Praxedes

Saint Praxedes was a virgin of Rome in the second century, the daughter of the senator Pudens and the sister of Saint Pudentiana. Together with her sister she cared for the persecuted and buried the bodies of the martyrs. She reposed in the year 165.

Her father, Pudens, a Roman senator converted by the Apostle Peter, is mentioned by Paul in the second epistle to Timothy. After his conversion the whole family became Christian, and the two sisters inherited the family fortune and used it for the poor. In a time of persecution they buried the bodies of Christians, distributed goods to the poor, and cared for, encouraged and supported the persecuted. According to Baring-⁠Gould, her brothers were Novatus and Timothy.

Their veneration began in the fourth century, and many churches bear their names. They were buried, with their father, in the catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, mentioned in the seventh-⁠century itineraries of the graves of Roman martyrs. The Basilica of Saint Praxedes in Rome, built in the fourth century on the site of her home and rebuilt by Pope Paschal I (817 to 824), who moved the sisters' relics there, has in the apse mosaic what are probably the two figures offering their crowns to Christ. Praxedes is depicted there squeezing into a vessel the blood of the martyrs which she has collected in a sponge. A part of the floor of the central nave marks the place where their relics are kept. She is commemorated on 21 July as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.