St. Barbara Holy Card
Item Number: 16053
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H x W:
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4 1/4" (10.7 cm) x 2 1/2" (6.35 cm)
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This lovely laminated holy card depicts St. Barbara holding a chalice and host in one hand and a sword in the other. She is standing in front of a castle. St. Barbara was martyred in 235 or 238 with St. Juliana. On the back of the card is the following prayer:
O Glorious St. Barbara, you inspire me by your example of courage and chastity. Help me to have your gift of faith, and obtain for me, through your prayers, the grace to live a holy life, so that one day I may join you in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Amen
St. Barbara, Pray for Us!
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Feast Day:
Tridentine Calendar - 12/04
Patron Of:
Ammunition Workers, Architects, Artillery, Brass Workers, Builders, Fireworks, Fortifications, Founders, Gunners, Impenitence, Lightning, Miners, Stone Masons, Storms, Sudden Death, Warehouses
Profile
Beautiful maiden imprisoned in a high tower by her father Dioscorus for disobedience. While there, she was tutored by philosophers, orators and poets. From them she learned to think, and decided that polytheism was nonsense. With the help of Origen and Valentinian, she converted to Christianity.
Her father denounced her to the local authorities for her faith, and they ordered him to kill her. She escaped, but he caught her, dragged her home by her hair, tortured her, and killed her. He was immediately struck by lightning, or according to some sources, fire from heaven.
Her imprisonment led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses. The lightning that avenged her murder led to asking her protection against fire and lightning, and her patronage of firefighters, etc. Her association with things military and with death that falls from the sky led to her patronage of all things related to artillery, and her image graced powder magazines and arsenals for years. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
While there were undoubtedly beautiful converts named Barbara, this saint is legend, and her cultus developed when pious fiction was mistaken for history.
Died
beheaded by her father c.235 at Nicomedia during the persecution of Maximinus of Thrace; relics at Burano, Italy, and Kiev, Russia
All information used with permission of the Patron Saint Index.
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