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The saints

St. Agatha

A young Sicilian woman who refused a powerful man, and paid with her body.

Feast: 5 February · died about 251 · The early Church · Catania, Sicily

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A plain typographic plate: St. Agatha, with the feast day.

Typographic plate by Stone & Incense: we found no public-domain image of this saint we could verify.

Home / The saints / St. Agatha

Catania, Sicily, about 251

Agatha was a young Christian woman of a good family in Sicily.1

According to her legend, a Roman official wanted her, and she refused him.1

He had her arrested as a Christian and tortured, including cutting off her breasts.

Patron of nurses1; healing from diseases of the breast1; Catania2

01St. Agatha

Remembered at every Mass

She died in prison, and her name was later placed in the Roman Canon of the Mass.1

Catania honors her as its patron, and people near Mount Etna call on her against its eruptions.2

Live it this week

Pray for women facing breast cancer

Agatha is invoked for diseases of the breast. This week, pray every day for a woman you know facing cancer, and do one practical thing for her: a meal, a ride, a card.

Notes

How we know · 2 sources for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Agatha”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org
  2. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Agatha”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.