St. Agatha of Catania

This was something interesting that I found online about a female Saint that has become, among other things, the Patron Saint of Breast Cancer. I thought it was interesting. The website where it was found was: http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0205.htm There are other saints listed on that page, but this is the one I was interested in:

Agatha of Catania VM (RM)

Born at Palermo or Catania, Sicily; died at Catania, Sicily, c. 250 (?). There certainly was a martyr named Agatha at Catania, who was venerated there from very early times as demonstrated by her inclusion in Saint Jerome's Martyrology, the calendar of Carthage (c. 530), the canon of the Roman Mass, and Carmina by Venantius Fortunatus, but nothing else is known of her. There are many versions of the basic legend included here.

Agatha must have been beautiful and wealthy for the Sicilian consul Quintinian tried to force her to become his wife. When she refused because she had already dedicated herself to God as a virgin, he turned against her and decided to punish her by installing the pure girl in a brothel for a month. She resisted all attempts to shame her.

When this didn't work, Quintinian, who did not believe in God, brought her before the courts on the charge of belonging to the outlawed Christian sect. The accounts of her tortures are frightful--racked, scourged, branded. Even her breasts were cut off, and she was allowed no medicines or bandages or food when she was sent to a dark dungeon. It is said that Saint Peter appeared to her in a vision accompanied by a youth carrying a torch. He applied ointment and healed her wounds. Four days later, unmoved my the miraculous cure of her wounds, Quintinian caused her to be rolled naked over live coals mixed with potsherds.

Agatha would pray passionately throughout all this: "Lord Jesus Christ: you know what is in my heart and mind. Take me and all that I am and make me Your own." Naturally Agatha believed that death would be a happy release from her torturers into the arms of Jesus. They carried her broken body back to her prison, while she prayed for release. At that moment, just after an earthquake, Agatha died in prison of her injuries.

A saint who bore such trials was greatly revered, and her tomb became a sacred spot for Christians. Saint Gregory the Great, for example, took a church which the Goths used in Rome, and reconsecrated it to the saint. The church of Sant'Agata dei Goti still stands, preserving the memory of this virgin martyr.
In a later period pictures of Saint Agatha carrying her severed breasts on a platter were mistaken as bread, which led to the practice of blessing bread on Saint Agatha's Day.

Her intercession as patron of Malta is credited with preserving the island from the Turks in 1551. Her prayers were also efficacious in preventing the eruption of Mt. Etna on several occasions. Its torrent of burning sulphur and stones was averted from the walls of Catania several times by the silken veil of Saint Agatha (taken from her tomb), fixed on a lance, and carried in procession. As the sacred relic met the lava, the flow would stop and the eruption end.
Her name is found in the litany of the saints and in all martyrologies: Greek and Latin (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Husenbeth, White).

In art, Saint Agatha is a maiden martyr with a palm, two breasts held on a platter, and either pincers or shears (Tabor). Sometimes she is shown (1) with her breasts cut off or held in tongs; (2) crowned, with tongs and palms; (3) covering her shorn breasts as an angel brings her the martyr's palm; (4) holding a unicorn's horn; (5) with a torch and burning church in her hand (Roeder), or with a long veil (Tabor). She is depicted in the mosaics of Sant'Apolinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy (Farmer) and a picture of her martyrdom by Sebastiano del Piombo at the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy (Tabor).

Agatha is the patroness of Catania, where she preserves Mt. Etna from erupting. She is also patroness of bell-founders (shaped like her breasts, or possibly because bells are used to warn of fire), firefighters, girdlers, jewellers, maltsters, nurses, wet-nurses, weavers, and shepherdesses. Agatha is invoked against earthquake, fire, lightning, storm, sterility, wolves, and diseases of the breast (Roeder, White).