Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
March 15
October 20 (also listed: July 15)
Virgin
Martyr
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.
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.
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: October 20
Traditional: March 15
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.
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.