St. Barbara was born in Nicomedia, a city in Asia Minor. Her father, Dioscurus, was a pagan, and a vehement one at that. He feared that somehow his only child might learn to know and love the doctrines of the True Faith. So, the unfortunate man shut his daughter up in a tower, apart from all interaction with others.
But God will not be outwitted. In spite of the pagan’s efforts, Barbara did become a Catholic. She passed her time in study, and from her lonely tower she used to watch the heavens in their wondrous beauty. She soon became convinced that the "heavens were telling the glory of God," a God greater than the idols she had been taught to worship. Her sincere desire to know this incredible God was a prayer in itself - the only one she knew to say. In His Wisdom, God prepared her soul in simple ways until He brought her the Truth she was looking for so intently.

Barbara sent a trusty servant out to a certain Catholic she had heard of. Her servant came to this person with the simple request from Barbara that they would make the truth known to her. Returning her request, the Catholic sent one of his disciples to her tower. The man sent to her was disguised as a physician. Ironically, this wasn’t entirely untrue. Rather it was very appropriate, for God used him to heal Barbara’s searching mind and aching soul. He instructed her in the Faith, and baptized her. Now a convert, Barbara practiced her new religion in secret, waiting for a favorable opportunity of sharing her conversion with her poor father.

This opportunity was not long in coming. Some workmen were sent by Dioscurus to make another room in the tower. They built two windows into its wall, but she directed them to make a third. Her father saw this additional window, and asked her why it was there. She replied,

"Know, my father, that the soul receives light through three windows, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Three are One."

The news of his daughter’s Catholicism filled the wretched man with rage. He attempted to kill his daughter with his own sword then and there. She escaped immediate death by fleeing to the top of the tower. He pursued Barbara until he had her trapped.

She then felt hell’s vengeance, as her unrestrained father beat her furiously. When he finally stopped, Dioscurus, not content with all the pain he had just inflicted, seized his daughter by her hair, dragged her to a hut, and threw her inside to prevent her escaping him. He tried every way he could think of to induce her to renounce her Faith. Barbara was lashed by threats, severe punishments, and even starvation. But by the saving grace of God, she did not lose her strength - nor her Faith. She remained faithful in spite of all she suffered in that miserable prison.

But her father did not give up trying to erase from his daughter that Faith which he so horribly despised. Powerless to shake his daughter's constancy, Dioscurus delivered her to the proconsul Marcian. Barbara was scourged and tortured. As a father filled with the influence of demons rather than even natural goodness, Dioscurus stood by, rejoicing in the torments of his child. When Marcian finished torturing Barbara to his satisfaction, he sent her to prison.

The following night, Our Lord appeared to the suffering captive, and healed her wounds. When Barbara was brought again before Marcian, he was astonished to find no trace of the cruelties which had just been inflicted upon her. Sadly, more surprising than this miracle of love was the obstinacy of the pagan. In spite of the amazing healing he had just witnessed, Marcian again tried to convince Barbara to deny the Faith. Having suffered and sacrificed so much for so long, Barbara was not going to give in now to the pagans.
At length, finding it utterly useless to kill the Faith in Barbara, Marcian’s last resort was to simply take the saint's life. He condemned her to be beheaded. Her pagan father, filled with hatred for his daughter because of her Faith, had the diabolical pleasure of executing her himself. She was martyred on December 4, 237. At the moment of the saint's death a violent storm arose, in which Dioscurus and Marcian were both killed by lightening.

Given the just punishment of St. Barbara’s persecutors, it is not surprising that, since early times, she has been invoked as the patroness against lightning and explosions. She is also called upon by those looking to obtain the Last Sacraments in their final illness, and many people have benefited by her intercession.

Anyone who truly knows death prays for a happy and blessed one. It’s far better to die prepared and in grace, than to die a sudden death without being ready, or even to waste our last sufferings which can obtain the last merit of our lives. In our dying moments, the Last Sacraments are a wonderful source of grace. But with or without this benefit, a truly happy death is that of a soul ready to die. No one is more prepared for death than one who has lived a good life. We must learn to die to the world and to ourselves, by striving after virtue, and even perfection. Ending our lives in happiness and peace is a motivation that, with God’s grace, can bring us through any trial, or purge our hearts of any earthly attachments that keep us from God. There will be happiness and grace in our death, no matter how matter how suddenly or painfully it comes upon us, if we pray, putting effort and energy into living our lives as God wants us to - rather than ignoring our deaths and waiting until it is too late to think about eternity.

St. Augustine observes: "It is very dangerous to postpone the performance of a duty, on which our whole eternity depends, to the most inconvenient time - the last hour."

St. Bernard remarks: "In Holy Scripture we find one single instance of one who received pardon at the last moment. He was the thief crucified with Jesus. He is alone, that you despair not; he is alone, also, that you sin not by presumption on God's mercy."

To these counsels of the Saints, St. Barbara would add that she is there, ready and waiting to help you obtain a happy death by living your life in preparation for it.