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Date Posted: 06:57:29 02/28/04 Sat
Author: ketch - 21 Jan 2004
Subject: St Agnes



January 21st - St Agnes Day.

Agnes was a young 4th century Roman girl who converted to Christianity. She was very beautiful and attracted the attention of Sempronius, a Roman prefect. He wanted to marry her, but she refused, pledging her virginity to Christ. Sempronius was angry and ordered her to be tortured. He stripped her clothes from her, but her hair miraculously grew long enough to cover her body, and Sempronius was struck blind for trying to look at her. She was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to be burned, but the fire did not burn her, nor was she harmed by any other tortures or threats to her virginity. She was eventually killed by a sword through the throat. Details of her legend vary, but her veneration began almost immediately; a basilica was built over her tomb on the Via Nomentana in Rome by the daughter of Emperor Constantine in A.D. 354.

In other versions of the legend she was thrown into prison and stripped of her clothes, but her hair grew and an angel brought her white robes to cover herself, as shown in the painting above.

St Agnes, the patron saint of sheep may be a version of the Ewe goddess Rachel.

Her remains are preserved at the Chapel Catacombs of St. Agnes Rome.

It is a tradition that on St Agnes Eve, a young girl can catch sight of her future husband by the correct divination. This is the subject of John Keats poem, "The Eve of St Agnes."

Verse 6.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey’d middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.


The Feast of St. Agnes is marked every year in Rome with a custom rich in symbolism and tradition. Two very young lambs from the sheepfold belonging to the Trappist fathers of the monastery of Tre Fontane near St. Paul's Basilica are crowned and placed in straw baskets, which have been carefully decorated with red and white flowers and streamers: red standing for Agnes' martyrdom, and white for her purity. They are then taken to the Basilica of St. Agnes Outside the Walls. There, at the end of the solemn feast day Mass, a procession composed of young girls in white dresses and veils, as well as carabinieri in red and blue uniforms and hats, who bear the lambs on their shoulders, proceeds down the center aisle. The lambs are ceremoniously incensed and blessed. They are then shown to the Pope at the Vatican and finally placed in the care of the Benedictine nuns of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, who rear them until Maundy Thursday, when they are sheared.

From the lambs' wool are woven approximately 12 pallia a year. The pallia are made by the Oblates of St. Frances of Rome. The pallium is an article of ecclesiastical apparel consisting of a narrow circular band of white wool embroidered with six small crosses and which has a weighted pendant in the front and the back. It slips over the head and hangs down in front and back in the shape of a "Y". It is worn during ceremonies by the Pope, metropolitan archbishops, and patriarchs. Until an archbishop receives a pallium, he may not exercise metropolitan jurisdiction, and if he should be transferred to a new archdiocese, he must ask for a new pallium. The archbishops are buried with their pallia. Each archbishop receives the pallium directly from the Pope as the special insignia signifying the dignity and jurisdiction of his position and his communion with the Holy See. On June 28, the Vigil of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the pallia are placed in St. Peter's Basilica.!

There they repose overnight on an altar in the confessional surrounding the crypt that contains the tomb of St. Peter, which signifies the twofold consciousness of the strength of the Prince of the Apostles and the virginal meekness of Agnes. The pallia are then kept, ready for future use, encased in a chest of precious metal in the confessional's niche of the pallia.

St. Agnes (304), Virgin, Martyr

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