The women who held the line.

Our Lady — the pattern of all of it

For every woman, in every state of life. Before the saints there is the Queen: the girl whose fiat reversed Eve's refusal, the mother who kept things in her heart, the woman at the foot of the Cross when the men had fled, the Queen assumed and crowned. Every other woman on this page is a variation on her theme. The Church's whole devotion to her fits in one line of hers: "Do whatever He tells you" (John 2:5). Begin with the Rosary; the rest follows.

St. Monica (331–387) — the mother of the prodigal

For mothers of children who have left the faith. North African, married young to a difficult pagan husband, mother of a brilliant son who ran from God across two continents. She prayed for Augustine for roughly seventeen years, followed him from Africa to Rome to Milan, and lived to see him baptized at Easter 387. She died months later at Ostia, telling her sons to bury her anywhere: "nothing is far from God." The Church got St. Augustine because it first got St. Monica. Feast: August 27. Begin her novena.

St. Zélie Martin (1831–1877) — the working mother

For working mothers and family businesses. Founder and operator of a successful Alençon lace enterprise — her husband Louis eventually sold his own shop to help run hers. Nine children; four buried young; five daughters, every one a religious, the youngest of them St. Thérèse. Her surviving letters are startlingly modern: deadlines, sick children, dark days, dry prayer, steady trust. Canonized in 2015 with Louis — the first married couple canonized together as a couple. Feast: July 12. Her novena.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla (1922–1962) — heroic motherhood

For mothers in medical crisis, and women in professional life. Italian physician, wife of Pietro, mother of four, a woman who loved skiing and the opera and her patients. Diagnosed with a uterine tumor while pregnant with her fourth child, she refused any course that would directly take the baby's life. Gianna Emanuela was born; her mother died a week later, repeating "Jesus, I love you." Canonized 2004, her husband and children present. Feast: April 28. Her novena.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) — the little way

For every woman who feels too small for her life. Zélie's youngest, a Carmelite at fifteen, dead of tuberculosis at twenty-four, author of one memoir she was ordered to write. Story of a Soul taught the Church that sanctity is not the size of the deed but the love in it — and her "little way" of confidence in God's fatherhood earned her the title Doctor of the Church (1997). She promised to spend her heaven doing good on earth. Test her. Feast: October 1. Her novena.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774–1821) — the widow who rebuilt

For widows, converts, and mothers educating children. A New York society wife and mother of five, widowed at twenty-nine when her husband died bankrupt in Italy. She came home a Catholic — and was cut off by family and friends for it. She opened a school to feed her children, founded the Sisters of Charity, and laid foundations of Catholic education in America. Canonized 1975: the first native-born citizen of the United States raised to the altars. Feast: January 4.

St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) — the counselor of popes

For single women, and any woman afraid to speak truth to power. Twenty-third child of a Sienese dyer, a lay Dominican who never entered a convent, never married, and never learned to be ignorable. She nursed plague victims, brokered peace between warring cities, and told Pope Gregory XI to his face to leave Avignon and return to Rome — and he did. Declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970. Her line for the timid: "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." Feast: April 29.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–1680) — the lily who chose

For young women choosing Christ against the current. Daughter of a Mohawk chief, orphaned by smallpox at four and left scarred and half-blind by it. Baptized at nineteen over fierce opposition, she walked two hundred miles to live her faith freely at the mission of Kahnawake, bound herself to Christ by a private vow of virginity, and died at twenty-four. Witnesses said the scars left her face at death. Canonized 2012 — the first Native American saint. Feast: July 14 (USA).

How to use this page

• Pick one — the one whose battlefield looks like yours — and actually get to know her: her feast on your calendar, her novena when it's needed, her name in your evening prayer.
• Give your daughters these women by name. A girl who knows Catherine and Kateri is harder to sell a smaller story.
• On their feasts, mark the table — see The Liturgical Home for what's coming next.

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Sources. Dates and facts follow the Church's canonization records and standard hagiography: Augustine's Confessions (Book IX) for Monica; the Martin family letters for Zélie; the beatification/canonization records of Gianna Molla (2004), Elizabeth Ann Seton (1975), Catherine of Siena (Doctor, 1970), Thérèse (Doctor, 1997), and Kateri Tekakwitha (2012). Feast days per the General Roman Calendar and its USA proper.