Praxedes

Saint Praxedes was born in Rome, into the household of Saint Pudens, a Roman senator who had been converted to Christ through Saint Peter. With her sister, Saint Pudentiana, she grew up in a family transformed by faith and, after inheriting their fortune, chose to spend it in mercy. In the early persecutions of the Church, Praxedes became a quiet refuge for the suffering: she sheltered Christians in her home, visited and supported those imprisoned or forced into slavery, and ensured that the poor and the persecuted lacked nothing. With tender courage, she and her sister also recovered and buried the bodies of martyrs, honoring them when the world treated them as refuse. Praxedes died young, around the year 165, remembered as a virgin and honored in Rome as a martyr from the earliest centuries of Christian devotion. Her memory is especially cherished at the Basilica of Saint Praxedes, built on the site associated with her home. She is invoked as patroness of Petra. Her feast day is July 21.