Saint Agnes Lê Thị Thành
Feast day: November 24
Saint Agnes Lê Thị Thành, a mother who hid priests, the only woman among the 117 martyrs (24/11)
Who is she?
Saint Agnes Lê Thị Thành was a lay woman, a Vietnamese wife and mother. Catholics often call her Bà Đê. She is the only woman among the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs canonized in 1988. Besides the shared feast on 24 November, the Church also remembers her on 12 July, the day she died.
Life story
She was born around 1781 in the village of Bái Điền, Thanh Hoá province. As a child, she went to live in the village of Phúc Nhạc, Ninh Bình. When she grew up, she married and had six children. She took care of her husband and children, taught her children to pray, to practice the faith and to be kind to everyone.
Under Kings Minh Mạng and Thiệu Trị, the Catholic faith was banned. Priests were hunted and had to hide wherever they could. Knowing this, she bravely opened her home for the priests to hide in, looking after them and keeping them hidden. She knew very well that if they were found out, she and her whole family could be arrested. Thanks to mothers like her, priests could still celebrate Mass and give the sacraments to the faithful.
In 1841, under King Thiệu Trị, soldiers discovered her and arrested her. She was imprisoned in Nam Định and tortured many times. They tried to force her to give up her faith, but she firmly refused. Although she was old and weak, she patiently endured and kept praying.
On 12 July 1841, she died in prison, at about 60 years old. In 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized her together with 116 other Vietnamese martyrs.
Why is she a saint?
Saint Agnes was not a priest or a nun; she was an ordinary mother. But she loved God so much that she was ready to risk her life to protect the priests, and she stayed faithful to God until her last breath. She shows that anyone can live their faith heroically, right in their family and in everyday life.
A lesson for you
- Your family is the first place where you learn to love God. Pray evening prayers together with your whole family.
- Love and help the priests and catechism teachers in your parish.
- Thank your mother, your grandmother and the women who taught you about God, and pray for them.
Identifying marks
- An old woman in a brown áo dài with a black head wrap: a simple Vietnamese Catholic mother of the 19th century.
- A Rosary in her joined hands: she prayed faithfully, even in prison.
- A martyr’s palm branch: she died for the faith and shares in the victory with God.
- The only woman among the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs (*): in group pictures of the martyrs, she is the only woman.
(*) Only in some pictures and statues.
The text on this page is the saint card in the Catholic Information app, word for word.
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