St. Columba

Columba was a nun of the monastery of Tabanos in Spain.

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September 17 · Virgin, Martyr

St. Columba

St. Columba

Columba was a nun of the monastery of Tabanos in Spain.

Traditional feast

September 17
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

September 17
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Virgin
Martyr

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

Columba was a nun of the monastery of Tabanos in Spain. In 853, under the Moorish king Muhammad, she was beheaded.

Her body was thrown into the Guadalquivir, but Christians recovered it.

Early life

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

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Keep their day. Remember them on September 17 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: Modern Roman and Spanish Martyrologies. Authority: — A Life and Passion by S. Eulogius, martyr in the same persecution.] Columba, a native of Cordova, sister of the Abbot Martin of Cordova, was urged by her mother to marry, but refused to do so, as, encouraged by her sister Elizabeth, she had determined to embrace a religious life. She entered the convent of Tabanna, and in it devoted herself to assiduous prayer, residing in a little cell like a recluse. When the persecution of Abdubrahman broke out, she was brought into Cordova, along with the rest of the sisters, to be more secure. But Columba escaped when unobserved from the convent, and going into the court before the Cadi, cursed Mahomet and his law. She was ordered to be executed with the sword.

Feast days

Feast: September 17

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on September 17
S

Sts. Socrates and Stephen

September 17 · Martyrs
S

St. Satyrius

September 17 · Confessor
St. Lambert

St. Lambert

September 17 · Bishop, Martyr
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

Image: SantaColumba.jpg · Tomás A. Santa Coloma Señoráns · Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Image: Tomás A. Santa Coloma Señoráns, Wikimedia Commons (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.