According to a pious legend, Saint Olivia was described as a ravishing beauty of 13 years when Saracens captured her at Palermo, Sicily in the 9th century. She was deported to Tunis where she began to perform miracles and convert Muslims to Christianity.

Wishing to get rid of her, but fearing her power, her captors abandoned her in a forest, giving her to the beasts. Some hunters found her and took her themselves as a slave, but she converted them to the Faith. Exasperated Muslim authorities arrested, tortured, and beheaded her. At the moment of her death, her soul was seen to fly to heaven in the form of a dove.

She has been honoured in Carthage and Palermo, and was held in great esteem by Christians and Muslims. The mosque of Tunis is called the Mosque of Olivia, and Tunisian Muslims say that who speaks ill of her is always punished by God.

Saint Olivia is considered a Patron Saint of Music and Palermo, Italy.

Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
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36 COMMENTS

  1. St. Olivia please help my son get to the academy and recruitment and help him to endure and conquer the training, bless and protect us Amen

  10. Please pray for my son and his future wife. Also pray for this world and the end of the hatred the Muslims show to all other faiths and the extremist in their midst that have a terror-hold on the world and the killing of thousands of christians at their hands.

  12. St. Olivia through your intercession, may God grant freedom to the innocent girls abducted by the Bokoharam insurgents.

  13. St. Olivia , please intercede for the quick release of the abducted Chibok school girls in Nigeria and for conversion of boko haram insurgents .

  15. St. Olivia please intercede so that my children, will have good health, employment, faith, family and love to all humans.. may you guide them in the right path.. protect them at all times.. may my marriage grow stronger every day..
    amen

  20. St. Olivia……. Please pray for me, that I may be worthy of the love of God, my Lord, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the ever Blessed Virgin. Please, I ask in Jesus Name, to please make me worthy. All my family needs your intercession, so, they will know to change their ways, so when it’s time, they will make it to heaven, and live with the Blessed Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, and all the Saints, and Angels. Please show them the way. I ask this in the Holy Name of Jesus, who died for each one of us.

  21. Pllease pray for the convergence of family members, but especially for those people that are causing terrorism and war. Bring peace to all people, amén.

  22. saint Olivia please help in interceding for our brothers who in the name of ISIS are persecuting Christians, destroying the churches and burning them. We pray for their conversion. I also pray for my conversion from my sinful live.

  26. St. Olivia, please intercede so that my son will find his way back to the Church, so that he can have my grandson baptized and raised in the Catholic Church instead of letting him grow up and make his own decisions about what he wants to believe in. I pray, most earnestly, that he and his little family come back soon. Amen.

  31. Sant’Oliva compatrona della storica città di Palermo inviaci un governatore cristiano, cattolico, coadiuvato da nobili che sappiano portare la Croce di Cristo Re sul vessillo delle nostre bandiere

  33. Dear St. Olivia, You were so very young when you were taken from Palermo. Yet you went on to convert Muslims to Christianity. How you must have loved the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please intercede for the whole world now that the coronavirus is rampant. We so need your prayers.

  36. St. Olivia, now that I have known u…pray for me to get a gift counsel and wisdom to be a good counsellor to all who need help and change their lives

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