Valentina: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Valentina was a virgin martyr of Caesarea in Palestine, who suffered with Sts Ennatha and Paula in the great persecution begun under Diocletian, in the year 308. The governor Firmilian tried them at Caesarea. The Church’s life of the three tells that Ennatha was brought first, confessed Christ openly, and was beaten, hung from a pillar and scourged. Valentina was charged with refusing to worship the gods and was taken to a pagan temple to offer sacrifice; she threw a stone at the offering and turned away from it. She was beaten and condemned with Ennatha. Paula, brought last, bore many torments with patience, thanked the Lord for strengthening her, bowed to the Christians standing by, and bent her neck beneath the sword. The oldest witness, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who lived through that persecution, remembers Valentina as a woman of Caesarea well known to many. When a virgin of Gaza, whom Valentina called her sister, was dragged to the altar to sacrifice, Valentina overturned the altar and its fire, and the judge condemned the two women to death together. The accounts differ on some details, and little else is known of her. The Church keeps her memory on 10 February (23 February on the Old Calendar). Her hymns call the three martyrs lambs of Christ who loved Him as their Bridegroom, and ask them to pray to Christ God for us all.

What the faithful pray for

• courage to confess Christ before others
• faithfulness to a friend in trouble
• young women keeping their purity
• Christians persecuted for their faith
• the healing of souls