Saint Lea of Rome

Lea was a Roman woman, and she lost her husband — a wealthy man — while she was still fairly young. What she did next is her story. She joined the circle of noble, well-to-do women that had formed in Rome around Jerome, in Marcella’s community on the Aventine, where they studied the Scriptures and lived in chastity and poverty. It was something new and much debated: women of the Roman aristocracy leaving the life they had for another one, in the city, without taking the veil. She planned to leave with Jerome for Bethlehem, along with others, to live as a hermit. She never got there: she died at Ostia, the port city she was to sail from, on March 22, 384. Jerome wrote an obituary for her, which is still preserved today in the Vatican Apostolic Library, and the Roman Martyrology remembers her with a line that points back to him: “Commemoration of Saint Lea, a Roman widow, whose virtues and death received the praise of Saint Jerome.” She is called the mother of virgins, and she is the patron saint of widows. If your name is Lea, today is your name day.