Image: Saint Agnes of Bohemia Gives the Grandmaster a Model of the Church | Nikolaus PuchnerImage: Saint Agnes of Bohemia Gives the Grandmaster a Model of the Church | Nikolaus PuchnerPosted on 03/02/2017 3:20:50 PM PST by Salvation
Image: Saint Agnes of Bohemia Gives the Grandmaster a Model of the Church | Nikolaus Puchner
Agnes had no children of her own but was certainly life-giving for all who knew her.
Agnes was the daughter of Queen Constance and King Ottokar I of Bohemia. She was betrothed to the Duke of Silesia, who died three years later. As she grew up, she decided she wanted to enter the religious life.
After declining marriages to King Henry VII of Germany and King Henry III of England, Agnes was faced with a proposal from Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. She appealed to Pope Gregory IX for help. The pope was persuasive; Frederick magnanimously said that he could not be offended if Agnes preferred the King of Heaven to him.
After Agnes built a hospital for the poor and a residence for the friars, she financed the construction of a Poor Clare monastery in Prague. In 1236, she and seven other noblewomen entered this monastery. Saint Clare sent five sisters from San Damiano to join them, and wrote Agnes four letters advising her on the beauty of her vocation and her duties as abbess.
Agnes became known for prayer, obedience and mortification. Papal pressure forced her to accept her election as abbess, nevertheless, the title she preferred was “senior sister.” Her position did not prevent her from cooking for the other sisters and mending the clothes of lepers. The sisters found her kind but very strict regarding the observance of poverty; she declined her royal brother’s offer to set up an endowment for the monastery.
Devotion to Agnes arose soon after her death on March 6, 1282. She was canonized in 1989.
Agnes spent at least 45 years in a Poor Clare monastery. Such a life requires a great deal of patience and charity. The temptation to selfishness certainly didn’t vanish when Agnes walked into the monastery. It is perhaps easy for us to think that cloistered nuns “have it made” regarding holiness. Their route is the same as ours: gradual exchange of our standards–inclinations to selfishness–for God’s standard of generosity.
Lenten Series Ping!
I love the song of that same title,’Day By Day’, from the broadway play “Jesus Christ Superstar”.
Another from that play is ‘I don’t know how to love Him”.
Thursday, March 2
Liturgical Color: Violet
Today the Church recalls St.
John Maron, bishop. St. John
was a skillful preacher who
traveled around Syria speaking
against the Monophysite heresy.
This heresy taught that Christ
never had a human nature, only
a divine one. St. John died in
707 A.D.
Bookmark; an exemplary model.
Very inspiring. Thank you.
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