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A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.

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September 4 · Virgin

St. Monessa

St. Monessa

A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.

Traditional feast

September 4
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Virgin

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

Learn from the kind of life it was. A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.

Keep their day. Remember them on September 4 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: Irish Martyrologies. Authority: — Mention by Probus in his Life of S. Patrick.] S. Monessa, the beautiful daughter of an Irish chief, though not a Christian, refused all the offers made for her hand. When she heard S. Patrick preach the Faith of the Virgin-born; she believed with all her heart and was baptized, and straightway as she came out of the regenerating wave, for joy of heart, her spirit broke its bonds, and entered into celestial joy.

Feast days

Feast: September 4

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on September 4
St. Hermione

St. Hermione

September 4 · Feast
M

St. Marcellus

September 4 · Martyr
St. Grata

St. Grata

September 4 · Virgin
← 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.