of Saint Agnes
A fourth century Christian virgin and martyr, Saint
Agnes was only 12 or 13 years old when she was executed. Various accounts
claim that she was beheaded, burned to death or strangled.
According to a sixth century legend, Agnes was a beautiful
Roman girl. After rejecting many suitors, she was denounced as a Christian
and sent to a house of prostitution as her punishment.
When a young man ventured to touch her, he lost his sight,
but then regained it in answer to her prayers. Shortly thereafter she was
executed and buried on the Via Nomentana in a catacomb eventually named
A church was built over her tomb about 350. In art she is
often portrayed with a lamb, a symbol of innocence. On January 21, her
traditional feast day, two lambs are blessed at her church in Rome. Their
wool is then woven into palliums (bands of white wool), which the pope
confers on archbishops as a token of their jurisdiction.