St Agnes, V. M.[Virgin and Martyr]

From a treatise On Virgins by Saint Ambrose,bishop

Too young to be punished;yet old enough for a martyr's crown

Today is the birthday of a virgin;let us imitate her purity.It is the birthday of a martyr;let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes,who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness.

There was little or no room in the small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the bloodstained hands of her executioners.She stands undaunted by heavy,clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers.She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it.Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limps.

A new kind of martyrdom!Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr's crown; unfitted for the contest,yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valor despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment,crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life,adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself.The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted,as if she had already lived life to the full.All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted.What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner,to frighten her;what promises made, to win her over;what influential people desired her in marriage!She answered;To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse.I will be his who first chose me for himself.Executioner,who do you delay?If eyes that I do not want can desire this body,then let it perish." She stood still,she prayed,she offered her neck.

You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled,his face grew pale as he saw the girl's peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity,and gained a martyr's crown.

Donate Here By Secure Server

Or mail checks to
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
or you can use
PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com

Become A Monthly Donor
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
Thanks Registered

ping

BUMP. Excellent.

Thank you for posting this blessed story.

BTTT on 1-21-04

And from St. Augustine:

This is a virgin's birthday; let us follow the example of her chastity. It is a martyr's birthday; let us offer sacrifices; it is the birthday of holy Agnes: let men be filled with wonder, little ones with hope, married woman with awe, and the unmarried with emulation. It seems to me that this child, holy beyond her years and courageous beyond human nature, received the name of Agnes (Greek: pure) not as an earthly designation but as a revelation from God of what she was to be.

-- St. Augustine

BTTT on 01-21-05, Memorial of St. Agnes, virgin and martyr!

Saint of the Day Ping!

Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Saint of the Day Ping List.

† THANKS FOR THE PING †

Thanks,Salvation for bringing this one back! As an aside, on another subject, did anybody watch EWTN's "THE WORLD OVER" this evening? Raymond had an Iraqi bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church as a guest.He's in San Diego. In the Q&A part, he was asked by a caller if the invasion of Iraq was alright?(paraphrasing}. The Bishop was very positive about it.He said that it was a noble undertaking(again,paraphrasing).I missed about 15 or so minutes of it. I hope to catch the repeat.

BTTT on the Memorial of Saint Agnes, virgin and martyr, January 21, 2006!

American Catholic’s Saint of the Day

January 21, 2006

St. Agnes

(d. 258?)

Almost nothing is known of this saint except that she was very young—12 or 13—when she was martyred in the last half of the third century. Various modes of death have been suggested—beheading, burning, strangling.

Legend has it she was a beautiful girl whom many young men wanted to marry. Among those she refused, one reported her to the authorities as being a Christian. She was arrested and confined to a house of prostitution. The legend continues that a man who looked upon her lustfully lost his sight and had it restored by her prayer. She was condemned, executed and buried near Rome in a catacomb that eventually was named after her. The daughter of Constantine built a basilica in her honor.

Comment:

Like that of modern Maria Goretti, the martyrdom of a virginal young girl made a deep impression on a society enslaved to a materialistic outlook. Like Agatha, who died in similar circumstances, Agnes is a symbol that holiness does not depend on length of years, experience or human effort. It is a gift God offers to all.

Pope blesses lambs in traditional ceremony

Pope blesses lambs in traditional ceremony

Vatican, Jan. 23 (CWNews.com) - Following a Vatican tradition for the feast of St. Agnes, on January 21, Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) blessed two lambs whose wool will be used for the palliums that are worn by metropolitan archbishops.

The pallium, a white woolen strip worn around the shoulders, is a liturgical vestment worn by archbishops as a sign of their authority and their ties with the Bishop of Rome. Each year the Pope bestows the pallium on every new archbishop appointed during the past year, on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the patrons of Rome.

By tradition, the vestments are made from wool shorn from lambs blessed on the feast of St. Agnes, a Roman martyr. The palliums are then kept in an urn at the altar of St. Peter's Basilica until they are given to the new metropolitans.

Vultus Christi -- St. Agnes

Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Psalm 22: 1b-3a, 4, 5, 6
Matthew 13:44-46

A Winter Constellation

The wintertime liturgy sparkles with a constellation of virgin martyrs and holy women. The Roman Canon enshrines their names: Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia and Anastasia. In the darkest months of the year, they shine like so many little flames taken from the Paschal Candle in the great and holy night of the Resurrection. Today, we fix our gaze on Agnes.

If I Love Him

The Office of Saint Agnes is one of the most beautiful in the Roman Liturgy. Meditate it. Take it to heart today. It expresses all the sentiments of the little virgin martyr’s pure and passionate heart. “Christ is my Lover,” she sings in the Third Responsory at Matins, “and I am entering with Him into the marriage-chamber. . . . The instruments of His music sound sweetly in my ears. If I love Him I shall be chaste, if I touch Him I shall be clean, if I embrace Him I shall be a virgin indeed.”

A Christian Child

Agnes was a mere child, a little girl of twelve. The year was 304, during the persecution of Diocletian. According to Roman law, a child of twelve was not held responsible for her choices and could not therefore be subject to trial and judgment. But Christians fell outside the pale of Roman law, and Agnes was a Christian.

What are we to make of these child saints and of others like them? Our Lord places them before us, saying, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:2). “To the boastful, I say: ‘Do not boast,’ to the wicked: ‘Do not flaunt your strength, do not flaunt your strength on high. Do not speak with insolent pride’” (Ps 74:5-6).

The Triumph of Truth

Yesterday, over two hundred thousand young people thronged Saint Peter’s Square to demonstrate their support for the Holy Father. It was the triumph of the truth of Christ and of His Church over the machinations of those confused by the tiresome falsehoods of the godless. It was, in some way, the spirit of Saint Agnes and of all the martyrs of Christian Rome defying the spirit of the age

The Child Teacher

It is with little ones, “foolish in the eyes of the world” (1 Cor 1:27) that God shames the wise. It is with these little ones, “the weak in the world” (1 Cor 1:27) that God shames the strong. It is with these little ones, “low and despised in the world” (1 Cor 1:28) that God silences the boasting of the high and mighty. Saint Ambrose puts all his eloquence into praising Agnes: “She is not grown of stature to fight the battle, but she is ripe for the triumph; too weak to run in the race, and yet clearly entitled to the prize; unable from her age to be aught but a learner, she is found a teacher.”

The Shepherd and the Lamb

The choice of the Responsorial Psalm was inspired by the name Agnes derived both from the Greek for “pure” and the Latin for “lamb.” Agnes is the pure lamb; Christ is the Shepherd. The familiar Psalm 22 thus becomes her song. Agnes the lamb sings the psalm of Christ the Shepherd in the midst of the Church. The fourth verse of the psalm evokes the passion and martyrdom of the saint. “For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me” (Ps 22:4).

Perfect Charity Casteth Out Fear

In his treatise On Virginity, Saint Ambrose says: “Girls of her age tend to wilt under the slightest frown from a parent. Pricked by a needle, they cry as if given a mortal wound. But Agnes showed no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners.” He tells us that while the executioner shook as though he himself were the criminal, and the faces of bystanders turned white at the sight, Agnes all the while remained without fear. “I will fear no evils” (Ps 22:4). Saint John gives the explanation: “Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear” (1 Jn 4:18).

Chosen in Love

Appropriately then, the Alleluia Verse focuses on love, twice repeating the verb so often heard in the mouth of Christ in the fourth gospel: abide. “Abide, remain, make thy home in my love,” says the Lord; “whoever abides, remains, makes his home in me and I in him will bear much fruit” (cf. Jn 15:9b, 5b). The Latin of the Roman Lectionary uses the word dilectio for love. Manete in dilectione mea. Dilectio is that love by which one distinguishes another by selecting him from others. Dilectio is the love that chooses another. Jesus is, in fact, saying in today’s Alleluia Verse, “Abide in my choice of thee.”

Saint Agnes understood that she was chosen. She sings, “My Lord Jesus Christ hath espoused me with His ring, and hath set on my head a crown as the crown of the bride.” The ring and the crown are the traditional symbols of the virgin consecrated to Christ. They represent Our Lord’s election of a particular soul, the choice of His love. The secret of consecrated virginity is one’s assent to the choice made by Jesus, who says, “You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you” (Jn 15:16). The consecrated virgin elects to abide forever in the Divine Bridegroom’s election of her.

Stability

The notion of abiding is akin to dwelling, to stability, and to permanence. Agnes, while yet a child, found her home, her stability, her unshakable permanence in Christ’s choice of her. The liturgy of virgins applies to them the word of the psalm: “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved” (Ps 45:6). Agnes, abiding in Christ’s choice of her, became the abode of charity — agápe, sacrificial love — and charity abiding in her drove out fear.

Purchasing the Treasure

Look for the link between the Alleluia Verse and the Gospel. Consider the costliness of the treasure in the field (Mt 13:44) and the pearl of great price purchased by nothing less than all that one has (Mt 13:45). Stability in Christ’s choice of us, and freedom from fear, are not bought cheaply. Both are costly. Both demand a total investment, an investment deemed foolish by the worldly-wise: all that one has.

The Spendthrift Virgin

Agnes, a little child, took a foolish risk. She gave all that she had. “The crowds,” says Saint Ambrose, “marvelled at her spendthrift attitude to life, discarding it untasted, but as if she had lived it to the full.” Unlike the daughter of Jephthah who asked of her father two months to wander on the mountains and bewail her virginity (cf. Jg 11:37), Agnes went with willing and joyful steps to the place of her execution.

Toward the Banquet of Love Crucified

Agnes, pure lamb of the Shepherd-Christ, child-bride of the Lamb without stain, obtain for us who, at least, share thy weakness, a like share in the wisdom of thy folly. Lead us to the Banquet prepared by charity upon the altar, to the Banquet of Love Crucified, that we, like thee, may abide in Love’s choice of us.

Saint Agnes, Virgin & Martyr

Saint Agnes, Virgin & Martyr
Memorial
January 21st

Saint Agnes
Ambrogio Borgognone - 1495 - Detached Fresco
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

History
Agnes, the daughter of a noble Roman family who had become a Christian, was martyred at the age of twelve or thirteen during a persecution of Christians when she openly declared her belief. Her name is in the Roman Canon, and in the earliest Church calendar (354 AD), her feast was assigned to January 21, on which all accounts of her death agree. Agnes was martyred in 304, in the persecution of Diocletian, or possibly earlier, in a third century persecution. According to very early accounts, her enraged persecuters attempted to burn Agnes, and when this failed, they decapitated her.
Testimony to her courageous witness was given in early accounts. An account of her martyrdom was written by Saint Ambrose (340-387) in "De Virginibus", and Pope Damasus (ca. 304-384) extolled the heroism and virtue of the young girl, reportedly telling in a poem how she bravely faced fire, concerned only that her stripped body be covered by her long hair. The Pope also wrote an inscription to her on a marble slab, which can still be seen at the foot of the stairs leading to the sepulchre in the church built over her grave during the reign of Constantine (ca 275-337). According to the description of her martyrdom by Prudentius (348-413), as part of the persecution "the judge threatened to give over her virginity to a house of prostitution, and even executed this threat; but when a young man turned a lascivious look upon the virgin, he fell to the ground stricken with blindness...".
The church built over her tomb in the 4th Century, Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura ("Saint Agnes outside the walls), stands today -- on the Via Nomentana -- much the same as it was after it was remodeled by Pope Honorius (625-638). A mosaic in the apse of the church shows the young saint as a Byzantine empress, amid flames with a sword at her feet.
Another perhaps more famous church, Sant'Agnese in Agone, faces the Piazza Navona in Rome. Originally a 9th century oratory built over the the site of her martyrdom, a brothel in the arcades of the Circus of Domitian, also known as the Circus Agonalis, it was consecrated as a church by Pope Calixtus II on January 28, 1123. The present church was extensively remodeled in the 17th century by Rainaldi, according to plans by Borromini, and was influential in Baroque architecture. The Roman ruins of the brothel where Agnes was martyred are accessible from inside the church.
Since the early middle-ages, Saint Agnes is usually depicted holding a lamb (agnus - a pun on her name) as a symbol of her purity. At least since the 9th Century, each year on the Feast of Saint Agnes, two lambs are solemnly blessed at the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura. From the wool of these lambs are made the pallium (a strip of white wool with black crosses woven into the fabric) given by the Pope to an archbishop as a sign of office.

Propers for the Feast of Saint Agnes

Collect:
Almighty, eternal God,
You choose what the world considers weak
to put the worldly power to shame.
May we who celebrate the birth of Saint Agnes into eternal joy
be loyal to the faith she professed.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. +Amen.
First Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord."
Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:44-46
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

From today's Liturgy of the Hours:

Reading	From a treatise On Virgins by Saint Ambrose, bishop

Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr's crown

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness.

There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.

A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valour despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself. Executioner, why do you delay? If eyes that I do not want can desire this body, then let it perish.” She stood still, she prayed, she offered her neck.

You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity, and gained a martyr’s crown.

Responsory

Let us keep the feast of blessed Agnes, and recall the kind of suffering she endured: in the full flower of her youth she died, and found life.

She chose to love the Author of life alone; in the full flower of her youth she died, and found life.

Let us pray.

Almighty, ever-living God, you choose what is weak in the world to shame what is strong.

Grant that, as we celebrate the martyrdom of Saint Agnes, we may follow her example of steadfastness in faith.

[We make our prayer] through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.

Amen.