Agnes (†304)

Biography

One of the funniest figures, one of the heroines most sung by poets and the Holy Fathers. His devotion has remained alive through the ages. The Church introduced his name into the canon of the Mass. She is the prototype of the faithful virgin consecrated to Christ, from her earliest age. Its very name, pure in Greek and lamb in Latin, is already an omen. The tender little lamb dyed her virginal candor with the blood of martyrdom at the beginning of the 4th century, in the persecution of Diocletian. Inés, a Roman patrician, a girl as pure as her name, was almost thirteen years old. "His devotion," says Saint Ambrose, "was beyond his age. His energy surpassed his nature." She refused the hand of the son of the Prefect of Rome, for which she was accused of being a Christian and tried. Already warmed by the love of Christ, she firmly resisted the seductions of the wicked to abandon the faith, and willingly offered her body to torture. "How many terrors, Saint Ambrose insists, did the executioner try to frighten her! How many flattery and promises to surrender her!" But she responded with firmness beyond her years: "It would be an insult for my husband to try to please another. I will give myself only to the one who first chose me!" The judge then announces a more terrible place for a virgin. "Do what you want, responds Inés, undaunted and confident. Christ does not forget his own. You will dye, if you want, the sword with my blood. But you will not stain my members with lust." The judges being spurned, she was taken to a public brothel, exposed to the criminal fire of lust. But his hair miraculously grows, spilling over the naked lily of his body, so that no human face would desecrate the temple of the Lord. To remember this fact, in that same place, in the current Piazza Navona, in Rome, the Church of Saint Agnes stands to this day. A famous relic of the Virgin of Christ is still venerated there. Inés still went through the torment of the fire. But the fire respected the virginal body. Then the executioner arrived armed with the sword. The little lamb joyfully received her, prayed briefly, bowed her head, and her martyrdom was consummated. Her virginal remains were buried on the Via Nomentana, in the so-called catacombs of Saint Agnes. Even today, on January 21 of each year, two little lambs are blessed in this place with whose wool the PALLIUM of the Pope and the Archbishops is woven. Saint Agnes continues to be an example of young Christian women today.