THE FEAST OF ST AGNES; THE BLESSING OF THE LAMBS - 21st JANUARY
THE FEAST OF ST AGNES THE BLESSING OF THE LAMBS 21 JANUARY St Agnes was a young girl from a wealthy Christian family, who was martyred in 304 AD, supposedly as a result of betrayal by a rebuffed suitor, who submitted her name to the authorities as a follower of Christianity. The Prefect Sempronius caused her to be dragged through the streets naked to a brothel. She was sentenced to death, bound to a stake, but the wood would not burn, whereupon the officer in charge beheaded her. When her blood poured out onto the floor, as was the custom, (still observed with relics), the Catholics soaked it up with cloths. She was buried beside the Via Nomentana in Rome. A few days’ later, her foster-sister, Emerentiana, was found praying by her tomb. She was stoned to death. She was venerated as a saint from at least the time of St Ambrose, who gave an account of her death in one of his homilies. Her bones are conserved beneath the high altar of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over th...