Saint Saint Fabiola

Fabiola (Italian: Santa Fabiola, also known as Fabiola of Rome) was a physician and Roman matron of rank of the company of noble Roman women who, under the influence of the Church Father Jerome, gave up all earthly pleasures and devoted herself to the practice of Christian asceticism and charitable work. She is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic church, being commemorated on 27 December. Fabiola belonged to the patrician Roman family of the gens Fabia. She had been married to a man who led so vicious a life that to live with him was impossible. She obtained a divorce from him according to Roman law and, contrary to the ordinances of the Christian Church, she entered upon a second union before the death of her first husband. At the time of Jerome's stay at Rome (382–84), Fabiola was not one of the ascetic circle which gathered around him. It was only later that, upon the death of her second consort, she decided to enter upon a life of renunciation and labour for others. On the day before Easter, following the death of her second consort, she appeared before the gates of the Lateran basilica, dressed in penitential garb, and did public penance for her sin, which made a great impression upon the Christian population of Rome. The pope received her formally again into full communion with the church. Fabiola now renounced all that the world had to offer her, and devoted her immense wealth to the needs of the poor and the sick. She erected a fine hospital at Rome, and waited on the inmates herself, and treated citizens rejected from society due to their "loathsome diseases". Besides this she gave large sums to the churches and religious communities at Rome and other places in Italy. All her interests were centered on the needs of the church and the care of the poor and suffering.