St. Agnes

Their story

Agnes was a young girl of Rome, only about twelve or thirteen years old, when she died for Christ around the year 304, probably during the persecution of the emperor Diocletian. She came from a Christian family and had given her heart completely to Jesus. According to tradition, she was beautiful and several young men wanted to marry her, but she refused them all, saying that she already belonged to Christ. One of her rejected suitors reported her as a Christian. She was threatened, and the stories say she was taken to a house of prostitution to break her will, but God protected her. Through it all she stood firm. She was finally put to death by the sword. St. Ambrose and Pope St. Damasus both wrote in her praise, marveling that a girl so young could show such courage. Her name is among the saints listed in the First Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass. Agnes was buried along the Via Nomentana in Rome, where a basilica still stands over her tomb. Her name sounds like the Latin word for lamb, and she is often shown holding one. Each year on her feast, the pope blesses two lambs, and their wool is woven into the pallium, a band worn by archbishops as a sign of their unity with the pope and of the shepherd's care for his flock. St. Agnes is a patron of girls, young people and purity, and a friend to everyone who has been pressured or hurt.