St. Patricia

Month of Saints - Day 6

Today's Saint is in honor of my cousin, Gloria Patricia.  As you probably know, there is no St. Gloria, but in consolation, we do sing your name at most every Sunday Mass -- except in Advent and Lent, of course.  As for Patricia - I'm sure Aunt Val knows what she is talking about when she says that she named you in honor of St. Patrick.  I think that most parents who name their daughters Patricia have Patrick in mind when they do . . . possibly because they do not know that there is a St. Patricia who lived centuries before her male counterpart.

St. Patricia lived in the seventh century.  Tradition says that she was of noble, or perhaps even royal, family in Constantinople. She fled to Rome to escape marriage and became a consecrated virgin. She returned to Constantinople and distributed her wealth to the poor.  She returned to Italy and shortly after died in Naples. She is a patron of Naples, and like St. Januarius there, a vial believed to be filled with her blood reportedly liquefies thirteen hundred years after her death.

Her feast day is August 25.