B

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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May 20 · Virgin, Martyr

St. Basilla

St. Basilla

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

May 20
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

May 20
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Virgin
Martyr

Early life

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

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 47 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

The bones were enshrined and given the Hospital Sisters of the Hotel-Dieu at Bayeux, in Normandy. In 1833 two portions of the bones were removed and given by the bishop to the hospital at Rennes, and to the nuns of Notre Dame de la Charit^ at Bayeux.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Look after people who are sick or suffering. The sick come up again and again in this story.

Give to people in need. The account records care for the poor.

Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Read more

The full original · 47 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, and those of Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c.; also three copies of the ancient Roman Martyrology called that of S. Jerome. Authority The ancient Acts of S. Eugenia (Dec. 25th), which were known and quoted in the 5th cent., at the Council of Epaone; but these acts are nevertheless to be rejected as fabulous, as Papebroeck shows, by pointing out such egregious blunders in history as divest them of all claim on our attention as trustworthy. Nevertheless, Giry and Guerin give them without a hint that they are not trustworthy authority.] HE ancient martyrologies say that on this day Basilla, a virgin, suffered death on the Salarian way at Rome. In 1654 the catacomb of S. Cyriacus was being investigated, when on the third story was found a white marble slab covering a sepulchre, on which was engraved Basilla, with the symbols of a palm-branch and a dove, emblems of martyrdom and virginity. Within were found the bones, together with a phial such as that frequently found in the catacombs, and supposed to contain some of the blood of the martyr. V 1 m0ther,of S; Flavia Domitilla (May.2th); she is said to have been baptized by b. Peter, and to have been present at the martyrdom of S. Paul. ■S. Thallelceus.

The bones were enshrined and given the Hospital Sisters of the Hotel-Dieu at Bayeux, in Normandy. In 1833 two portions of the bones were removed and given by the bishop to the hospital at Rennes, and to the nuns of Notre Dame de la Charit^ at Bayeux.

Feast days

Feast: May 20

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Basilla's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on May 20
T

Sts. Thallelceus and…

May 20 · Martyrs
E

St. Ethelbert

May 20 · King
St. Bernardine of Siena

St. Bernardine of Siena

May 20 · Martyr
← All 1727 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.