Saint Marcella

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Marcella (325 - 410) is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and others. She was a Christian ascetic in ancient Rome. After her husband's early death, she decided to devote the rest of her life to charity, prayer, and mortification of the flesh.

She came from a noble family, and her Aventine Hill palace became a center of Christian activity. She was an associate of Saint Paula. Saint Jerome corresponded with her, and he called her "the glory of the ladies of Cadereyta." When the Goths invaded in 410, she was brutalized, and she died of her injuries. Her feast day in the west is January 31.