St Barbara

December 4th was the feast of St Barbara. She was one of the casualties in 1969 of the purge of the Univeral Calendar in connection with the publication of the 1970 Missal, although her cultus is long established and still popular in significant parts of the Church and of other institutions - not least the military.

The Wikipedia article about her includes a fine selection of images of St Barbara in different mediums and from different eras. It can be seen at Saint Barbara

In 2015 I posted an illustrated version of an article from the Medieval Religion discussion group with many images of St Barbara, indicating how widespread devotion was to her. It can be seen at St Barbara

More images of St Barbara from more recent centuries can be seen on the post from Greeker then the Greeks at Saint Barbara the Great Martyr - Beheaded by her Father 

She is still venerated in the Orthodox Church and there are two, similar, accounts of her Vita from Orthodox parishes in the United States - one at Durham in North Carolina which can be seen at Our Patron Saint

The other is from Fort Worth in Texas and can be viewed at Who was Saint Barbara? — St. Barbara Orthodox Church

The New Liturgical Movement has an article in 2021 about devotion to her which can be seen at The Feast of St Barbara. This draws attention to her being amongst the Fourteen Holy Helpers which doubtless further encouraged devotion to her.

Her patronage of miners and mining is outlined in an article in English from a German website at The_Legend_of_Saint_Barbara

St Barbara as a military patroness, notably to the artillery, is set out by the National Catholic Register at St. Barbara — the Patron Saint of Things That Go Boom

In my post Commemorating St Barbara last year I referenced two of the three Anglican parishes that are under her patronage - the medieval church at Haceby in Lincolnshire and the twentieth century church at Earlsdon in Coventry. There is an online parish history of the latter, which looks to be quite a stately building, at History of St Barbara’s | St Barbara's Church, Earlsdon

The third example is the medieval church at Ashton-under-Hill in Worcestershire. According to the well illustrated account on the Britain Express site the church was under the patronage of St Andrew in the middle ages and only adopted St Barbara in the eighteenth century. The article can be seen at Ashton-under-Hill, St Barbara's Church, History & Photos

A while back the Liturgical Arts Journal had an article about a German custom of bringing branches of flowering shrubs into homes and watering them to see if they will flower on Christmas Day. It can be seen at Advent Customs: St. Barbara's Branches (Barbarazweige)

St Barbara pray for us