Agnes of Rome

Infobox Saint
name=Saint Agnes
birth_date=c. 291
death_date=c. 304
feast_day=January 21; before Pope John XXIII revised the calendar, there was a second feast on January 28
venerated_in=Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Anglican Communion, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America


imagesize=200px
caption="Saint Agnes"
birth_place=
death_place=
titles=was a virgin and was martered for that
beatified_date=
beatified_place=
beatified_by=
canonized_date=Pre-Congregation
canonized_place=
canonized_by=
attributes=a lamb
patronage=Betrothed couples; chastity; Children of Mary; Colegio Capranica of Rome; crops; gardeners; Girl Scouts; girls; rape victims; virgins; the diocese of Rockville Centre, New York
major_shrine=Church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura and the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, both in Rome
suppressed_date=
issues=
prayer=
prayer_attrib=

Saint Agnes (291–304; feast day: January 21) is a Virgin Martyr saint of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches. She is also acknowledged in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion as well as in Eastern Orthodoxy. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. She is the Patron Saint of chastity, gardeners, girls, engaged couples, rape victims and virgins.

She is also known as Saint Agnes of Rome and Saint Ines (or Santa Ynez). Her feast day is January 21. A second feast on January 28, which commemorated her birthday, was suppressed as one of the second feasts of a single saint that Pope John XXIII removed in 1960, before the Second Vatican Council. [General Roman Calendar of 1962] Hundreds of churches are named in honour of Saint Agnes, including two major well-known churches and one Anglican Cathedral in Kyoto, Japan. She is depicted in art with a lamb as her name resembles the Latin word "agnus", which means "lamb" The name "Agnes" is actually derived from the feminine Greek adjective "hagnē" (ἁγνή) meaning "chaste, pure, sacred". Hrosvit of Gandersheim wrote a play about Saint Agnes in the 10th century.

Biography

According to tradition, Saint Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility born c. 291 and raised in a Christian family. She suffered martyrdom at the age of thirteen during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, on January 21, 304.

The Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, and on Agnes' refusal he condemned her to death. As Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel. As she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat. It is also said that the blood of Agnes poured to the stadium floor where other Christians soaked up the blood with cloths.

A few days after Agnes' death, a girl named Emerentiana was found praying by her tomb; she claimed to be the daughter of Agnes' wet nurse, and was stoned to death after refusing to leave the place and reprimanding the pagans for killing her foster sister. Emerentiana was also later canonized.Agnes' bones are conserved in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed Agnes' tomb. Her skull is preserved in a side chapel in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in Rome's Piazza Navona. saint agnes is also a virgin.

In popular culture

An interesting custom is observed on her feast day. Two lambs are brought from the Trappist abbey of Tre Fontane in Rome to the Pope to be blessed. On Holy Thursday they are shorn, and from the wool is woven the Pallium which the pope gives to a newly consecrated metropolitan Archbishop as a sign of his jurisdiction and his union with the pope.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls; folk custom called for them to practice rituals on Saint Agnes' Eve (20–21 January) with a view to discovering their future husbands. This superstition has been immortalised in John Keats' poem, "The Eve of Saint Agnes."

She is represented in art as a young blond girl in robes, holding a palm branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms.

In the historical novel "Fabiola or, the Church of the Catacombs", written by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman in 1854, Agnes is the soft-spoken teenage cousin and confidant of the protagonist, the beautiful noblewoman Fabiola.

She is sometimes misconstrued to be the St Agnes referred to in the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas;" as the peasant who Wenceslas sees, lives, "Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes' fountain." The Saint being referred to is actually Agnes of Bohemia.

ee also

* Sant'Agnese fuori le mura
* Sant'Agnese in Agone

References

* Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. "The Penguin Dictionary of Saints," 3rd edition, New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.
* Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua, "Novena: The Power of Prayer" (Penguin Studio, 1999)
* Michele Rooney, "Literary Lives of the Saints"
* Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, "Praying with the Saints: Making Their Prayers Your Own," Loyola Press, 2001

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01214a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia: "St Agnes of Rome"]
* [http://ascensionandsaintagnes.org Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes, Washington, D.C.]
* [http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Agnes.htm St. Agnes of Rome]