Category: Saintly Stories Nuns Never Told Me

Postcard from Catania, Sicily: Homecoming for Sant’Agata

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A stamp featuring the celebration of Saint Agatha, highlighting the 900th anniversary of her relics' return to Catania, Italy. It depicts a crowned figure of Saint Agatha with a church in the background.

Above: During a solemn ceremony in front of Cattedrale Metropolitana di Sant’Agata this week, relics of Saint Agatha are returned to her newly restored reliquary. Screen grab from video on La Sicilia, August 17, 2026.

Saint Agatha (231?-251?) has been celebrated in the news recently, nowhere more than in Sicily. The occasion was the 900th anniversary of her return to her birthplace, Catania, and the Vatican marked it with a major meaningful gift. Would have loved to be there to witness it but will have to rely on others.

Affectionately called Santuzza by some, Saint Agatha was martyred in her hometown. After a vindictive, spurned suitor reported her illegal Christian beliefs to the Roman authorities, her torture began. If you do not know Agatha’s story, look back to this post from one of our visits to Sicily. One of the devious punishments inflicted upon her led her status as the patron saint of those women suffering from breast cancer and workers who toil in bell foundries.

One of the 12 Virgin Saints celebrated during Mass, Agatha gained popularity in Catania immediately following her death, as she received credit for miraculously halting an impending eruption of Mount Etna. The faithful enshrined her remains as sacred relics.

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Postcard from Brussels, Belgium: Mystical gardens of Malines’ Beguines

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Enclosed garden showing Daniel in the lion's den
A Belgian postage stamp featuring a depiction of the city of Mechelen, showcasing its architecture and bells.

Above: “Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” with Saint Peter on the left and Saint John on the right, 1500-1550, Hof van Busleyden Museum, Mechelen (Malines), Belgium.

There are among us women whom we have no idea what to call, ordinary women or nuns, because they live neither in the world nor out of it.”

Guibert of Tournai (1200-1284), 1274, via “Sisters Between: Gender and the Medieval Beguines,” Abby Stoner, Kenyon College

The Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music might have wondered what she was going to do about Maria, but that’s nothing compared to the befuddlement of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the 13th century figuring out how to control the Beguine Sisters.

Limited options were permitted women in the medieval ages: subjugate themselves in marriage or enter a cloistered convent for life. Those limited choices are what attracted women to voluntarily cluster together in houses, forming their own communities on the outskirts of towns – beguinages. They donned habits similar to those of nuns and committed themselves to chastity, albeit not necessarily a lifetime commitment.

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Postcard from Guadalajara, Mexico: La Zaponita worked miracles; others prophesized doom

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A vintage postal stamp commemorating the centenary of Guadalajara, Mexico, featuring an illustration of the Templo de Zapopan, dated 1542 and 1942.

Above: Detail of an outdoor sculpture by Javier Marin (1962-) on a plaza in Zapopan.

When the sculpture opens its eyes, it already has a soul.”

Sculptor Javier Marin

Arriving barefoot in what was then a village outside of Guadalajara, Spanish-born Fray Antonio de Segovia (1485-1570) bore a doll-size figure of the Virgin Mary around his neck. This effigy was believed to protect him on his journeys thoughout the Tonallan Kingdom as he sought to convert the Native Americans under the rule of Queen Cihualpilli Tzapotzinco. The queen herself was among his converts, and Fray Antonio established an abbey and presented the converts of this village with the statuette he had worn for ten years.

The statue was made by Purépecha Indians in Pátzcuaro using traditional methods. First, a skeleton was constructed out of sugar canes and cornstalks. Then, a special paste or dough called tatzingueni was applied to flesh out the figure. This tatzingueni was made of corn stalk pulp and the juice of a local orchid which gave the paste a latex quality and would prevent the finished product from rotting or spoiling.”

“The Virgin of Zapopan,” Robert Bitto, Mexico Unexplained

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