Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

Agnes was a Roman girl martyred at the age of about twelve or thirteen, probably in the persecution of Diocletian about 304 (some date it to 258). Ambrose of Milan and Pope Damasus wrote of her within a century of her death, and the poet Prudentius sang of her. According to the tradition, she refused marriage, saying she had already promised herself to Christ, and was put to death by the sword.

She was buried on the Via Nomentana, where Constantine’s daughter built a basilica over her tomb. Her name is in the Roman Canon of the Mass. Because her name recalls the Latin agnus, “lamb,” she is shown with a lamb, and on her feast two lambs are blessed whose wool is woven into the pallia of archbishops.