Feastday: December 24
St. Gregory the Great had three aunts, sisters to his father, Gordian the regionarius, who led an ascetic religious life in their father's house. Their names were Tarsilla, who was the eldest, Emiliana and Gordiana. Tarsilla and Emiliana were more united by the fervor of their hearts and the bond of charity than by blood. They lived in their father's house on the Clivus Scauri as in a monastery and, encouraging one another to virtue by discourse and example, made great progress in spiritual life. Gordiana joined them, but she was often impatient of silence and retirement and, being called to another way of living, married her guardian. Tarsilla and Emiliana persevered in the path they had chosen, enjoying divine peace and love until they were called to receive the recompense of their fidelity. St. Gregory tells us that Tarsilla was visited one night with a vision of her great-grandfather, Pope St. Felix II (III), who showed a place prepared for her in heaven, saying, "Come; I will receive you into this habitation of light". She fell sick soon after, and as her friends were crowding round her bed, she cried out, "Away! Away! My Saviour Jesus is coming!" After these words she breathed out her soul into the hands of God on the vigil of Christmas. The skin of her knees and elbows was found to be hardened, "like the hide of a camel", by her continual prayer. A few days later she appeared to Emiliana, and called her to celebrate the Epiphany in heaven. Emiliana in fact, died on January 5. Both are named, on the respective days of their death, in the Roman Martyrology. Her feast day is December 24th.
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Saints Trasilla (Tarsilla, Tharsilla, Thrasilla) and Emiliana were aunts of St. Gregory the Great, and venerated as virgin saints of the sixth century. They appear in the Roman Martyrology, the former on 24 December, the latter on 5 January.
History
Tarsilla (Tharsilla, Trasilla, Thrasilla) and Emiliana (Aemiliana, Emilie) were sisters and came from an ancient Roman noble family, the gens Anicia. Their brother, Senator Gordian, was a very rich patrician with a magnificent townhouse on the Caelian Hill and large estates in Sicily.
Gregory (Hom. XXXVIII, 15, on the Gospel of St. Matthew, and Lib. Dial., IV, 16) relates that his father, the Senator Gordian, had three sisters: Trasilla, Emiliana, and Gordiana. All three had devoted themselves to a religious life and led a life of virginity, fasting, and prayer. They practiced their faith in their father's house, located on the Clivus Scauri in Rome. Gordiana, at first as devout as her sisters, later abandoned this calling and is thus not venerated as a saint.
Tradition states that St. Felix III, an ancestor, appeared to Trasilla and bade her to enter Heaven, and on the eve of Christmas Trasilla died, seeing Jesus Christ beckoning. The legend also states that Trasilla a few days later appeared to Emiliana, inviting her to celebrate Epiphany in heaven.
Tradition says that their relics and those of their sister-in-law, St. Silvia, are in the Oratory of St. Andrew on the Celian Hill.
