July 21 + Saint Praxedes

Praxedes was a Roman maiden and the sister of Saint Pudentiana. Their brothers were Saint Donatus and Saint Timothy. When the Emperor Marcus Antoninus was hunting down and slaughtering Christians, Praxedes sought the faithful out to relieve them with money, care, comfort and every charitable aid. Some she hid in her house, others she encouraged to keep firm in the faith, and others she buried their bodies. She allowed those who were in prison or toiling in slavery to lack nothing.

At last, being unable to any longer bear the cruelties inflicted on Christians, she prayed to God that, if it were expedient for her to die, she might be released from beholding such sufferings. And so on July 21 in 165 AD, she was called to the reward of her goodness in Heaven. Her body was laid by a priest in the tomb of her father, Pudens, and her sister Pudentiana, in the Catacomb of Priscilla on the Salarian Way.

Praxedes is depicted in art squeezing the blood of the martyrs, which she collected from a sponge, into a vessel. In her basilica in Rome, a part of the floor in the central nave is marked as the place where her relics were laid to rest within the building that was once her house.

Especially on this day, let us remember and pray for all persecuted Christians in every part of the world.