ST THECLA OF ICONIUM, MARTYR

ST THECLA OF ICONIUM, MARTYR - 23 SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 23rd of September

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST THECLA OF ICONIUM, MARTYR

The reputed pupil of the Apostle Paul, who is the heroine of the apocryphal "Acta Pauli et Theclae". Our knowledge of her is derived exclusively from these Acts, which appeared about 180.

According to this narrative Thecla was a virgin of Iconium who was converted to Christianity and led to dedicate herself to perpetual virginity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul.

Miraculously saved from death at the stake to which she had been condemned, she went with St Paul to Antioch in Pisidia where she was thrown to the wild beasts and was again saved from death by a miracle. After this she went to Myra where the Apostle was, and finally to Seleucia where she died.

With the consent of St Paul she had acted as a "female Apostle" in proclaiming the Gospel.

In the Eastern Church the wide circulation of the Acts led to a great veneration of Thecla. Her cult appeared very early also in Western Europe, particularly in those districts where the Gallican Liturgy prevailed; there is direct proof of this in the fourth century.

Her name is given with various topographical comments (Nicomedia, Seleucia, Asia) on several days in the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum". Thus Thecla is mentioned in this martyrology on February 22, February 25, September 12, September 23, and November 17. It seems certain that on all these dates, and probably also on the 20th and 21st of December, the same St Thecla, the pupil of St Paul, is meant. In Bede’s Martyrology, her name is mentioned with a brief notice taken from the Acts on September 23, the same date as that on which her feast is given in the present Roman Martyrology.

A catacomb of St Thecla on the Via Ostiensis, not far from the burial place of St Paul, is mentioned in the seventh-century itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs. A church stood on this spot on a hill over the catacomb where the body of the saint rested. St Thecla must be regarded as a Roman martyr.

(Excerpts from "Saints Thecla", Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)

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