St. Praxedis

A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.

Read the essentials →
July 21 · Virgin

St. Praxedis

St. Praxedis

A whole life given to God with an undivided heart.

Traditional feast

July 21
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

July 21
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Virgin

Their story

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

Praxedes was the daughter of the Roman senator Pudens and the sister of St Pudentiana. She lived in the time of Pope Pius I and the emperor Antoninus Pius. She spent her wealth on the poor and the needs of the Church, cared for the martyrs, and lived in prayer, vigils and fasting.

She died in peace and was buried beside her sister on the Salarian Way. An ancient parish church in Rome bears her name; it was restored by Popes Adrian I and Paschal I and later by St Charles Borromeo, who took his cardinal's title from 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

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

Keep their day. Remember them on July 21 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: Roman Martyrology. The ancient ' Manyrologium Parvuin,' Bede, Ado, &Ci Anglican, Scottish, and other Martyrologies. Authority The Acts of SS. Pudens, Pudentiana, and Praxedis, which purport to have been written by S. Pastor, a contemporary. But their authenticity is, unfortunately, very questionable.] PRAXEDIS was the daughter of Pudens, a Roman senator, and his wife Servilla. She had two brothers, Novatus and V*Z**v*rfm Timotheus, and a sister Pudentiana, all of whom are numbered with the Saints. S. Paul the Apostle is said to have lodged in the house of Pudens, and to have used it as a church. S. Praxedis is said to have ministered to the martyrs in prison, and to have been diligent in collecting their relics. The church of S. Praxedis at Rome, which gives a title to a cardinal, contests with that of S. Pudentiana the claim to be the oldest church in Rome, and to have been the palace of Pudens. In the nave of S. Praxedis is a well, in which it is pretended the Saint cast the sponge wherewith she had sopped up the blood of many martyrs.

Feast days

Feast: July 21

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on July 21
J

Sts. Julia and Claudius

July 21 · Virgin, Martyr
B

St. Barhadbesciabas

July 21 · Deacon, Martyr
A

St. Arbogast of Strasburg

July 21 · Bishop
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

Image: SaintPraxedisJohannesVermeerPainting.jpg · Attributed to Johannes Vermeer · 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: Attributed to Johannes Vermeer, 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.