St. Justina, Virgin, Martyr 304 A.D. October 7      She suffered at Padua in the persecution of Diocletian about the year 304 or, according to some, in that of Nero. Fortunatus ranks her among the most illustrious holy virgins whose sanctity and triumph have adorned and edified the church, saying that her name makes Padua illustrious as Euphemia does Chalcedon, and Eulalia the city Emerita. And in his poem on the life of St. Martin, he bids those who visit Padua there to kiss the sacred sepulchre of the blessed Justina, on the walls of which they will see the actions of St. Martin represented in figures or paintings. A church was built at Padua in her honor about the middle of the fifth age by Opilio, prefect of the praetorium, who was consul in 453. Her precious remains, concealed in the pillage of Atila, who destroyed Aquileia and Padua in the middle of the fifth century, were found in 1177 and are kept with great veneration in the famous church which bears her name. It was most elegantly and sumptuously rebuilt in 1501 and, with the adjoining Benedictine monastery to which it belongs, is one of the most finished models of building of that nature in the world. A reformation of the Benedictine order was settled in this house in 1417, which was propagated in many parts of Italy under the name of the Congregation of St. Justina of Padua. The great monastery of Mount Cassino, head of the whole order of St. Benedict, having acceded to this reformed Congregation, it was made the chief house thereof by Pope Julius II, and the jurisdiction of president or general was transferred by him from St. Justina's to the abbot of Mount Cassino, from which time this is called the Congregation of Mount Cassino and is divided into seven provinces. The great monastery of St. Justina may be said to be the second in rank. St. Justina is, after St. Mark, the second patroness of the commonwealth of Venice, and her image is stamped on the coin. Near the tomb of St. Justina in the cemetery were found the relics of several other martyrs who are said in her acts and those of St. Prosdecimus, first bishop of Padua, and other such monuments, to have suffered with her. The relics of St. Justina were placed in a shrine or chest under the high altar of the new church in 1502. When the new choir was built, these were translated with the utmost solemnity into a sumptuous vault under the new high altar in 1627. Another famous church of St. Justina stands in the city of Venice, formerly collegiate, now in the hands of nuns. The senate makes to it the most solemn procession on the 7th of October in thanksgiving for the victory of Lepanto gained over the Turks on that day, which is her festival. from Lives of the Saints by Rev. Alban Butler, 1895

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