Suffering With Joy

Feast of St. Agnes, New Articles

January 21, 2010

Today is the feast of one of the most famous early Virgin-Martyrs, St. Agnes.  She is an icon of purity and courage and is often pictured with a lamb and a palm frond to symbolize her virginal youth in martyrdom.

Butler’s lives of the saints tells us that Agnes was only 12 years old when she was led to the altar of Minerva in Rome and ordered to offer sacrifice to the idol. She instead made the sign of the cross and refused.  The authorities bound her hand and foot, but the shackles slipped off her tiny wrists.  After being threatened by the judge with all kinds of torture and remaining invincible, Agnes was stripped and stood in the street, but she was undaunted. Even the crowd turned away in embarrassment and shame (would that be done today?) for the young girl, but a young man who dared to gaze upon her with lust was struck blind.  The governor’s son asked for her hand in marriage but she refused because she had consecrated herself to Christ alone.  After all of this she was beheaded.

On this feast each year the Pope blesses lambs less than a year old in the chapel of Urban VIII at the Vatican Apostolic Palace.  They are then sheared and the wool used to make palliums for bishops to be consecrated on June 29 in Rome. (HT CNA)

St. Agnes, St. Bartholomew and St. Cecelia with an unknown Dominican, 1485-1510, artist unknown, color on wood, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The painter of this panel was probably from Utrecht and arrived in Cologne between 1485 and 1510.  He is known as “The Master of the St. Bartholomew Altar.” St. Agnes with her symbols is on the left, St. Bartholomew with his knife and book of the Gospels in the center, and St. Cecelia with her organ and angel is on the right.  St. Cecelia is also a Virgin-Martyr whose feast is November 22.

The only Gothic church in Rome, a minor basilica called Santa Maria Sopra Minerva was built over the temple of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, where St. Agnes met the beginning of her martyrdom.  The original building was started in 1280 and finished in 1370.  It contains the tombs of St. Catherine of Sienna, Fra Angelico and two of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII.

ceiling, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

Let us pray to St. Agnes, the wise virgin who kept her lamp burning for Christ, that purity and chastity according to our respective states in life be restored in today’s culture.

Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us!

New Articles Posted at Helium

This week I have four (so far) new articles up at Helium.  If you are interested in them have a look and pass them on to others who might be interested with my thanks.  It takes hours to write informative and useful articles on the Catholic faith, and I hope these will be good tools for evangelization.

The Meaning of the Rosary in the Roman Catholic Church

Tips on Getting More from Reading the Bible

The Symbolism of Liturgical Colors in Catholic Worship

Does Praying a Novena Work?

Tags: Fra Angelico, helium, St. Agnes