Today, February 12, is the memorial of Saint Eulalia of Barcelona.
During Eulalia’s time, Spain was under the rule of Roman emperor Diocletian, who hated Christians. Eulalia’s mother wanted her daughter, a staunch Christian, to hide. However, Eulalia spoke out against the atrocities of her time. The authorities arrested her immediately.
The arresting officers dragged her to the public square, tore off her clothes, and exposed her naked. A miraculous snowfall in mid-spring covered her nude body. Thus, in AD 303, for refusing to renounce her faith, the Romans subjected this 13-year old virgin to 13 tortures including: putting her into a barrel with knives and glass and rolling it down a street, cutting off her breasts, burning, whipping, crucifixion on an X-shaped cross, and, finally, decapitation. A dove, others accounts say goose, flew from her neck after her beheading.
Eulalia is buried in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross & St. Eulalia, also known as Barcelona Cathedral. She is the co-patron saint of Barcelona, Spain, along with St. George.
The cathedral has a pond with a fountain in the inner cathedral courtyard. There live 13 geese in the enclosure, 13 to honor the saint’s age and tortures.