Saint Lea

And since Saint Jerome himself has praised Saint Lea, we would undoubtedly be reprehensible if we used terms other than those of this great Doctor. Here is what he writes about her to the holy widow Saint Marcella:

“Who could give the blessed Lea the praises she deserves? She dedicated herself so much to God that she merited the rank of abbess in h er mona abbesse Roman widow who became an abbess and a model of asceticism in the 4th century. stery, and the title of superior over so many virgins who recognized her as their mother. After the pompous garments she had used, according to the vanity of the world, she covered herself in sackcloth to mortify her appetites, and studied perfection, spending entire nights in vigils and prayers, in order to teach devotion to her companions, more by the example of her actions than by her speeches and remonstrances. Her humility was so profound that, after having commanded others, she had become the servant of everyone; but she was all the more perfectly a servant of the Son of God, the less she wished to be a mistress among creatures. Her furnishings were very poor, her clothes without luxury, and her diet very austere. She did not have her head covered with pearls, nor her face enhanced with makeup. She practiced Christian virtues without haste and did good in such a way that she expected nothing from it; she enjoys a rest that was due to her. Now, for a few traces, and introduced into the fulfilled, after having been received by the choirs, there is no more vice; she sees the rich man and the consul, who was covered in purple, no longer with his triumphal robe, but greeted by Abraham, from where, with the poor man, he has emerged from the needle. Oh! How things have changed their face! He who was he who climbed pompously to the Capitol, as if he had triumphed over enemies, and who had Capitole Symbolic site of the Roman triumph mentioned in Jerome's comparison. been received with the applause of all the Roman people; he who, by his death, had filled the whole city with mourning, is now reduced to misery, and lodged not in the palace and in the heavenly court (as his unhappy wife publishes with much impudence), but in outer darkness, which will never end. And our blessed Lea, who had made her retreat in a small corner, in order to appear poor and to be considered foolish before the world, is today received at the feast of the Lamb, and says with the Psalmist: ‘We see things in the house of our God in the way they were announced to us.’ That is why I represent to you, with tears in my eyes, and declare to you that one must not wear two robes during this life, nor cover one's feet with the skins of animals, which are the affections and dead actions of the flesh; nor seek the graces and favors of the world, signified by the staff, which are all conditions mysteriously forbidden by the Savior under the symbol of these allegories. We must not undertake to serve Jesus Christ and the world at the same time, but we must live with such moderation that eternal goods may succeed temporal ones, and recognize that, if our body approaches its end and its ashes every day, everything else in the world is of no longer duration.”

This is the language of Saint Jerome. He makes further mention of Saint Lea in Epistle 45 to the same Saint Marcella; but she must not be confused with L aeta Léta A woman mentioned by Jerome to avoid confusion with Saint Lea. , to whom he addresses the seventh to instruct her on the manner in which she should raise her daughter. The latter had married Toxotius , son of Sai sainte Paule Virgin and martyr in Malaga, companion of Saint Cyriacus. nt Paula, and had a daughter by him named Paula, like her grandmother, and, after the death of her husband, had retired from the world. As for our Saint Lea, the name of her husband is not known.

The Roman Martyrology commemorates Saint Lea, a s does Cardinal B cardinal Baronius Disciple of Philip, historian and cardinal, author of the Annales ecclesiastici. aronius in his Annals, in the year 382.