Love of Rome

Holy Martyr Love of Rome, the youngest of the three daughters of Saint Sophia, suffered for Christ in the year 137, in the time of the emperor Hadrian (117-138), when she was only nine years old. Her sisters were Faith, who was twelve, and Hope, who was ten.

Sophia, whose name means "wisdom", was a devout widow of Rome. She raised her daughters in the love of God and taught them not to cling to earthly goods; for this reason she gave them the names of the chief Christian virtues: Faith, Hope and Love. Word of this family reached the emperor, who wished to see them. All four stood before him and confessed without fear their faith in Christ, risen from the dead. Surprised at the girls' courage, the emperor sent them to a pagan woman with the order to persuade them to renounce their faith. All her arguments were in vain, and the sisters stood firm. Brought again before Hadrian, they firmly rejected the command to sacrifice to the gods.

Hadrian, in anger, ordered that they be put to various tortures. They began with Faith, who was beaten without mercy before her mother and sisters, then laid on a grating of iron heated in fire and thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch; neither the fire nor the pitch harmed her, and she was condemned to be beheaded by the sword. The younger sisters, Hope and Love, encouraged by the courage of the eldest, endured similar torments; the fire did them no harm, and their heads were cut off with the sword.

Sophia was not tortured in body, but was condemned to a still heavier suffering of soul, separation from her slain daughters. She buried their honoured bodies and stayed two days beside their tomb. On the third day the Lord gave her a peaceful death and received her soul into the heavenly dwellings. The Church has numbered Sophia, together with her daughters, among the saints.

They are commemorated on 30 September, in the new style.