Saint Barbara, Virgin and Martyr
by VP
Posted on Wednesday December 04, 2024 at 12:00AM in Saints
PARENTS ACCORDING ΤΟ THE ORDER OF NATURE.- Those parents who seek to corrupt either the faith or morals of their children are guilty of a heinous crime. Such there are, even in the bosom of Christianity. Let us cite one example, however, borrowed from paganism and from another period. St. Barbara, a young virgin of Nicomedia, had been brought up secretly in the Christian religion. It was not possible, however, that her father, a headstrong supporter of the superstitions of paganism, should remain ignorant of the fact. On learning it, he broke out into a violent rage, and then, being unable to move his daughter either by tears or threats, he shut her up in a tower, and kept her in prison there. Finding that he gained nothing by such treatment, of his own accord he denounced her to the judges during the persecution of Maximinus. To the application of burning coals to her body, the cutting off of her breasts, to the rack, and the dislocation of her limbs, the Christian virgin bravely submitted. She was beheaded in the year 255 or 256. The acts of her martyrdom are not well known, but she is held in universal veneration.
MORAL REFLECTION. -The Saviour has foretold it: "You shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, but in your patience you shall possess your souls."-(Luke xxi. 16.) Pictorial half hours with the saints by Rev. Fr. Auguste François Lecanu
Prayer to St. Barbara: O GOD, Who hast chosen St. Barbara to be the consolation of the living and of the dying, grant, we beseech Thee, through her intercession, that we may always live in Thy holy love, and place all our hopes in the merits of the most bitter Passion of Thy Son, so that we may never be surprised by the death of sin, but that, fortified by the Sacraments of Penance, Holy Eucharist and Extreme Unction, we may enter without fear upon the journey to eternal glory. This we ask most earnestly through the same Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen. ( Leo XIII., March 21, 1879.) Devotions and Prayers for the Sick-room by Rev. Fr. Joseph Alois Krebs 1889
