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Saint of the Week |
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St. Agnes
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. Saint Agnes is admired everywhere around the
world.
She is also
known as Saint Agnes of Rome and Saint Ines (or Santa
Ynez). Her feast day is
January 21.
Hundreds of churches are named in honor 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". 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. |
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The Perfect
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 into the stadium floor where other Christians soaked up
the blood with cloths.
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 |
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The Perfect
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 into the stadium floor where other Christians soaked up
the blood with cloths.
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 |
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