Today is the feast of one of my favorite “sister” saints, St. Praxedes.  I found out about her when I went a pilgrimage a couple of years ago to Rome led by Scott and Kimberly Hahn and Mike Aquilina.  It is believed that she, and her sister St. Pudentiana, were the daughters of St. Pudens (from 2 Timothy 4:21).  She and her sister are remembered as saints of true mercy. 

They lived in those early years of the Church, at a time of  extreme Christian persecution. They hid Christians in their homes and visited the imprisioned.  They even gathered the bodies of the dead after they were brutalized in the Coliesuum, and hid them in a well until they could be properly buried.  St. Praxedes is often depicted in art with a sponge soaked in blood; recalling how they cared for the precious blood of the martyrs after their awful executions. Their heoic virtue during these horrific years was so great that almost 2000 years later we still remember them.

Their home was one of the first “house churches” in Rome.  It is named after her sister, St. Pudentiana.  Later another church was built and dedicated to St. Praxedes.  Both are located near St. Mary Major in Rome.  Click on the pictures to have a better look…

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Here is one of the reports from that 2007 Rome pilgrimage where we talk about St. Praxedes and St. Pudentiana…what fun that was   

One Response

1. susie says:

   July 21, 2010 at 9:16 am

   Ah, yes … I remember it well.