Agatha: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Agatha was a young Christian woman of Sicily, about fifteen years old, born to a wealthy and honoured family; both Palermo and Catania claim her as their own. From childhood she had given her life to Christ. In the persecution of the emperor Decius, Quintianus, the governor at Catania, heard of her beauty and her wealth and had her arrested. He tried flattery first, sending her to a woman who sought to win her with luxury and pleasure, but the harder they pressed her, the firmer she became. Asked why a noblewoman lived like a slave, she answered that she was a slave of Christ. She was beaten, torn and burned, and her breasts were cut off, and she was thrown back into prison. There, in the night, the holy Apostle Peter appeared to her and healed her wounds. Brought out again, she was tortured on burning coals, until an earthquake shook the city and the governor, in fear of the people, sent her back to prison, where she died giving thanks to God. A year later, when Mount Etna erupted and lava flowed toward Catania, the people carried her veil from her tomb against the fire, and the tradition says the flow stopped. The Church keeps her feast on 5 February (18 February on the Old Calendar). She is honoured as protectress of Catania and of all Sicily, and the faithful ask her prayers against fire and the eruptions of Etna, and especially for women who suffer from diseases of the breast.

What the faithful pray for

• women suffering from diseases of the breast
• protection from fire, earthquake and volcanic eruption
• Catania and the people of Sicily
• purity and steadfastness for young women
• healing for the sick and the wounded