The women who kept the faith

IOur Lady: the pattern of all of it

For every woman, in every state of life. Before the saints there is the Queen. The early Fathers, quoted by the Second Vatican Council, set her beside Eve: “The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience” (Lumen Gentium 56). She kept her Son’s words, “pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She stood by the Cross (John 19:25) after the disciples had fled at His arrest (Matthew 26:56). Taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, she was “exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe” (Lumen Gentium 59). Her whole counsel fits in one line at Cana: “Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye” (John 2:5, Douay-Rheims). Begin with the Rosary; the rest follows.

IISt Monica (c. 331–387): the mother of the prodigal

For mothers of children who have left the faith, and for wives in hard marriages. A North African woman married young to Patritius, a pagan of violent temper, she bore it with patience and lived to see him become a Christian. Her patience is a witness, not a rule for every marriage. The Church’s law recognizes that a spouse who puts the other or the children in grave danger gives a legitimate cause for leaving (Code of Canon Law, can. 1153). If you are not safe at home, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Her eldest son, Augustine, fell into the Manichean heresy and grievous sin. She prayed, wept, and followed him from Africa to Rome and on to Milan, where through St Ambrose she saw him yield “after seventeen years of resistance” and receive Baptism (Catholic Encyclopedia). A bishop had told her years before that “it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish” (Confessions III.12). Dying at Ostia in her fifty-sixth year, she told her sons not to trouble over where she was buried, and to friends who asked whether she feared dying so far from home she answered, “Nothing is far to God” (Confessions IX.11). Feast: August 27. Her novena is in the Novena Companion.

IIISt Zélie Martin (1831–1877): the working mother

For working mothers and family businesses. A maker of Alençon lace whose business did so well that her husband, Louis, sold his watchmaking business to go into business with her. They married in 1858 and had nine children. Four died young; the five daughters who lived all entered religious life, the youngest of them St Thérèse of Lisieux. Zélie died of breast cancer in 1877. On October 18, 2015, Pope Francis canonized her together with Louis: the first married couple with children to be canonized in the same ceremony. Their feast, kept in some places though not on the General Roman Calendar, is July 12, the anniversary of their wedding. Her novena is in the Novena Companion.

IVSt Gianna Beretta Molla (1922–1962): a mother’s heroic love

For mothers in a medical crisis, and for women in professional life. A physician who specialized in paediatrics, active in Catholic Action and in service to the poor and elderly, she loved skiing and the mountains. She married Pietro Molla in 1955 and bore three children; after them she lost two babies to miscarriage. In September 1961, two months into the pregnancy of her fourth child, she was found to have a fibroma in her uterus; before the operation she pleaded with the surgeon to save the life of the child she was carrying. Days before the birth she insisted that if a choice had to be made, the child be chosen. Gianna Emanuela was born on April 21, 1962. Her mother died a week later, on April 28, repeating “Jesus, I love you.” St John Paul II canonized her in 2004, with her husband and children present. Feast: April 28. Her novena is in the Novena Companion.

The Church honours her choice as heroic love; Pope Paul VI called it a “conscious immolation.” Heroic love is a gift to admire, not a verdict on any mother who receives a hard diagnosis. The Church’s moral teaching is clear that direct abortion is never permitted (CCC 2271); how that teaching applies to a particular diagnosis is a question to take to good doctors and a faithful priest together.

VSt Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897): the little way

For every woman who feels too small for her life. The youngest daughter of Louis and Zélie Martin. She entered the Carmel of Lisieux on April 9, 1888, at fifteen, and died there on September 30, 1897, at twenty-four, her last words “My God, I love you!” The manuscripts she wrote at the request of her superiors and her sisters became Story of a Soul. Her “little way,” which St John Paul II described as simply the Gospel way of holiness for all, led him to name her a Doctor of the Church in 1997, only the third woman so honoured. For her, being a religious meant being “a bride of Jesus and a mother of souls” (Benedict XVI). Spiritual motherhood has no better teacher. Feast: October 1. Her novena is in the Novena Companion.

VISt Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774–1821): the widow who rebuilt

For widows, converts, and mothers who teach their children. Born in New York in 1774 into a prominent Anglican family, she became a wife and the mother of five. Her husband, William, died in Pisa, Italy, in 1803, leaving her a widow at twenty-nine with five young children. In Italy the Filicchi family introduced her to the Catholic faith, and in 1805 she received her First Holy Communion. She went on to found the Sisters of Charity of St Joseph’s, the first congregation of religious sisters founded in the United States, and to help begin a school for the religious education of children. Pope Paul VI canonized her in 1975: the first person born in the United States to become a canonized saint. St John Paul II named her among the holy women of the Church’s history (Mulieris Dignitatem 27). Feast: January 4.

VIISt Catherine of Siena (1347–1380): the counsellor of popes

For single women, and for any woman afraid to speak the truth. The youngest but one of a very large family; her father was a dyer. At sixteen she entered the Third Order of the Dominicans and, living at home, gave herself to prayer, penance and works of charity, above all for the sick. Nobles, artists and ordinary people sought her counsel, and she urged Pope Gregory XI, then living at Avignon, “energetically and effectively” to return to Rome (Benedict XVI). He returned in January 1377. Pope Paul VI declared her a Doctor of the Church in 1970, and St John Paul II named her a co-patroness of Europe. Feast: April 29.

A line often quoted as hers, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire,” is a popular paraphrase. What she actually wrote, to her disciple Stefano Maconi, was this:

VIIISt Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–1680): the lily who chose

For young women choosing Christ against the current. Born at Ossernenon, in present-day New York, to a Catholic Algonquin mother and a Mohawk chief. When she was four, smallpox killed her parents and her brother and left her almost blind, her face badly scarred. Baptized by the Jesuit Fr Jacques de Lamberville, she fled two years later to the St Francis Xavier Mission at Kahnawake, in present-day Quebec, to live her faith freely. On the feast of the Annunciation in 1679 she made a vow of perpetual virginity. She died of tuberculosis on April 17, 1680, shortly before her twenty-fourth birthday. Witnesses reported that within minutes of her death the smallpox scars vanished from her face. Pope Benedict XVI canonized her on October 21, 2012; the Canadian bishops call her “the first native North American to be raised to the glory of the altars.” Feast: July 14 in the United States (April 17 in Canada).

IXHow to use this page

• Pick one, the woman whose road looks most like yours, and come to know her: her feast on your calendar, her novena when you need it, 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. The Liturgical Home keeps the calendar.