According to Catholic doctrine, there is a group of fourteen saints known as the 'fourteen auxiliary Saints,' or 'Holy Helpers.' During times of illness or death, mankind turns to God with prayers and petitions; this was especially true during the 14th century when a plague epidemic caused sudden and painful death throughout Europe. Because death occurred so suddenly, many people missed receiving the final sacraments. In fear, the living sought the intercession of saints known individually for helping with different symptoms of the plague. (Legend has the parents of Saint Nicholas dying from the plague.) Thus devotion was established to a group known as the Holy Helpers.

One of these Holy Helpers is Saint Barbara, whose feast is celebrated on December 4th. She is often depicted by her tower (in which she was kept prisoner) and the ciborium surmounted by the Sacred Host. She was one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. An elaborate legend has her the daughter of a pagan who resisted her father's demands that she marry. She lived in a tower, and during the absence of her father, had three windows built into a bathhouse he was having constructed, to explain the Trinity.

Saint Barbara is invoked against lightning and sudden death. She is the patroness of miners, artillery men, builders, architects, and is also invoked by young unmarried girls to pick the right husband for them. On December 4, unmarried members of the household go into the orchard to cut twigs from the cherry trees, and place them into water. There is an old belief that if a person's cherry twig blossoms on Christmas Day, they can expect to marry in the following year.