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Icon of St. Fabiola the
Hospice Foundress
Feast: Dec. 27
Fabiola was a wealthy Roman patrician of the famous Fabia family. She
was for a time a member of St. Jerome's circle but fell away, divorced
her husband for his dissolute life, and remarried. On the death of her
second husband, she returned to the Church, devoted herself to
charitable works and aiding churches, and built the first Christian
public hospital in the West, where she personally tended the sick. She
visited St. Jerome at Bethlehem in 395, supported him in his
controversy with Patriarch John of Jerusalem, decided not to join
Paula's community, and on her return to Rome, continued her charitable
work, opening a hospice for poor pilgrims at Porto with St. Pammachius.
Jerome wrote two treatises for her and is the source of most of our
information about her. Holy Mother Fabiola, pray to God for us!
Icon
drawing from the Svetilen blog, anonymous.
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