St. Matrona

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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March 15 · Virgin, Martyr

St. Matrona

St. Matrona

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

March 15
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

October 20 (also listed: July 15)
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 80 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

S. Matrona of Barcelona was early left an orphan and was adopted by her aunt, who went with her to Italy, and settled in the Campagna. The girl was given a crucifix, which she ever carried about with her. Having been denounced as a Christian, she was thrown into prison and starved to death.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

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

Keep their day. Remember them on March 15 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 80 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Three saints of this name are commemorated on this day. At Barcelona one called Virgin and Martyr, another of Thessalonica, in the Roman Martyrology, called Martyr, but it is not said that she was a Virgin; another at Capua, in Campania, where she is said to be a Virgin and a native of Portugal. They were three distinct persons living at different dates, as their histories testify, but on account of the names of the Barcelonese and Capuan Saints being identical with that of S. Matrona in the Roman Martyrology, their festivals are kept on the same day. Matrona of Thessalonica is commemorated by the Greeks on March 27th.

S. Matrona of Barcelona was early left an orphan and was adopted by her aunt, who went with her to Italy, and settled in the Campagna. The girl was given a crucifix, which she ever carried about with her. Having been denounced as a Christian, she was thrown into prison and starved to death.

S. Matrona of Thessalonica was the slave of a Jewess, who having discovered that her servant was a Christian, beat her to death with a stick.

Feast days

Feast: October 20
Traditional: March 15

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on March 15
St. Aristobulus

St. Aristobulus

March 15 · Martyr
L

St. Longinus

March 15 · Martyr
N

St. Nicander

March 15 · Martyr
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

Image: Saint Matrona of Chios.jpg · Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. 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.