Melania

St. Melania the Younger (383-439 A.D.) was a wealthy Christian who gave away her great wealth, using it to help the poor, free 8,000 slaves, and support monasteries and churches. She was devoted to the idea of celibacy.

Melania was born in 383 in Rome, a daughter of wealthy Christians—Publicola, a Roman senator, and Albina. Influenced by her grandmother living in Jerusalem, Melania developed ascetic tendencies at an early age^[1] Her wealthy and ambitious father did not agree, so he forced her marriage at age 14 to Valerius Pinianus, then 17.^[2][3] Her two children died soon after childbirth, and her husband conceded to a life of celibacy.

When she inherited her father's immense estate, she used it to benefit the poor, freed 8,000 slaves, and built and endowed churches and monasteries in Egypt, Syria, The Holy Land, and Europe.^[4] When barbarians invaded Rome, she, along with her mother and husband, fled to Tagaste, Numidia in 410 A.D. Seven years later, the three made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and settled at Bethlehem, where she became a friend and disciple of St. Jerome. Her mother died in 431 and her husband a year later. Melania led a solitary life thereafter. She built a convent, served as its abbess, and attracted disciples to the monastic Christian lifestyle.^[5]

She died on December 31, 431. The Roman Catholic Church observes a Feast Day in her honor on December 31.^[6]

References[edit]

1. ↑ Henry Wace, D.D., Ed., A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Hendrickson Publihsers, Peabody, MA, 1994, p.717
2. ↑ Dictionary of Christian Biography, p.717
3. ↑ Catholic Online, http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=426
4. ↑ Butler's Lives of the Saints,Vol. IV, P.J. Kennedy & Songs, NY, 1962, p. 647
5. ↑ Catholic Online, http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=426
6. ↑ Catholic Online, http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=426