Saint Agatha

Agatha was a young Christian woman of Catania in Sicily who consecrated her virginity to Christ. According to the ancient accounts of her martyrdom, during the persecution of the emperor Decius a Roman official named Quintianus sought to possess her, and when she refused him he had her arrested and handed over to a house of ill repute to break her will. She remained steadfast.

She was then cruelly tortured, and her breasts were cut off. Tradition says that Saint Peter appeared to her in prison and healed her wounds. She died in prison around 251. A year after her death, when Mount Etna erupted, the people of Catania carried her veil in procession and the lava flow stopped, and she has been invoked against fire ever since. Her name was placed in the Roman Canon of the Mass, a sign of how greatly the early Church honored her.

Catania celebrates her from February 3 to 5 with one of the largest religious festivals in the world, as hundreds of thousands of devotees in white robes pull her silver reliquary through the city. Small pastries called 'minne di Sant'Agata' are made in her honor.

In Spain, Santa Águeda is a festival of women: in Zamarramala, near Segovia, and in many other towns, women take over the town's government for the day.