A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.
January 10
September 23 (also listed: September 24)
Virgin
Thin entry · the 1914 book gives only 131 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
S. Thecla was a noble virgin of Lentini, and daughter of S. Isidore.
Stay faithful when it costs you. This account is about holding firm under pressure.
Pray a little every day. Prayer runs all through this account.
Choose mercy. Forgiveness and mercy are part of this story.
Learn from the kind of life it was. A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.
S. Thecla was a noble virgin of Lentini, and daughter of S. Isidore. She buried the bodies of the martyrs with loving reverence. For three years she suffered from paralysis, and could not leave her bed, but was healed by the prayers of SS. Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus. When they were in prison for the faith, she visited them and ministered to their necessities, and when they had been slain and cast into a well, she extracted the bodies and buried them. Tertullus, the governor, hearing of this, sent for her, but his sudden death saved her from injury. During the persecution, she concealed Agatho, Bishop of Lipari, in one of her farms; and when the persecution was over, she and her friend Justina spent their fortunes in works of mercy.
Feast: September 23
Traditional: January 10
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from Sts. Thecla and Justina's story, and a nudge to keep going.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). 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.
