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Model for those who must resist even those they love for the sake of conscience. Rather than deny her faith, she suffered death at the hands of her father. She is invoked by those in danger from lightning. It seems this is because her father was struck dead by a bolt shortly afterwards. She is the patron of architects, miners, artillery and of protection from lightning. Her feast is December 4.

St. Barbara

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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