St. Sophia with Faith, Hope and Love

  • sophia-and-daughters_detail.jpgGood friend C. Sue reminded me that today is the com­mem­o­ra­tion of a much-beloved saint. This unbe­liev­able sac­ri­fice of a mother and her three young daugh­ters, offered with so much love under such ter­ri­ble cir­cum­stances, is one of the stones, I think, that built up the early Church.

    Many years to all the Sophia’s out there, and also to C. Sue, who (inex­plic­a­bly) has really wanted a shout-out from this blog. :-)

    The hagiog­ra­phy, via the OCA Web­site:

    sophia-and-daughters.jpgThe Holy Mar­tyrs Saint Sophia and her daugh­ters Faith, Hope and Love were born in Italy. Their mother was a pious Chris­t­ian widow who named her daugh­ters for the three Chris­t­ian virtues. Faith was twelve, Hope was ten, and Love was nine. St Sophia raised them in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. St Sophia and her daugh­ters did not hide their faith in Christ, but openly con­fessed it before everyone.

    An offi­cial named Anti­ochus denounced them to the emperor Hadrian (117–138), who ordered that they be brought to Rome. Real­iz­ing that they would be taken before the emperor, the holy vir­gins prayed fer­vently to the Lord Jesus Christ, ask­ing that He give them the strength not to fear tor­ture and death. When the holy vir­gins and their mother came before the emperor, every­one present was amazed at their com­po­sure. They looked as though they had been brought to some happy fes­ti­val, rather than to tor­ture. Sum­mon­ing each of the sis­ters in turn, Hadrian urged them to offer sac­ri­fice to the god­dess Artemis. The young girls remained unyielding.

    Then the emperor ordered them to be tor­tured. They burned the holy vir­gins over an iron grat­ing, then threw them into a red-hot oven, and finally into a caul­dron with boil­ing tar, but the Lord pre­served them.

    The youngest child, Love, was tied to a wheel and they beat her with rods until her body was cov­ered all over with bloody welts. After under­go­ing unspeak­able tor­ments, the holy vir­gins glo­ri­fied their Heav­enly Bride­groom and remained stead­fast in the Faith.

    They sub­jected St Sophia to another griev­ous tor­ture: the mother was forced to watch the suf­fer­ing of her daugh­ters. She dis­played adamant courage, and urged her daugh­ters to endure their tor­ments for the sake of the Heav­enly Bride­groom. All three maid­ens were beheaded, and joy­fully bent their necks beneath the sword.

    In order to inten­sify St Sophia’s inner suf­fer­ing, the emperor per­mit­ted her to take the bod­ies of her daugh­ters. She placed their remains in coffins and loaded them on a wagon. She drove beyond the city lim­its and rev­er­ently buried them on a high hill. St Sophia sat there by the graves of her daugh­ters for three days, and finally she gave up her soul to the Lord. Even though she did not suf­fer for Christ in the flesh, she was not deprived of a martyr’s crown. Instead, she suf­fered in her heart. Believ­ers buried her body there beside her daughters.

    The relics of the holy mar­tyrs have rested at El’zasa, in the church of Esho since the year 777. 


    Related posts:

    1. Why is faith so difficult?
    2. The sash of the Theotokos
    3. C. S. Lewis on the love of God
    4. Hiero­mar­tyr Gre­gory of Armenia
    5. For the love of God

    September 17th, 2009 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 09.17.2009

    Many years indeed, to C. Sue and to all who call upon as their heav­enly patron Saints Sophia, Hope, Love, and Faith!

  • Grace

    Some­day I’ll have to find out how you know Erica Rea­gan and other St. Barn­abites. It may be one of those ‘small world’ things. (Or ‘six degrees of sep­a­ra­tion’ things, if we want to leave off the Dis­ney­land reference.)

  • Mimi

    Blog­ging.

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