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208 208 ST. CRESCENTIA St. Crescentia (i), June 15, M. c. 300. Represented holding a palm, a little boy, St. Vitus, standing beside her. Wife of St. Modestus. Hylas, a rich citizen of Mazara, in Sicily, gave his infant son, Vitus, to Crescentia to be nursed. She and her husband brought up the child as a Christian, and had him baptised. When he was seven he gave sight to the blind and performed other miraculous cures, especially on those possessed of devils. Hylas was very angry, and, after trying in vain to induce his son to abandon the despised sect of the Christians, he brought him before Valerian, the governor of the town. Valerian ordered him to be scourged. When the executioner tried to obey, his arm was paralyzed. Vitus restored the powerless arm by making the sign of the cross over it. Valerian, considering the boy's tender age, sent him back to his father, who tried to pervert him by the seductions of pleasure. Modestus, warned by a dream, took Crescentia and Vitus and crossed over to Leucania. Diocletian sent for Vitus to cure his daughter, which he did. The emperor then tried to bribe the boy and his foster- father and mother with gifts and promises, to renounce their religion. These gentle means failing, they were cast into a dark prison, thence brought into the amphi- theatre in presence of a multitude of people, and put in a caldron of boiling pitch. They sang praises to Christ in the caldron, and came out unhurt. A lion was then let loose to kill them. It licked their feet and lay down quietly. They were put on the rack, and while their bones were being dislocated, an earthquake shook the place, a temple and all the statues of gods and emperors fell down, and many persons were killed. An angel led the three martyrs from the place of torture to the banks of the river Silorus, where they died. Their bodies were embalmed and buried by a lady of high rank named Florentia. They are all commemorated together. R.M, Baillet, Vies. Boll., AA.SS. Ott, Die Legende, Wetzer and Welt, Did. Theologique, " Saints Auxiliairea" Martyrum Acta St Crescentia (2 June 4, M. in Cilicia, or Sicily. AA.SS. Perhaps the same as Crescentia (1). St Crescentia (3), May 5, M. at Home. AA.SS. St. Crescentia (4), Aug. 4, M. with St. Justa (1). Buried in the Via Tiburtana at Kome. Mart, of Oorvei. AA.8S. St. Crescentia (5), V. Abbess. 8th century. Accompanied St. Boniface to Scotland. Perhaps same as Creticia. (See TRrouANA.) Forbes. St Crescentia (0), V., is placed among the Ahemeri, or saints who have no certain day dedicated to them, but she is commemorated by some people, Aug. 19. All that is ^own of her is from St. Gregory of Tours. On the site of an old church near Paris was a stone bearing this inscription, "Hie requiescit Crescentia J sacrata Deo puella " Q^ Here lies Crescentia, a girl dedicated to God "). There was no date nor any record of the life of the departed. A certain priest thought it might be the tomb of a saint, and took a pinch of dust from it to a man who was sufifering from tertian fever ; he immediately recovered. This came to be known, and many flocked to the tomb to be cured of divers diseases. She is particularly successful in curing toothache. AA.SS. B. Crescentia (7), Aprn 9. f 1 744. O.S.F. Mary Crescenz Hosz, or Hois, was the daughter of a poor weaver of Eaufbeuem, in Bavaria. She ardently wished to take the veil in a convent of the Third Order of St. Francis in her native town. The nuns were so poor that they could not take a member who had absolutely nothing to contribute to the support of the community. They allowed her, however, the satis£Ebction of coming when she had a few spare minutes, to kneel before a large crucifix standing in a corridor of their house. One day while she was thus engaged the Saviour spoke to her from that cross, saying, "This shall be thy dwelling-place." She was then twenty years old. Near the convent was an inn where people made so much noise that they disturbed the nuns at their prayers. The mayor of the place, though a Protestant, ufied