Saint Agnes

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Saint Agnes
Born	291
Died	304
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Anglican Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Major shrine	Rome
Feast	January 21
Attributes	lamb
Patronage	betrothed couples; chastity; Children of Mary; Colegio Capranica of Rome; crops; engaged couples; gardeners; Girl Scouts; girls; rape victims; virgins; the diocese of Rockville Centre, New York
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For other uses, see Saint Agnes (disambiguation).

Saint Agnes (291–304; feast day: January 21) is a virgin martyr and 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. Her feast day is January 21. She formerly had a second feast on January 28, which was suppressed in the reform of the Church's calendar following the Second Vatican Council. 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.

1 Biography
2 Saint Agnes in popular culture
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Biography

According to her legend, 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 Eastern 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. Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, so he ordered her to be raped beforehand; however, her virginity was, according to the legend, miraculously preserved. 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 struck off her head.

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 reprehending the pagans for killing her foster sister. Emerentiana was also canonized later.

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.

[edit] Saint Agnes 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 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 blonde young girl in robes, holding a palm branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms.

In the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas, the peasant lived "right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes' fountain".

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.