Agnes 21 January
Martyr at Rome, c. 304 — Commemoration
January
Today we honour St. Agnes, who was martyred at Rome around the year 304 and is said to have been only twelve years
old when she suffered for her confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. The traditional accounts of her martyrdom agree that
she was arrested and brought before a pagan judge, and when he tried to coax her into renouncing the Christian faith, she
answered him with an assurance that was far above her years. Her boldness enfuriated the judge and he sentenced her to
death — some accounts say by being burned at the stake, others say by beheading. What truly matters to the Church is not the
manner of her death, but the maturity of faith displayed in so young a child. Some eighty years after her death Ambrose of
Milan wrote: “Everyone marvelled that Agnes was so spendthrift with her life, which she had hardly tasted, but was
now giving up as though she had finished with it. All were astounded that she should come forward as a witness to God
when she was still too young to be her own mistress. So she succeeded in convincing others of her testimony about God,
though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. The onlookers believed that she had received from
God what could not come from humans; for what is beyond the power of nature must come from its Creator.”
From For All the Saints
