December 27th - St. Fabiola of Rome, Widow (AC)
Died c. 400. Not even a bad marriage can stop us from becoming saints. In
fact, it may be the impetus to reach for Christian perfection. Fabiola was
divorced, remarried, explained, praised by Saint Jerome. Fabiola was a Roman
patrician of the Fabii family who married a very young man of equal rank but
of debauched habits. She divorced him. Then she united herself to another
man, causing great scandal in Rome, because this was contrary to the
ordinances of the Church. Both men died soon after and Fabiola was
re-admitted into communion after she performed public penance. Not only did
she complete the required penance, Fabiola completely changed her life. She
forsook her luxurious lifestyle and devoted her great wealth to good works.
With the help of Saint Paula's widowed son-in-law Saint Pammachius, Fabiola
founded the first hospital of its kind to care for indigent patients brought
in from the streets and alleyways of Rome. Here Fabiola personally tended to
the needs of the sick.
In 395, she visited her friend Saint Jerome in the Holy Land with the
intention of entering the convent at Bethlehem and sharing in Jerome's
biblical work. Whether she returned to Rome because Jerome dissuaded her
from staying or because she was temperamentally unsuited for the quiet life,
we don't know. Jerome says that her idea of the solitude of the stable of
Bethlehem was that it should not be cut off from the crowded inn.
Nevertheless, she travelled with Jerome and his companions when they fled to
Jaffa to escape the dissension building among the leading Palestinian
Christians and the threatened invasion of the Huns.
Upon his advice, she returned to Rome from Jaffa and founded and
enthusiastically superintended a hostel for sick and needy pilgrims near the
city at Porto. This is another of Fabiola's innovations; one which Jerome
says soon became known from Parthia to Britain. Apparently not even this
undertaking was enough to sap Fabiola's abundant energies. At the time of
her death she was planning a new enterprise that would take her abroad. The
veneration in which she is held in Rome was demonstrated by the great
multitudes that followed her funeral with chants of Alleluia.
Jerome dedicated to Fabiola a treatise on Aaron's priesthood and another on
the 'stations' of the Israelites in the desert. This wandering of the chosen
people seemed to him a type of Fabiola's life and death (Attwater,
Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer).
Topic: Bad marriage doesn't preclude sainthood (Read 1851 times)