D

A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.

Read the essentials →
September 22 · Virgins, Martyrs

Sts. Digna and Em E Rita

Sts. Digna and Em E Rita

A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

September 22
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Virgins
Martyrs

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on September 22 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Authorities: — The brief Acts, moderately trustworthy. There are other Acts which are apocryphal.] Digna and Merita or Emerita, two virgin sisters, were brought before the judge Gaius, probably in the persecution of Valerian. They were stretched between four stakes, driven into the ground and cruelly beaten; then hung on the little horse by their long hair, and torches applied to their sides. They died under this torment. SS. Maurice and Comp.

Feast days

Feast: September 22

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from Sts. Digna and Em E Rita's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on September 22
St. Phocas the Gardener

St. Phocas the Gardener

September 22 · Martyr
L

St. Lo of Coutances

September 22 · Bishop
E

St. Emmeram

September 22 · Bishop, Martyr
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.