As the month of October marks Pink Month, we share four saints who are recognized for interceding in a special way for those who suffer from this disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) commemorates 19 October as this date to contribute to the prevention of breast cancer, which is considered the most common type of cancer and “the most common cause of death from cancer in women” in America and the world.
Below, we present four saints who intercede in a special way for women suffering from breast cancer:
1. Saint Agueda
Saint Agueda is the patron saint of those suffering from diseases of the mammary gland and women suffering from breast cancer.
Her feast is celebrated on 5 February, came from Catania, Sicily (Italy) had extraordinary beauty and she consecrated her life and her purity to God. She was tortured for rejecting the amorous advances of the consul Quintilian, and as part of her martyrdom, her breasts were cut off with fiery steel tongs.
In the world, there are churches in her honor and also associations and foundations against breast cancer that bear her name. Her devotees who are dedicated to treating and preventing breast cancer are known as “Santa Águeda’s soldiers”, according to an article signed by Dr. Michael B. Shimking.
2. Saint Ezequiel Moreno
The saint is the patron saint of cancer patients, and the miracles that led to his beatification and canonization were the healing of two patients with terminal cancer: one of them was a woman with breast cancer.
Saint Ezequiel Moreno, whose feast day is celebrated on 19 August, was an Augustinian Recollect friar who was born in the mid-19th century and who served for many years as a missionary in Colombia, where he was diagnosed with cancer. The saint died at the age of 58 in Spain, because of the disease.
He was canonized by Saint John Paul II in 1992 after verifying his intercession in the miraculous healing of the Colombian María de Jesús Náñez, a woman who, after being operated on for a tumor on her right leg, metastasized to her left breast. She entrusted herself to the then Blessed and was miraculously cured.
3. Saint Mary of Providence
The saint was born in France and was baptized with the name of Eugénie Smet. She became a religious under the name of María de La Providencia and founded the Congregation Society of the Helpers of the Souls in Purgatory, which seeks to save the blessed souls through spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
Santa María de La Providencia, whose feast is celebrated on 6 March, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 45 and died shortly after. Although it is unknown that she has interceded in cases of cures for this disease, she can be a great example for women who suffer from it and, of course, an intercessor to whom she can turn.
4. Saint Mary Celia Guerin
The saint is the wife of Saint Louis Martin, who is the parent of Saint Teresa of Lisieux and the first Catholic marriage declared a saint, whose feast is celebrated on 12 July.
Saint Maria Celia Guérin was born in 1831 into a Catholic family and was educated by nuns who taught her the trade: the art of tailoring. She married, had nine children, and led an exemplary married life with daily Mass, frequent prayer and confession, and participation in parish life.
In a similar way to Santa María de La Providencia, at the age of 45, a tumor was detected in her breast, a disease that she suffered with firm Christian hope until her death.
“If God wants to heal me, I will be very happy because, deep in my heart, I want to live; What is hard for me is leaving my husband and my daughters. But, on the other hand, I tell myself: if I am not cured, perhaps it will be more useful for me to leave, ”she wrote in a letter.
There is no doubt that her example of trust in God and her intercession can help many mothers who suffer from this disease today.