July 24 + Saint Christina of Bolsena

Christina lived during the third century and was the daughter of a rich and powerful magistrate. He was deep in the practices of heathenism and had a number of golden idols.

Though his extremely beautiful daughter had drawn the eye of several suitors by the time she reached the age of 11, her father wanted her to be a pagan priestess. He locked Christina in a room filled with gold and silver idols, then ordered her to burn incense before them.

While she was locked in her room, an angel came to Christina and taught her the Gospel of Christ. The angel called her a Bride of Christ but warned she would suffer for her faith. Christina smashed the false idols and threw them out the window. When her father came to visit and discovered the missing idols, he questioned Christina but she refused to speak to him. After questioning the servants, her father learned of her new faith. Enraged, he began to slap his daughter's face until she began to speak - but her words only proclaimed her new faith. She also admitted to destroying the idols.

Christina was sent to trial and ordered to worship the pagan gods and beg for forgiveness. Rather than following her father's orders, she held fast to her Christian faith and was ordered to be tortured. She was tied to an iron wheel above an extreme fire. As she was raked through the flames, her body was burned but she did not die. She was thrown into a prison cell and that night an angel appeared. Her wounds were healed and she was fed food brought by the angel.

The next day, when her father found her unharmed, he ordered a stone to be tied around her neck and she was thrown into a lake. As she sank, an angel sustained then untied her. When she reappeared above the water, her father attributed her survival to sorcery.

He decided to execute her the following morning but that night he died suddenly.

After her father's death, his successor continued to torture her, but she survived every torture including iron hooks, grilling by fire, placement in a furnace, torture on the wheel, assault by snakes, and assailment by arrows. When fellow believers discovered the miracles, they began to gather at her cell. During her time in captivity, she converted nearly 300 people. When she survived five days in a red-hot furnace, she was finally beheaded.

Christina's relics rest at Palermo in Sicily. She is the Patron Saint of those who are insane, archers and millers.