. However, the Lord appeared to her with assurance that to receive under one species, was sufficient. Known for visions and ecstasies, she died in 1250.

St. Benildis, 853 A.D. Spanish woman martyr, converted by the heroic death of St. Athanasius. A priest, St. Athanasius, died in the city of Córdoba at the hands of the Moors, the Islamic rulers of that era. Benildis converted during the martyrdom of St. Athanasius and she died at the stake the following day.

St. Lybe, 303 A.D. Virgin martyr of Eutropia, with Eutropia and Leonis. They died at Palmyra, Syria. Lybe was beheaded. Eutropia, a maiden of twelve, was slain by archers, and Leonis, the sister of Lybe, was burned at the stake.

June 16

St. Luthgard, 1246 A.D. One of the outstanding mystics of the Middle Ages, a Cistercian nun, sometimes called Lutgardis. She was born in Tongres, Brabant, Belgium. When she was twelve she was placed in St. Catherine’s Benedictine Convent at Saint-Trond because her dowry for marriage had been lost by her family. A vision of Christ compelled Lutgard to become a Benedictine. She had many mystical experiences, levitated, and had a form of the stigmata. In order to avoid being made an abbess, Lutgard joined the Cistercians at Aywieres. She lived a mystical life there for three decades and was famed for her spiritual wisdom and miracles. During the last eleven years of her life she was blind. She died on June 16 and is still revered as a leading mystic of the thirteenth century.

Sts. Quiriacus and Julitta, 304 A.D. Martyrs of Tarsus. Quiricus was the three year old son of Julitta, a noble widow of that city. Arrested for being a Christian, Julitta enraged the Roman Magistrate by scratching his face. Her punishment before execution was to watch while Quiricus was beaten to death.

June 17

St. Emily de Vialar. Virgin and Foundress of the Sisters of St. Joseph "of the Apparition”. Anne Marguerite Adelaide Emily de Vialar was the eldest child and only daughter of Baron James Augustine de Vialar and his wife Antoinette, daughter of that Baron de Portal who was physician-in-ordinary to Louis XVIII and Charles X of France. She was born at Gaillac in Languedoc in 1797. At the age of fifteen she was removed from school in Paris to be companion to her father, now a widower, at Gaillac; but unhappily, differences arose between them because of Emily's refusal to consider a suitable marriage.

St. Teresa of Portugal. Teresa was the eldest daughter of King Sancho I of Portugal and sister of SS. Mafalda and Sanchia. She married her cousin, King Alfonso IX of Leon. The couple had several children, but when the marriage was declared invalid because of consanguinity, she returned to Portugal and founded a Benedictine monastery on her estate at Lorvao. She replaced the monks with nuns following the Cistercian Rule, expanded the monastery to accommodate three hundred nuns, and lived there. In about 1231, at the request of Alfonso's second wife and widow, Berengaria, she settled a dispute among their children over the succession of the throne of Leon, and on her return to Lorvao, she probably became a nun.

June 18

St. Marina, Virgin. She flourished in Bithynia in the eighth century, and served God under the habit of a monk, with extraordinary fervor. Her wonderful humility, meekness, and patience are celebrated in the lives of the fathers of the desert. She died about the middle of the eighth century. Her relics were translated from Constantinople to Venice in 1230, and are venerated there in The Church which bears her name. She is also titular saint of a parish church in Paris, which is mentioned by the celebrated William of Paris, in 1228. In it is preserved a portion of her relics, brought from Venice. St. Marina is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology and in the New Paris Breviary on the 18th of June; and the feast of the translation of her relics is kept at Venice on the 17th of July.

St. Alena, 640 A.D. Martyr born near Brussels, Belgium. Born into a pagan family, Alena became a Christian in secret. She was arrested and martyred during a secret ceremony of the Holy Eucharist.

St. Aquilina, 293 A.D. Virgin martyr beheaded at Byblos. She was reported to have been only twelve years old.

St. Elizabeth of Schonau, 1164 A.D. Benedictine abbess who was a gifted mystic. She had her first vision in 1152 and was known for ecstasies, prophecies, and diabolical visitations. She became abbess in 1157. Her cult was never formalized, but she is listed as a saint in the Roman Martyrology. Her brother, Ethbert, a Benedictine abbot, wrote her biography and recorded her visions in three books.

St. Osmanna, 700 A.D. Nun, also called Osanna. She served in a Benedictine convent in Jouarre, France.