#st. thecla

[egoschwank]

al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1231

first posted in facebook october 25, 2023

julia thecla -- "mary in blue shoes" (1939)

"THE MAGIC POOL go in bowed silence to the dark pool others are there, heads bare it is holy water stare into the magic circle … sleep the hypnotic sleep from which the word will awaken you … the word forgotten by the hypnotist" … julia thecla

"her ethereal and sensuous portrayal of dreams, fairytales, and planetary realms were extraordinary explorations of alternative social orders" … depaul art museum

"julia thecla is the mystery girl of chicago art — shy, self-effacing, seldom saying more than half a dozen words to anyone, gliding abruptly but quietly away after briefly acknowledging an introduction to a stranger. she is almost as evasive an enigma, as the original thecla for whom she is named – that st. thecla who became infatuated with the eloquence of st. paul and followed him everywhere disguised as a boy, possibly acting as his secretary" … c.j. bulliet

"look deep into my eyes mary in your blue shoes … deeper … deeper … you are getting drowsy … very drowsy … sleep mary sleep" … bunny rabbit [i.e., al janik]

[catholicsapphic]

“[x female saint] had to dress like a man to be taken seriously/be safe/do her job! Isn’t that terrible? 😟” well but have you considered that maybe she Wanted to dress like that?

[sisterdivinium]

Warrior Nun truly is the most fucked up fucking show in the whole fucking world isn't it

Thecla (Ancient Greek: Θέκλα, Thékla; Greek: Θέκλα; Turkish: Tekla) was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul the Apostle. The earliest record of her life comes from the ancient apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla.

In one scene, female beasts, particularly lionesses, protected her against her male aggressors.

It is also said that Thecla spent the rest of her life in Maaloula, a village in Syria. There, she became a healer and performed many miracles...

...but remained constantly persecuted.

In one instance, as her persecutors were about to get to her, she called out to God, a new passage was opened in the cave she was in, and the stones closed behind her.

Around AD 280, Thecla features as one of the characters in Methodius of Olympus' Symposium, in which she displays considerable knowledge of profane philosophy, various branches of literature, and eloquent yet modest discourse. Methodius states that she received her instruction in divine and evangelical knowledge from Paul, and was eminent for her skill in sacred science ("Logos 8").

According to some scholars, Thecla's story inspired many later stories of women saints who dressed as men

All of these women were empowered by Thecla, a woman who did things that not many women would ever dare to do

In Spanish-speaking countries, she is also facetiously counted as the patron saint of computers and Internet, from the homophony with the Spanish and Catalan word tecla ("key").[citation needed]

(text on Thecla of Iconium taken from Wikipedia)

[fierysword]

Beyond the fact that the heroine is a woman, the role of women in the ATh [Acts of Paul and Thecla] is underscored by numerous references to female supporters of [St] Thecla during her imprisonment and her trials in the arena. Thecla’s association with female characters extends even to her confrontation with the wild animals in the arena. Among all the beasts Thecla faces, a ‘fierce lioness’ befriends her, licking her feet during the procession before the games. Later in the arena, that same lioness defends Thecla against two male animals, a bear and a lion. The lioness’s battle with the bear and lion serves as a metaphor for Thecla’s own struggles against the opposition and antagonism of male characters in the story. By punctuating the battle between the lioness and the male beasts with the supportive responses of the anonymous ‘crowd of women,’ the story incorporates the lioness into that community of female supporters, and portrays the animal herself as a martyr for Thecla’s cause.

The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late Antiquity by Stephen J. Davis

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day Saint Thecla of Iconium 1st Century AD Feast Day: September 23

Saint Thecla, a virgin and native of Iconium was popular in the early Church. She was so impressed by St. Paul the Apostle’s preaching that she became his follower and a perpetual virgin. Legend has it that because she was a Christian, attempts were made to torture her by fire, rape, and eaten by wild beasts, yet she was miraculously protected all three times showing a martyr’s heroic faith. Eventually she lived as a hermit though persecuted until her death. She is called the protomartyr among women. {website}

[casgape]

it's religious discrimination to not be able to get nice things for st thecla tbh

[catholic-saint-tournament]

Suggestion for the saint tournament: St Thecla and St Teresa of Avila!

Another vote for St Teresa of Avila!

As for St Thecla, she's a brand new nominee! She'll need a lot more propaganda to get her to the bracket!

[and-her-saints]

Who do you think is the Saint of transitioning? Like, in general

perhaps either St. Marinos the monk or St. Wilgefortis... or even St. Joan of Arc, St. Thecla, St. Eugenia...

(Kittredge Cherry from qspirit.net has some very extensive lists!!!! also, i highly recommend her website. she's so cool <3)

[hymnsofheresy]

girl¹ help.

(1. St. Thecla of Iconium)

[eustochium]

Catholic Saints fancast: Anna Magnani as St Rita of Cascia, Lakeith Stanfield as John the Baptist, Anne Dowd as Margaret Pole, Nicola Coughlan as Therese of Lisieux, Mia Goth as Clare of Assisi, Irene Pappas as Teresa of Avila, John C Reilly as Thomas Aquinas, Drea de Matteo as Mary Magdalene, Michaela Coel as St. Thecla, Jennifer Coolidge as Margaret of Cortona, Tony Leung as Mark Ji Tianxiang, Steve Buscemi as Augustine of Hippo.

[congregamus]

What I really want is a video game where I get to play as St Thecla, wandering the open world of Mediterranean antiquity. Major quests are in Antioch, Galatia, Phillipi, Corinth, and Ephesus. Thecla (or Phoebe? or Junia?) is tasked with securing manuscripts of foundational documents as Peter and Paul await martyrdom in Rome. The final boss is Emperor Nero, but before he can be defeated, Thecla must first subdue Simon Magus, a “henchman” protecting the Emperor. Even though Thecla, whose “physical” weapon is a swinging thurible, will not succeed in halting the martyrdoms of P+P, she eventually defeats Nero, who, as his physical form deteriorates, reveals that the power behind Empire is the Spirit of Antichrist, active in every age and recognizable because of its compulsion to incarnate wealth, enslavement, confusion, exclusion, and scarcity.

After her ultimate victory, Thecla founds a monastery in the desert where she will train the next “warrior” in the power of love, prayer, and weaponized incense.

[apocrypals]

I accidentally fell off listening for a couple years but I want to catch up - do you have any recommendations of older episodes I should re-listen to in order to remind myself of important context and information? Or perhaps even a list of some of your favorite episodes I should just revisit in general :)

Some of our recent episodes have touched on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, so it might be worth revisiting the Isaiah and Jeremiah episodes

Otherwise, some of my personal faves include the episodes on St Patrick, Esther, and both Besht episodes

Our most popular ones are probably Thecla, Judith, Revelation, and the Enoch episodes

[anastpaul]

EMBER Saturday – Fast & Abstinence, Nuestra Senora de Valvanera / Our Lady of Valvanera, Spain (9th Century), St Pope Linus, St Thecla and the rest of the Saints for 23 September

EMBER Saturday – Fast & Abstinence – In case you have forgotten about Ember Days as they are not promoted or encouraged since Vatican II, here is a reminder:https://anastpaul.com/2020/12/16/today-is-an-ember-day-did-you-remember/ Nuestra Senora de Valvanera / Our Lady of Valvanera, La Rioja, Spain (9th Century) – 23…

[troybeecham]

Today the church remembers the Martyrs of Memphis, Sr. Constance, Nun, and Her Companions.

Orate pro nobis.

Late in the summer of AD 1878, yellow fever struck Memphis, Tennessee. The populace all tried to flee, leaving behind those unable to escape, mostly the poor and those already ill. Within 10 days of the first yellow fever death in Memphis, more than half the population fled the city in a panic. They left “by every possible conveyance — by hacks, carriages, buggies, wagons, furniture vans, and street drays,” wrote Keating. “By anything that could float on the river, and by the railroads. The stream of passengers seemed endless, and they seemed to be as mad as they were many.”

Left behind were still some 20,000 men, women, and children, but Memphis faded into a ghost town. Shops and offices were boarded up, houses locked and shuttered. An eerie silence smothered the city, broken only by the occasional booming of cannons (fired to break up the “poisons” in the air), and the steady clop-clop of doctors’ wagons or carts hauling caskets. At night, smoldering fires of burning bedding and clothing — the last belongings of fever victims — lit the yellow-armbanded Howard Association members, who scurried from house to house aiding the sick.

Victims dropped dead in the streets, and bodies were discovered each morning in the city’s parks. Entries in the sister’s journals describe an abandoned town with the bodies of the dead lying where the fell, children in homes with their dead parents…scenes of pure horror. Sister Constance wrote: “Yesterday I found two young girls, who had spent two days in a two-room cottage with the unburied bodies of their parents, their uncle in the utmost suffering and delirium, and no one near them. It was twenty-four hours before I could get those fearful corpses buried, and then I had to send for a police officer … before any undertaker would enter that room.”

The Episcopal Cathedral of St. Mary’s, and its adjacent Church Home, were in the poor part of town, the center of the most infected area, and became shelters for victims. The cathedral staff and nuns of the Sisters of St. Mary, who operated the Church Home, faced enormous burdens in caring for the sick and dying. The Cathedral of St. Mary, then a plain wooden church, stood as a beacon of hope amid the gloom, and two priests there — Fr. Charles Parsons and Fr. Louis Schuyler — also played heroic roles during the epidemic. They joined dozens of other church members throughout the city who, along with the Howard Association, died at their posts during the ordeal.

Some of the sisters were on retreat in Peekskill, New York, when the epidemic broke out, and instead of keeping a safe distance they rushed back to Memphis. When the news of the deaths of the local priests got out, over 30 priests from all over the nation volunteered to come to Memphis. Father W.T. Dickinson Dalzell came from Shreveport, La., since he had already survived the disease and was immune—he was also a trained physician. With his arrival, daily Eucharist resumed and the Sacrament was carried to the dying Sisters.

Sister Constance was the first of the nuns to be stricken. As she died on September 9, her last words were “Alleluia, Hosanna,” simple words of praise remembered and inscribed on the cathedral"s high altar.

Sister Constance’s companions in service to the sick and dying, Sisters Thecla and Ruth, soon followed her to the grave, as did Sister Frances, headmistress of the Church Home. She had nursed some thirty children at one time and had watched twenty-two die. Fr. Louis Schuyler, a chaplain to the Sisters of St. Mary, also died of the fever, as did Fr. Charles Parsons. Fr. Parsons was blessed with a vision of heaven as he lay dying and his last words were, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

When winter came and the mosquitoes died off, the epidemic ended, 200 towns and cities across the South lay wasted. Yellow fever had infected more than 100,000 people, causing some 20,000 deaths — more than 5,000 in Memphis alone.

5,150 people died in the Memphis Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878, and many of them were formerly healthy people who had stayed to help the sick until succumbing themselves. The city buried 1,500 of its dead in a mass grave on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi -- and pretty much forgot about them until January 3, 1971, when the grave site became Martyrs Park.

On this day we honor those who gladly risked their own lives in the name of Jesus in order to save the lives of many and to assuage the final suffering of others.

Embolden us to work for the healing of all those in need, seeking to love others as you have loved us, Lord Christ.

We give you thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death; Insipre in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

[fierysword]

O God . . . you who have saved me from fire, who did not hand me over to Thamyris, who did not hand me over to Alexander, who saved me from beasts, who delivered me from the deep, who always has worked together with me and has glorified your name in me, now rescue me from these lawless men

St Thecla

[portraitsofsaints]

Mother Thecla Merlo (Maria Teresa Merlo)

February 20,1894 - February 5,1964

Patronage: Daughters of St. Paul, travelers

Venerable Thecla Merlo was an Italian religious and a co-founder of the Daughters of St. Paul with Bl. James Alberione, in 1922. She was the first Superior General, laying the foundation of the order of evangelization through social communication. Her sanctity consists of daily steadfast sacrifice and simple obedience to God’s will. Mother Theclo traveled the world visiting her sisters and promoting the Pauline vocation. She died of a brain hemorrhage with Fr. Alberione at her side.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)