Saint Agnes of Rome: Story, Patronage, Prayer and Feast

Saint Agnes is the young Roman virgin who died for Christ at the age of twelve or thirteen, at the beginning of the fourth century, and whose name the priest says every day in the Canon of the Mass. The Church keeps her feast on 21 January, a feast of the third class in red vestments in the calendar of 1962, and remembers her a second time on 28 January. Below is what the Fathers tell of her, how she died, what she is patron saint of, the prayers of her feast in Latin and English, and the old Roman custom of the lambs whose wool becomes the pallium of archbishops.

Who was Saint Agnes of Rome?

Agnes was a girl of Rome who had consecrated her virginity to Christ and who was put to death for the faith, most probably in the persecution of Diocletian, which began in 303; Butler dates her martyrdom "c. 304". She was buried beside the Via Nomentana, outside the walls of the city, in a cemetery that afterwards took her name.

Her martyrdom is among the best attested of the early Roman Church. Her name is entered under 21 January, with the place of her burial, in the Depositio martyrum, the Roman list of martyrs' anniversaries drawn up in the year 354. Before that date Constantina, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, had built a basilica in her honour over her tomb. Three writers of the fourth and early fifth centuries speak of her: St Ambrose, in his treatise On Virgins (De virginibus), written in 377; Pope St Damasus, in the verses he had carved for her tomb; and the poet Prudentius, in his hymns on the martyrs.

St Ambrose, who preached on her feast, tells us her age:

"She is said to have suffered martyrdom at twelve years of age." — St Ambrose, De virginibus, I, 2 (Haec duodecim annorum martyrium fecisse traditur)

St Augustine, for his part, speaks of her as a girl of thirteen, and Butler follows that figure. Either way, she was a child, and that is the whole point that Ambrose draws from her story: "Was there room for a wound in that small body?" he asks; she who had nothing in her to receive the sword had in her enough to conquer it.

The story of Saint Agnes

The story as told by Butler, following Prudentius and the later acts, runs as follows. Agnes was rich and beautiful, and young men of the first families of Rome sought her hand. To all of them she answered that she was already promised to a heavenly Spouse, who could not be seen by mortal eyes. Her rejected suitors denounced her as a Christian. The judge first tried promises, then threats; he had fires lit and instruments of torture set before her, and she looked on them without fear. Dragged before the idols, St Ambrose says, she could not be brought to move her hand except to make the sign of the cross.

The governor then threatened to send her to a house of shame. According to the story, the young men who went there were seized with awe and did not dare approach her, and the one who tried to lay hands on her was struck blind, and was healed by her prayer. She was finally condemned to death, and went to the place of execution, in the words of St Ambrose, "more joyfully than others go to their wedding".

Butler himself warns that this account must be read with care. The so-called "acts" of St Agnes, once attributed to St Ambrose, date from the fifth century at the earliest, and their more extraordinary miracles are, in his words, "a fiction of the biographer". What is certain is the core: a Roman child, consecrated to Christ, refused to deny Him and was killed for it, and was venerated at her tomb from the first moment the Church could honour her martyrs in peace. As Butler concludes, legends added by later writers do not prove that a martyr never existed; the case of St Agnes shows the opposite.

How did Saint Agnes die?

The oldest witnesses do not agree on the manner of her death. St Ambrose says that she "bent her neck" (cervicem inflexit), and Prudentius says plainly that her head was struck off at one blow; that is the common tradition, and the one followed by Butler. Pope Damasus, in his epitaph, speaks of flames, and the hymn Agnes beatae virginis, held to be a genuine work of St Ambrose, suggests that she was stabbed in the throat or breast, a common form of execution. Many critics have concluded that already in the second half of the fourth century the exact circumstances were no longer remembered. What no one has ever doubted is that she died a martyr, in Rome, and was buried on the Via Nomentana.

Butler also records that in 1903, when the treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum at the Lateran was opened, a reliquary was found containing the greater part of a skull that many archaeologists judge to be, in all probability, hers; a medical examination judged it to be that of a child of about thirteen.

The prayers of the feast of Saint Agnes (Missal of 1962)

The most authentic prayer to Saint Agnes is the prayer of the Church on her feast. The Collect of 21 January takes up the words of St Paul: God chooses the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and a child of twelve is the proof.

Collect, 21 January

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui infírma mundi éligis, ut fórtia quæque confúndas: concéde propítius; ut, qui beátæ Agnétis Vírginis et Mártyris tuæ sollémnia cólimus, ejus apud te patrocínia sentiámus. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

Almighty and everlasting God, who choosest the weak things of the world to confound the strong: mercifully grant that we who keep the solemnity of blessed Agnes, Thy Virgin and Martyr, may feel the help of her patronage before Thee. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Hóstias, Dómine, quas tibi offérimus, propítius súscipe: et, intercedénte beáta Agnéte Vírgine et Mártyre tua, víncula peccatórum nostrórum absólve. Per Dóminum nostrum.

Graciously receive, O Lord, the offerings which we make to Thee, and, by the intercession of blessed Agnes, Thy Virgin and Martyr, loose the bonds of our sins. Through our Lord.

On 28 January the Church commemorates her a second time, with another Collect:

Collect of the commemoration, 28 January

Deus, qui nos ánnua beátæ Agnétis Vírginis et Mártyris tuæ sollemnitáte lætíficas: da, quǽsumus; ut, quam venerámur officio, étiam piæ conversatiónis sequámur exémplo. Per Dóminum nostrum.

O God, who dost gladden us by the yearly solemnity of blessed Agnes, Thy Virgin and Martyr: grant, we beseech Thee, that as we honour her in this office, we may also follow the example of her holy life. Through our Lord.

Every day of the year, moreover, the priest names Agnes in the Canon of the Mass, in the prayer Nobis quoque peccatoribus, among the martyrs into whose fellowship we ask to be admitted: "with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and all Thy Saints". You can follow that prayer in its place in the order of the Tridentine Mass.

When is Saint Agnes' feast day?

The feast day of Saint Agnes is 21 January. In the calendar of 1962 it is a feast of the third class, with red vestments, the colour of martyrs; you will find it in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962.

On 28 January the calendar of 1962 keeps the feast of St Peter Nolasco, with a commemoration of St Agnes "for the second time" (secundo), with the Collect given above. This second feast is very old: Butler traces it to the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries, and it is perhaps the survival of a primitive octave, kept a week after the feast.

In the calendar promulgated in 1969, 21 January remained the memorial of St Agnes, but the second feast of 28 January was dropped, and that day was given to St Thomas Aquinas.

The lambs of Saint Agnes and the pallium

Her name, in Latin Agnes, recalls agnus, a lamb, and in art she is commonly shown with a lamb, together with the palm of martyrdom. A Roman custom has made the image a reality. Butler describes it: each year on her feast, in her church on the Via Nomentana, while the choir sings the antiphon Stans a dextris ejus agnus nive candidior ("On her right hand stood a lamb whiter than snow"), two white lambs are offered and blessed.

They are then cared for until they are shorn, and from their wool are woven the pallia, the bands of white wool that the Pope gives to metropolitan archbishops. On the eve of Saints Peter and Paul the new pallia are laid over the tomb of St Peter, and from there they are sent to the archbishops, as a sign of the authority they hold in union with the See of Peter.

What is Saint Agnes the patron saint of?

Butler puts it in one line: Saint Agnes "has always been looked upon in the Church as a special patroness of bodily purity". She is accordingly invoked as the patroness of chastity and purity; popular devotion also makes her the patroness of young girls; and, as a virgin who gave herself wholly to Christ, as a model for virgins consecrated to God.

She belongs to the great company of the virgin martyrs of the first centuries whom the Roman Canon names together, with Saint Agatha of Catania, St Lucy of Syracuse and St Cecilia: girls and young women in whom, as the Collect says, the weak things of the world confounded the strong. Her first great preacher, St Ambrose of Milan, made her the model of the virgins he formed in his own city. For the other saints of the traditional calendar, month by month, see our guide to the Catholic saints.

The other Saint Agnes

Several saints bear the same name, and the searches often mix them up. Saint Agnes of Rome is the martyr of 21 January described here. Saint Agnes of Assisi was the younger sister of St Clare and one of the first Poor Clares, in the thirteenth century. Saint Agnes of Montepulciano was an Italian Dominican prioress, who died in 1317 and was canonized in 1726. Saint Agnes of Bohemia, a Czech princess who became a Poor Clare at Prague in the thirteenth century, was canonized only in 1989, after the calendar of 1962. None of these three has a place in the universal calendar of 1962; the Agnes of the Roman Missal and of the Canon is the martyr of Rome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Saint Agnes?

Saint Agnes is a virgin martyr of Rome, put to death for her faith at twelve or thirteen years of age, probably around 304, and buried on the Via Nomentana. She is one of the most venerated martyrs of the Roman Church and is named in the Canon of the Mass.

How old was Saint Agnes when she died?

St Ambrose, writing in 377, says she suffered at twelve years of age; St Augustine speaks of thirteen, the age that Butler follows.

Where was Saint Agnes born?

In Rome, according to all the tradition; she is "Agnes of Rome". The ancient sources do not give her family or the date of her birth.

When was Saint Agnes canonized?

She was never canonized by a formal process, which did not yet exist. Like the other early martyrs, she was venerated as a saint from the day of her death, and her feast is already entered in the Roman list of 354.

What is Saint Agnes known for?

For her fidelity to Christ at an age when most children know little of the world, for refusing every suitor because she was promised to Christ, for her place in the Canon of the Mass, and for the lambs blessed on her feast, whose wool is woven into the pallium of archbishops.

Why is Saint Agnes shown with a lamb?

Because her name recalls the Latin agnus, a lamb, the image of innocence and of Christ the Lamb of God, to whom she gave herself. The lambs blessed on her feast at Rome carry the same meaning.

The Iter Fidei app carries the calendar of 1962 with every feast and commemoration, the Roman Missal with the prayers of each day and the Breviary, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 21 January (St Agnes, Virgin and Martyr) and 28 January (commemoration of St Agnes, secundo); Ordinary of the Mass, Canon. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 21 January (St Agnes, Virgin and Martyr). St Ambrose, De virginibus, Book I, chapter 2.