ST. AGNES OF ROME (JAN. 21ST)

St. Agnes by Matthias Grünewald, c. 1500, tempera icon on coniferous wood, Kunsammlungen der Veste Coburg, Coburg

Edited by Bp. Joseph

Today is the Feast of St. Agnes of Rome, revered in the West as a paragon of womanly virtue and purity since the 4th Century. According to the hagiography written by St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility, born in AD 291 and raised in an early Christian family. She suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian, on the 21st of January, AD 304.

St. Agnes was a beautiful young girl from a wealthy and well-connected family, and as such she had many suitors of high rank who desired to take her hand in marriage. Faithfully determined in her heart to heed the admonition of St. Paul not to be “unequally yoked”, she rejected all attempts to force her into marriage to an unbelieving man. One of the pagan young men, slighted by her resolute devotion to the Christian life, turned her in to the authorities in order to force her to recant her faith and accept his proposals.

The local Prefect, Sempronius, condemned St. Agnes’ purity by commanding that she be dragged naked through the streets to a brothel, where her virginity would to be trampled and her life destroyed. Tradition records that as St. Agnes prayed in court, her hair grew and covered her body, so that none could see her nakedness. It was also said that all of the men that attempted to touch her or harm her were immediately struck blind. The son of the Prefect was struck dead upon attempting to abuse her, but he revived after she prayed to God for him. After this, the Prefect released St. Agnes and told his men to stay away from her. 

After St. Agnes’ release, she was arrested yet again and tried by another Roman judge, despite Sempronius’ protestation and tales of supernatural death and blindness. This judge sentenced St. Agnes to death, and she was summarily led out and bound to a stake in a stadium to be burned alive. When everything was ready for the execution, the soldiers discovered that the bundles of wood would not burn, and when finally lit, the flames would not touch St. Agnes, but would split in two to both sides of her holy body. A frustrated captain then took his gladius and beheaded the saintly girl. St. Agnes’ bones were taken by the Christians secretly and buried beside the Via Nomentana in Rome.

The relic of the skull of Saint Agnes in Sant'Agnese in Agone, Rome

COLLECT

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who choose what is weak in the world to confound the strong, mercifully grant, that we, who celebrate the heavenly birthday of Thy Martyr Saint Agnes, may follow her constancy in the faith. Through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, Who livest and reignest with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.